If you hate giving performance reviews, you’re not alone. Most managers report that – second only to firing folks – giving reviews is the task most likely to make them lose sleep, skip breakfast and reach for the aspirin and antacid.

It’s not hard to understand why. Everyone wants to be liked. And you know taking people aside and telling them things they may not want to hear is not a great way to get them to like you.

But that’s exactly what traditional performance reviews stick you with doing. They make you set aside an anxiety-producing time and place, then sit down with the employee for a talk neither one of you wants to have. And more often than not, your organization asks you to do it with little training and even less support.

You’re RIGHT to worry

Get the review wrong and you can cause a whole bunch of problems – from destructive resentment to tearful resignations, costly lawsuits, even violence.

Getting reviews right, though, hasn’t been easy – at least until now.

Look at it this way – you know that no matter how good an employee is, there are bound to be some areas where they could improve. (Heck, talking about those areas and getting the employee excited about doing better is the whole POINT of the review.)

But you also know that nobody likes criticism. So unless you’re careful – and aware of the latest strategies – you risk crushing the employee’s enthusiasm, trashing team spirit and setting yourself up for endless problems in the future.

The implications are endless: high turnover, weak productivity, slumping morale, the risk of violating a whole alphabet soup of laws and regulations – not to mention the stress and psychological wear and tear evaluations put on the people who actually do them – namely you.

Giving up isn’t the answer

Poorly done performance reviews can cause so many problems some organizations have simply stopped doing them. That lets managers off the hook and makes organizations feel cutting edge – but it leaves them without a key tool for making decisions about training, layoffs, promotions, raises and a host of other important issues.

It’s like getting rid of your lawnmower because it’s sharp and could hurt you. Your toes are safe – but the grass can get mighty high.

Performance Evaluations so Simple and Effective
They’ll Actually Make You Smile

Performance evaluations aren’t outdated – but the way most organizations do them IS. They haven’t kept up with the latest research and thinking on this key management tool — with the result that their evaluation protocols are downright painful – not to mention clumsy and counterproductive.

As a manager myself (for 24 years!), a management coach and lecturer, AND the author of several best selling books on effective management, I’ve made it my business to track down all the best thinking on getting maximum benefit from every evaluation you do.

Take a look at some of what we’ll discuss:

• Why the dreaded “end of year” employee assessment is a truly awful idea – and how to make evaluations less stressful for both managers and employees no matter when you do them.
• How to stay on the right side of the law – including who absolutely needs to be involved in the evaluation before, during and AFTER it takes place.
• Why you need to throw out those pre-printed evaluation forms from the office store, and EXACTLY who you need to recruit to create better ones.
• Why management guru Peter Drucker called evaluations that focus on overall attributes like personality, potential and promise abusive – and the one way to make sure your evaluations address issues that are legitimate and productive.
• What to do when an employee disagrees with the scores you’ve given — and how including one simple step in your evaluation can improve fairness, lower resentment and open your eyes to workplace problems so you can deal with them before they reflect badly on you.
• How to shape your evaluation to match the employee’s personality type – including how to give a perfectionist a reality check and why you should never evaluate a passive-aggressive employee at the end of the day. 

Solving the Problems You Hate Most

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll also drill down and work on the problems that bother you most – whether you’re just starting to do Evals or have been at it for years. (Frankly, given how little help most organizations give managers and how poorly thought out most evaluation protocols are, experience probably isn’t all that much of a plus.)

Regardless of your time in the trenches, you still have problem employees you need to motivate, misunderstandings you need to correct and an organization that’s counting on you to turn even the least productive employees into top producers – preferably overnight.

Which brings us to the things you hate most about doing evaluations – the areas where you’re just not sure what to do and how to achieve the results you need to succeed (and impress the people who do YOUR evaluations).

That’s Not Fair!
Avoiding Mistakes That Can Poison the Evaluation

You’re a fair person… a decent person. Someone who wants to gather information with clear eyes, weigh issues honestly and give evaluations that are free of bias.

But good intentions aren’t enough. It’s also important to recognize that, as a normal human being, you probably have some tendencies and preconceptions that can trip you up no matter how experienced you are.

In this Master Class with Glenn, you’ll recognize – and overcome –the ten key barriers to truly fair evaluations, including:

• Stereotyping. Sure it’s easy to spot in its most obvious form, but there are subtle kinds of stereotyping you may not even recognize. (I’ll tell you a story about a person – me — who believed he never stereotyped, who put his foot in his mouth because of a preconceived notion about what a particular job entailed.)
• Central tendency bias. Could be you’re short on information. Could be a cop-out. Either way letting your reviews fall into this trap short-changes both your employees and your organization.
• Horn or Halo effect. Once you realize how powerful these can be you’ll be ready to evaluate your employee’s TOTAL performance in an evenhanded manner.
• Seven other fairness-killing mistakes you can easily avoid – once you know how to spot them.

The Moment of Truth: Telling Employees What They Need to Hear
(But Don’t Want to)

Which should you give employees first, the good news or the bad? It sounds like the beginning of a thousand bad jokes but it’s a serious and important question.

• Give criticism first and lots of employees will be so concerned they don’t even hear the praise you dole out.
• Give praise first and its benefits may evaporate as soon as they hear about areas where they need to improve.

In this Master Class with Glenn, you’ll learn how to find the right balance – so that ALL your important messages get through. 

Sign Here: Getting Employees to Buy Into the Evaluation

Lots of managers do strong, fair, well thought out evaluations – but then have difficulty getting their employees to buy in to the process. We’ll take a look at the best ways to actually get your employees involved and motivated. Plus, we’ll examine:

• Why getting your employee to sign the evaluation is crucial – and why you should keep those signed evaluations on file pretty much forever.
• How to get emotionally fragile (AKA basket case) employees to buy in instead of coming apart – including the one word you must avoid AT ALL COSTS, if you want to get them on board.
• How to harness the remarkable power of self-evaluation to turn the review into a true dialogue and, very possibly, uncover issues that may have been keeping your employee from realizing his or her true potential. 

Step by Step to Evaluations That WORK

There’s lots more, too – including a close look at what kind of evaluation form will work best for you and a thorough discussion of how to suit the evaluation’s style to the employee you’re talking to. But you get the idea. This Master Class with Glenn addresses (and SOLVES) all the tough problems you associate with giving evaluations.

So how do I cram all that into just 45 minutes? Experience counts – and I’ve coached thousands of managers over the years. I know what strategies have allowed them to breeze through giving evaluations, impress their bosses and increase their income, status and professional satisfaction. And those are exactly the strategies I’ll lay out for you – simply, clearly and with YOUR needs in mind. 

Imagine walking into a performance evaluation, sitting down and relaxing – knowing the evaluation is practically going to conduct itself and give you the kind of results you’ve always wanted (but rarely achieved). It CAN happen – once you know the techniques and strategies I’ll teach you.