The Metiss Group's Blog

With the first quarter of the calendar year having just finished, now is a good time for performance reviews.  Students receive performance grades each semester which typically lasts three months.  Public companies are required to report their performance each quarter.  Why do most leaders review performance of direct reports annually or semi-annually?  This is particularly troublesome when studies have shown the typical leader writing a review only recalls performance over the previous six weeks.

The two biggest reasons given for avoiding quarterly reviews are: 1) leaders don’t have enough time to write the review, and 2) their performance review form is too difficult to use.  We recommend simple quarterly reviews for at least three of the four quarters in which the leader has the direct report fill out a one page sheet of paper (5×7 cards work too) answering these four questions:

1.  What did you accomplish last quarter?
2.  What are you going to accomplish next quarter?
3.  How did you demonstrate our core values?
4.  What are your personal development plans?

Benefits: the leader spends little to no time writing the review and is not encumbered by any form; the direct report receives a review of performance quarterly and direction for the next quarter to stay on track with the leader’s expectations.

Try simple quarterly reviews to empower your direct reports for success

This entry was posted on April 16, 2011 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Leadership, Performance Acceleration. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.