anticontent

It's annual review time of year again. Over the years my perspective has changed. Once it was the under-appreciated individual contributor. Now it's under-appreciating manager. But one thing has stayed the same: I loathe this time of year.

I don't want to whinge. And I can't, really. I can't think of an objectively good way to do this. How to fairly “evaluate” people's “performance” – two words there that I find problematic.

I can't help observe that it's a shame that this is a time of year that:

• makes people who do good work feel less good about their work than they should
• holds people to arbitrary standards
• makes you wonder if your manager is fighting your corner as hard (or as fairly) as other managers are
• puts a number against your performance, as if it could ever be as simple as that
• expects people to perform in a role or at a level other than the one they're paid to succeed at
• seems to favour people with more time at hand
• seems to favour people with certain personality traits

The process has made me rethink the value of blogging. (Or journalling, privately or in the open.) And particularly week notes. Keeping a record of what you've been working on strikes me as incredibly valuable come this time of year. Particularly when it's interesting or unusual things. Or in people team parlance, “going beyond goals”.

This might make it easier for people that don't spend their time strategising. Whether that's strategising their next appraisal, promotion or pay bump. a more even field of play for dipping into and grabbing the highlights they need to make a case for themselves.