What You Need to Know to Get Great Performance Evaluations!

Many companies have incorporated yearly employee evaluations into their standard business practices and that is agood thing.  However, many companies don’t adequately train managers, employees and HR staff how to effectively participate in the evaluation process and that is a bad thing, or it is an opportunity, depending on how you want to look at it.  I strongly believe it is an opportunity and I spend considerable time with my coaching clients helping them master their company’s yearly evaluation processes so that they can obtain the maximum benefits from the process… faster promotions and bigger raises.  This begs the question, “Shouldn’t I just seek to maximize my performance and then let my performance speak for itself?”  Well you can, but you probably won’t get promoted or get raises as fast as those who master the evaluation process.  What, “that’s not fair?”  You are right, but life is not fair, right?

I read Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner as soon as it was released four years ago and my biggest take away from this great book was the following principal which I apply to almost everything I do today.  The world is made up of “systems” by which companies, economies, etc. operate, and the “systems” are not efficient in that incentives are typically not properly aligned. In order to succeed, I believe that you must seek to understand the system you are working with to fully protect your interests, work the incentives to your advantage, and maximize your participation.  For example, real estate agents split (buyer/seller usually equally) 7% regardless of the price of the house.  The real estate agent representing you as a seller has no incentive to help you negotiate aggressively to get you even $5,000 more for your house than a buyer has offered.  This is because on a $200,000 house, the increase in price of $5000 only nets the agent $175 more than their 3.5% commission of $7,000 on $200,000.  She has more incentive to get whatever offer is on the table because a sure $7,000 is way better than a risky $7,175; However, for you getting $205,000 for your house instead of $200,000 it is a BIG deal!  Thus, when you sign a contract with a realtor, you need to redefine the incentive model to ensure the agent and you are working for the same outcome, to maximum the selling price.

Endorsements for Act As If It Were Impossible to FailI have applied a series of strategies that I have developed to overcome this principle of inefficient incentives in the employee evaluation process for hundreds of my direct reports and coaching clients over the years to help them achieve accelerated career growth, bigger raises and faster promotions.  Contact me if you are interested in having greater control over your destiny and want to accelerate your career growth.  My strategies are easy to incorporate and they really work as you can see from the  endorsements in the picture here from a recent advertisement in Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Magazine.

For more on this topic from some of my heroes, mentors, and thought leaders, check these out:

Best wishes and always Act As If It Were Impossible to Fail!

About the author

Joe Lavelle

Joe Lavelle is the Co-Founder of intrepidNow. Prior to that Joe was an accomplished healthcare IT executive and career coach with a record of successfully meeting the business and technology challenges of diverse organizations including health plans, health delivery networks, health care companies, and several Fortune 500 companies.

Joe is also the author of Act As If It Were Impossible To Fail, available on Amazon.

   

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