Few people relish having their professional performances judged by others. Yet the dread can cut both ways; many managers view the process as a task fraught with the possibility of miscommunication.

The trick is to package a meaningful assessment in terms palatable enough to effect real change. The following guidelines should make the next performance review you conduct both easier to deliver and easier to hear.

1. Accomplishments. Start out on a positive note. Acknowledging an employee’s achievements makes him more receptive to recommendations for improvement.

Tying the accomplishments to specific challenges set forth previously provides tangible evidence of progress and creates a sense of fair play: “Sarah’s perseverance and spirit of innovation propelled her to look beyond the company’s traditional client base for new customers.”

2. Goals. Once you have established trust and goodwill, stake out realistic targets for the next evaluation phase. The language you use should balance specific objectives with larger, overarching goals.

Phrase hard targets in terms of a range of potential accomplishments—“Dinesh will increase sales between 15 percent and 20 percent”—rather than tying them to narrow benchmarks: “Dinesh will bring in $1.5 million worth of new business.” By writing flexibility into the expectations, you give the employee psychological breathing room and an incentive to outperform expectations.

The larger goals should emphasize behaviors that will help your employee meet his specific objectives: “Mario will continue his aggressive pursuit of opportunities in previously untapped sectors.”

3. Strategies: How do we get there from here? After you have identified both the goals and the general behaviors necessary to achieve them, the next step is to map out, with employee input, specific paths to success: “Lucinda will improve order-processing efficiency in her department by ensuring that all employees are trained in the new software by the end of 1Q.”

The idea here is to describe actions, resources and plans of action in terms as specific as possible.

4. Areas to improve. Now that you’ve delivered all the good news, it’s time to raise any problematic issues. Lay out your case in language that is straightforward and neutral; avoid any hint of anger or contempt. Here are four approaches to take:

§          Emphasize the positive. Don’t write: “Mike will not delay in responding to customer complaints.” Instead, write: “By assuming personal responsibility for generating same-day voice or e-mail responses to all customer queries, Mike will ensure that every client feels connected to every phase of every project.”

§          Couch your criticism in terms of the shared greater good. For instance, writing “Carla will commit, along with her counterparts in other product groups, to making cross-functional collaboration a priority” is sure to generate better results than writing “Carla will refrain from engaging in turf battles with her counterparts in other product groups.”

§          Enlist your employee as an ally in troubleshooting a vexing issue: “Koresh will help me identify the best solution to the problem of meeting outsourcer-driven production deadlines by preparing status updates every Monday morning.”

§          Offer the employee flexible options in resolving a shortcoming: “Marika will gain a firm mastery of database-marketing fundamentals by 2Q through the means of her choice: by asking HR to enroll her in an onsite training course or by arranging intensive mentoring by a senior colleague in the department.”

5. Consequences and incentives. Now it’s reasonable to outline what the future might hold.

If the purpose is to whip a largely negative job performance into shape, you should offer encouragement but state unequivocally the range of possible outcomes:

“It is my hope that Joe will take good advantage of the resources that have been proposed to him as a means of bringing his performance up to a satisfactory level. If, in six months, Joe is meeting a majority of the standards, he will be permitted to complete, on a probationary basis, the remainder of the work year. If, however, he has not done so, he will be terminated.”

If the intent of the evaluation is largely to heap praise on an exemplary employee, this is the place to focus on incentives and longer-range career development:

“Larry’s role in expanding our reach into new markets demonstrates his leadership potential and marketing acumen. If he continues to grow in these areas over the next year, I will nominate him for our firm’s high-potential leadership program.”

If the review consists of a mixed bag, end it with a brief, balanced summary:

“Overall, I am pleased by Nicole’s progress toward the goals we established last year at this time. Although she needs to increase her degree of follow-up on projects, she has demonstrated excellent creativity at the conceptual stages. She is a fine asset to the company and I look forward to seeing her continue to improve.”

Your goal in writing a review is to improve performance so that both the company and the employee benefit. Focusing on specific goals and desired results will make the experience more productive for everyone involved. 

* Beverly Ballaro is a freelance writer who has taught language, literature and writing courses at Yale, Cornell and Wheelock College.

Making performance reviews less stressful–for everyone

Few people relish having their professional performances judged by others. Yet the dread can cut both ways; many managers view the process as a task fraught with the possibility of miscommunication.

Beware of old technologies’ last gasps

When superior technologies emerge, old ones usually don’t simply fade away. To the contrary, their performance often leaps suddenly, thereby extending their lives and slowing the adoption of the new technologies.

Partner in building

Idle cranes in abandoned construction projects had become a potent symbol for the devastation caused by the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.

Winning: Don’t fear foreign investment

Q: What is your opinion about sovereign wealth funds taking ownership of US companies? The stakes being sold are substantial, like the government of Singapore’s 10-percent holding of UBS, and the management impact could be, too, like Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal pushing Chuck Prince out of his job at Citigroup. ---Dipak Thakur, Decatur, Illinois

Copy This

GO ahead, copy this article. But passing this as an original and earning from it, well, that’s not only plagiarism but, as lawyer Alex Ferdinand S. Fider points out, it’s actually stealing.

Download Uproar

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital-music sharing.

International man of peace

THERE isn’t a day when headlines aren’t filled with stories of conflict. Whether it’s in the most famous—or infamous—conflict site in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands are estimated to have died since 2003, or in Darfur or even a new democracy like East Timor, some bloodshed is bound to make the headlines.

Manage like an entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is a largely misunderstood—and thus underused—idea in business, says Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman. “It isn’t a set of character traits, and it’s not an economic function,” he says. Rather, it’s a way of managing that can add enormous value to organizations no matter their size, industry or age.

THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT

Good advice often comes in the form of deeds, not words. The best advice I ever got came not by listening, but by observing one of my colleagues—by watching his behavior, coming to understand his philosophy and then adapting it to my own style.

One great moment

In an island reputed to be the world’s best beach, it’s not easy to make a big splash.

That was the challenge faced by the men and women behind Boracay’s “newly reborn” resort, OneMGM. For its inaugural event, they brought in foreign crooner Matt Monro Jr. for a special performance—a tack common among major hotels in large cities like Manila, Cebu or Davao but not in this Aklan municipality.

Winning: Making missions matter

Q: Like most start-ups, we launched ourselves with a big mission that was going to change the game. Now, several years out, it appears our mission isn’t going to deliver to the extent we hoped. How do we come up with another? Gerald McLaughlin, Shanghai, China 

A: What an honest question. And an admirable one, too.

Beyond the numbers

Listening to SGV founder Washington Sycip can be likened to a class in business, politics, history, education, values and meritocracy, among others.

Pakistan’s Continuing Tragedy

PERHAPS this was a situation again of two people and one coffin, as one theory goes: Pakistan’s current US-backed dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, did not want to share the space with Benazir Bhutto, and so the latter had to go.

Bhutto’s death shines light on husband’s money dealings

LONDON—During the stormy years Benazir Bhutto ruled Pakistan, her husband was a top power broker and a prime target of corruption allegations that toppled her.

Want more from Lean Six Sigma?

To help fund innovation and roll out a promising new product line, a multibillion-dollar consumer products manufacturer we’ll call ConsumerCo urgently needed to increase capacity at two of its plants and reduce overall operating costs.

Northwestern Mutual’s Ed Zore on staying relevant to customers

It is relevance, not just innovation, that matters to customers, says Ed Zore, president and CEO of Northwestern Mutual, the 150-year-old insurer that is consistently ranked by Fortune magazine as the most admired company in life and health insurance and is the US market share leader for total individual life insurance premiums.

Clear copy

James Henderson, the Asia-Pacific managing director for printer channel operations of Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., is fascinated with working with the company as it continues to develop products for today’s consumers.

Winning: What makes a lousy leader?

Q: What is lousy leadership?
Goran Milic, Zagreb, Croatia

A: Now, why would you ask that question? Certainly not because you want to be a lousy leader yourself!

It can only be because you’re checking your instincts about someone you know. Maybe even the person who signs your paycheck.

Maintaining thresholds of performance

For some readers, the new rules of market leadership will be intuitively appealing. To others, they will raise stubborn questions. How can a company offer the best value proposition in the market (read: give its products and services away), and still make more money?

Notes to a tragedy

In the next few weeks we shall witness a torrent of sorrow and regret, as any such horrific loss of life should provoke. But, clearly, the story is unfinished, despite the seeming finality of Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

Authorities pressed doctors to stay mum on Bhutto’s death

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan—Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors.

Lending a hand

At the fringe of Makati’s bustling business center stands the head office of Makati Finance Corp. (MFC), a consumer-finance company that has established a stronghold in the industry for over 40 years.

Winning: A year of pushing hot buttons

About this time last year, we received an e-mail from a reader who asked if we believed America’s competitive success was linked to its relative lack of corruption.

INVESTOR BRIEFING

WATER is still flooding the basement of a shopping mall in the Philippines’ central business district after an explosion in October. At least nine died and more than a dozen businesses were kicked out from their glass-walled shops now wrapped with white-painted boards.

REDUCING POWER COSTS

The government of the Philippines plans to use state funds to address high power rates. Acknowledging it must do something about the rising cost of energy, the government announced that it intends to use more of the state’s gas royalties, National Power Corp. (Napocor) profits and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) fees to reduce electricity charges.

RISING GDP

The Philippines’ robust economy continues to perform well, achieving a GDP growth of 6.6 percent in the third quarter of this year.

Brotherly love

Brother International Philippines believes competition makes business more exciting. And the company thinks there is still a space for one more player in the document-printing market in the country that can provide an alternative.

Winning: Breaking Through Bureaucracy

Q: How do you break through the bureaucracy that damages so many organizations? James Moss-Solomon, Bridgetown, Barbados                 

A: Damages? How about deadens?

PLAYING ALONG

TO many children, Elmo, the much-loved furry red monster from Sesame Street, is more than just a plaything. To children ages two to five years old, Elmo is a trusty playmate—a friend to lug around the playground; one who won’t complain when hugged, pinched or smothered with kisses. For parents, Elmo even makes a good teacher.

TOY TEST 2007

The holidays are just about here, and the toys are piling up in stores, waiting for you to make your list. Of course, even if your wish does come true, you have to hope for the best: That really great-sounding toy might be a piece of junk.

CONSUMER CONFIDENTIAL

This should be the time of year when Santa’s wholesale elves in the toy district in downtown Los Angeles are busy delivering cheap, Chinese-made playthings to consumers and retailers.

Lumads in the new world

It was a minifair compared with the grand bacchanalia that is the Kadayawan Festival that Davao City has come to be known for.

Mission: global customs service

Del Castillo: From what I have gathered, Commissioner Morales is a self-made man in this career; he supported himself through college while working at the Bureau of Customs as a utility man.

No run of the mill success

Management is a practical discipline measured by financial returns and competitive position. But it is easy to forget that success in business ultimately comes from a commitment to personal values. When you look at Metrobank today, the tendency is to focus on its results, its size and its position. It is easy to overlook the elements that shaped its character.

Winning: Private equity’s very public problems

Q: Why are so many private-equity deals blowing up? Alan Engle, Great Neck, New York                 

A: The short answer is that the world has changed (read: the US sub-prime-mortgage mess has erupted). A lot of companies that were once hell-bent on acquiring hot new properties suddenly want out of deals that are starting to look too cold for comfort.

A Queen Stumbles

HIS eyes stared upward as he started with that familiar tuneful articulation about Iloilo at the peak of its grandeur. A few minutes later, his voice turned wobbly as he recounted how the province slipped from prominence. “So we lost our label being the country’s Queen City of the South.”

Teacher’s pet

WHY am I passionate about Vietnam? Because Vietnam has proven to the world that it is possible to simultaneously achieve robust and sustained economic growth with equitable income distribution. 

Putting imagination to work

SOON after World War II, from 1941 to 1945, the Philippines experienced a decade of unprecedented growth in the 1950s, with Manila—despite being the most devastated city during the climactic battle era—slowly regaining its vigor to once again become a center of industrial progress.

Five steps to building your personal leadership brand

You have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one?

A leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact it could.

What Health Consumers Want

Consumers of health care constitute a market that is as diverse as a market can be, yet the idea that companies might profit by segmenting customers to address their varied needs seems almost foreign to the health industry, despite the billions of dollars at stake.

How Bayan got its voice back

Bayan Telecommunications’ Tunde Fafunwa is very enthusiastic nowadays because the Lopez-controlled company has risen from its low point. And the source of his excitement is largely due to the recent introduction of Span, Bayan’s wireless landline service.

Winning: Managing shooting stars

Q: How far should I go to keep a star performer who has an offer to work at a competitor? Hymie Betesh, New York                 

A: Not as far as you’re probably considering, we imagine, given the panic that strikes most managers when a star threatens to shoot out the door.

Lighting the way

Dutch electronics and lighting giant Philips Electronics has been continuously doing business in the Philippines for the past 50 years.

In the name of the people

THIS time around, former Navy officer and neophyte Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV left no room for ambiguity.

In his 2003 debut at the Oakwood mutiny, then-Lt. Senior Grade Trillanes hemmed and hawed about his intentions.

Water Is Life

FOR corporate do-gooders, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is just the start. The new trend among large and well-established corporate organizations is to integrate sustainable-development programs—not just mere philanthropic activities—to their core businesses.

Give your team a challenge they can’t resist

It’s not easy pulling a group of diverse individuals together to work as a team. Barriers abound in the form of fierce territoriality, incentive systems that reward individual rather than collective achievement, and mistrust spawned by an acquisition, merger or major internal restructuring.

Improve your return on returns

Competitive pressures have forced many retailers and manufacturers to liberalize their returns policies in recent years and gladly accept for a refund just about anything customers regret having bought.

A staged solution to the catch-22

Companies launching two-sided platforms—businesses that connect two groups of users, as credit-card companies do—have often subsidized one group to get it to use the platform. This is a risky approach, because it requires a big upfront investment.

Ship shape

For an employee, a company-sponsored overseas trip could mean mostly fun, with, of course, some work in between. For a chief executive of a company, however, it would be the opposite, and most of the time the fun part takes place in between working or not at all.

Winning: Stay the course…especially if it’s a new one

Q: Sometimes companies need to change even when there is not a crisis forcing the issue. In such cases, how do you keep your people excited about a change initiative after its newness has worn off? Trevor Smith, Singapore

A: You have to stay excited yourself. And not just excited, but obsessed.

If I had a hammer

HASHIM squinted before pulling the trigger. Although the 19-year-old is used to holding Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles in the deep jungles of Mindanao three years back, this particularly weapon was new to him.

Big failure, little dreams

CASTELLANA, Negros Occidental—It is already past noon and yet Edelyn Pineda is still lazing around Sitio Odiong here along with her little friends.

The Morning Meeting: Best-practice communication for executive teams

Does your company’s executive team struggle with chronic communication problems and a lack of shared accountability? Many times when my colleagues and I are called in to help out an organization, we find that these two core issues underlie their problems.

Lessons from the leaders of retail loss prevention

Preventing theft, damage and errors such as food spoilage has long been an unyielding and poorly understood problem for retailers. But a few companies stand out in their ability to limit losses, and if every retailer were as successful as they are, the sector could save billions of dollars annually—as much as $27 billion in the United States alone.

The Jock Correlation in business

WITH many sports headlines today trumpeting organizational and solvency issues with various teams and sports associations across the world, there is often an almost missionary zeal to bring to sports a more “business approach.”

Winning: Developing a successful succession plan

Q: What companies would you hold up as examples of succession planning done right? Robert Handfield, Raleigh, North Carolina 

A: It’s sad to say, but your question would be a heck of a lot easier to answer if you had asked for examples of succession planning done wrong. That trend is gaining such ground these days it’s alarming.