When My Boss Let Me Fail
I will never forget my first performance evaluation. My boss, Jack, reviewed my first year on the job, highlighting some of my early successes. He then proceeded with a litany of my shortcomings, failures and areas that needed improvement. Several of the examples he cited were over six months old. At the conclusion of the conversation, I said, “I really appreciate the feedback, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to have made me aware of these as you observed them so I could have fixed them by now?” I don’t remember Jack’s response, but I can tell you that he did not change his approach to performance management.