Rethinking Performance Evaluations

I'm not the first to note that traditional performance evaluations often feel like being handed a map with only the destination marked, no context about terrain, and no indication that the journey itself matters more than where you end up.

The form that I inherited in my current organization was the same one used 10 years earlier from my previous organization, full of descriptions of behaviors related to isolated skills that in no way were mapped onto my actual daily work or long range goals, with a grid from "unacceptable" to "exceeds expectations." We all knew that it was used primarily as a tool for possible future punitive action or competitive compensation allocations.

It's time to recalibrate.

The Current Route: Headed Off Wrong

For decades, organizations have relied on performance evaluation systems that assume a fairly linear path: hire, evaluate annually, apply progressive discipline if needed, and adjust compensation accordingly. The logic seemed sound. But like many maps drawn decades ago, this one hasn't aged well.

The problem with progressive discipline: It treats underperformance like a traffic violation—three strikes and you're out. But here's what we know that the old maps didn't account for: performance isn't a solitary journey. It's entangled with team dynamics, external market forces, organizational decisions made in rooms where individual contributors weren't present, and managers who may not fully understand the terrain themselves. Punishing someone progressively for something partially outside their control isn't accountability—it's navigation malpractice.

The Millennial Tweak: Continuous Feedback Route

Millennials didn't invent the need for constant feedback—they simply made organizations acknowledge it. And they were right to.

Traditional annual reviews are like checking your GPS once a year. You might have taken several wrong turns by then. The destination hasn't moved, but you've wasted time, fuel, and momentum.

Yet constant feedback shouldn't be a burden or a surveillance system. Think of it as real-time route optimization:

• Weekly check-ins that ask: "Are you headed in the right direction? Do you need to adjust course?"
• Transparent communication about organizational changes that might affect someone's route
• Immediate course corrections when someone is heading off a cliff, not annual documentation of how far they fell

The best navigation systems don't wait for you to crash. They alert you in real-time. They offer alternatives. They acknowledge when conditions have changed. That's what millennials—and frankly, all humans—actually need.

The Compensation Trap: Measuring up to a Map You Didn't Draw

Here's where performance evaluations become genuinely cruel: linking compensation to performance metrics while ignoring the landscape.

Consider this scenario:

Person A works in a stable department with clear processes, supportive leadership, and adequate resources. Their performance metrics exceed targets.

Person B works in a department undergoing restructuring, reporting to a manager undergoing their own crisis, on a team where half the people are new and one team member isn't pulling their weight. Their performance metrics miss targets by 15%.

Now, under traditional systems, Person A gets a raise and Person B gets a warning or a smaller increase.

The evaluation claimed to measure individual performance. What it actually measured was where they happened to be standing on the map—not whether they were skilled navigators.

The uncomfortable truth: Performance is often a composite of:

• Individual effort and capability (maybe 40% of the equation)
• Team dynamics and peer contribution (20%)
• Manager competence and support (15%)
• Organizational decisions and resource allocation (15%)
• Market conditions and external factors (10%)

When we tie compensation to the full result while only controlling for one component, we're not rewarding performance. We're rewarding location.

A Better Map: Personal Goals and Personalized Pathways

What if we reimagined performance evaluations entirely?

Instead of asking, "Did you hit your target?" ask:

1. "What destination did you want to reach?" Help each person articulate their personal professional goals—not the organization's goals filtered down, but their goals. Where do they want to be in their career? What capabilities do they want to develop? What impact do they want to have?
2. "How were you planning to get there?" Have them articulate the route. This isn't a vague aspiration; it's a strategy. Which skills need development? Which projects would build those skills? Which relationships matter? This is where their navigation plan comes together.
3. "What do you need from us?" And here's the radical part—ask what resources, support, visibility, or removal of obstacles would help them succeed. Not what you think they need. What they think they need.

This framework does several things simultaneously:

• Shifts ownership from the organization to the individual (where it belongs)
• Makes implicit expectations explicit (you can't navigate without knowing the destination)
• Focuses evaluation on personal growth, not arbitrary metrics
• Separates compensation conversations from capability conversations (you can discuss someone's growth trajectory without immediately connecting it to their paycheck)
• Acknowledges that different people want different things (not everyone wants to be a manager; not everyone wants to stay in the same role)

Decoupling Compensation from the Performance Maze

Here's the hard truth organizations need to accept: You cannot fairly tie individual compensation to performance metrics that include team and external variables. This is true even for sales, and particularly for fundraising: a standard known in the non-profit industry that prevents solicitor's personal gain from shading the client or donor journey and satisfaction.

Instead, consider:

• Base compensation tied to role, experience, and market rates (geography, industry, level)
• Performance bonuses tied to controllable factors only—things the individual can reasonably influence, or even better, team performance.
• Equity/profit-sharing tied to organizational performance (the parts where everyone's efforts aggregate)
• Developmental support and growth opportunities as a form of non-monetary compensation

When someone hits their personal goals—the ones they set in collaboration with you—that's worth rewarding. Not because they produced output that matched an arbitrary target, but because they navigated their own professional journey successfully. There are many ways to do this that are low-cost or cost-neutral: changes of title, or projects, of workspaces, or in professional development that will benefit the entire organization in the end.

Just being seen, understood, and thanked works wonders for a lot of folks.

The Navigator's Challenge: Asking Instead of Telling

The most overlooked part of performance evaluation redesign is this: Stop telling people what they need. Start asking.

"What do you need to achieve your goals?"

The answer might be:

• A specific project
• Time to learn a new skill
• A mentor in a particular area
• Protected time for deep work
• Visibility with senior leadership
• A different team composition
• Clear authority over certain decisions
• A sabbatical or reduced scope for a period
• Something you never would have guessed

When you ask and actually listen, something remarkable happens. Engagement increases. Retention improves. People feel like partners in their own development, not passengers on a bus someone else is driving.

The Route Forward

Performance evaluations don't have to be cruel, annual, tied to compensation, or delivered through a system of progressive punishment. They can be:

• Continuous (like real-time navigation updates)
• Personalized (different people need different routes)
• Growth-focused (aimed at development, not documentation)
• Separated from immediate compensation (preserve trust)
• Built on conversation, not judgment (ask what people need)

The old maps told organizations to evaluate people like machines—input and output, linear progression, predictable outcomes. But people aren't machines. We're navigators in complex terrain, often charting courses we've never traveled before, sometimes in conditions we didn't create, with tools that weren't quite what we asked for.

The best organizations aren't the ones with the most sophisticated performance evaluation systems. They're the ones where managers regularly ask their people:

"Where are you trying to go?"

"How can I help you get there?"

"What do you need from me?"

And then—the hardest part—they actually listen.

That's a map worth following.

What's your experience with performance evaluations? Have you ever seen a system that actually felt fair and developmental?

The route to better workplace culture starts with a conversation. Where will yours lead?