A "Shadow Belief" is an assumption we make without even knowing it's an assumption.

Thinking you can only hear peer feedback from your boss or during an annual formal review is a shadow belief.

You don't need your boss or some stupid process! Ask the people who work with who you respect and do it often.

The major issues with performance reviews almost always come down to poor execution. The whole "Performance Reviews Suck" mirrors the whole "Agile Sucks" in that in principal it can be good, but in practice, it rarely is. Most of it falls on how a manager handles a review, but part of it falls on how an employee receives feedback, as well.

So on to my counterpoints: At the one place and under the one manager, Lou, in my job history where performance reviews worked really well I managed to receive among the worst performance review I have ever received. The score, as it stood, was fine -- I was a top performer at the company and it was hard to argue with the results -- I scored "exceeds" in every category. The criticism, however, was rough -- it was honest, direct and after reading it, I couldn't disagree with any of it very well. I had a great manager who both understood where I excelled and recognized areas where I could grow. He started out the review with "Before you freak out . . . " and went on to explain that the scores and the comments are not going to feel like they're not in full agreement[0]. He explained that the yearly review[1] is about growth, and growth requires feedback, that he didn't need to tell me how well I was doing because we both knew how well I was doing and that his goal is to specifically find areas where I can improve and put a plan together on how he was going to help me get there[2]. A bit of my feedback involved written communication to business managers, "identifying what's important" and throwing the rest out. My comment history will shine the light on the fact that I'm long-winded -- I type fast like the rest of you and I read very fast, so neither receiving or sending a long message is a burden. He did several screen sharing sessions with me to hone my communications, he gave me several books (some from his personal collection) to help me to round out my engineering skills, encouraged me to look at languages and technologies that had different programming paradigms than I was used to. It resulted in me studying a lot of areas that had little to do with my job as a primarily Microsoft-centric developer, but all of it resulted in me becoming a much better developer.

In the right hands, a performance review can be very powerful. It provided a formal time slot to sit down and talk specifically about ways to improve at what I loved doing. A lot of folks would think, "Well, your manager should be doing that, anyway" -- sure -- and in a couple of decades of having a career in engineering, the only time this has happened was under a formal review with all of two of the 15 or so people that I have worked for. For whatever reason, people are unwilling to offer criticism like this outside of that setting, and most of them are unwilling to offer it within that setting for a high-performing employee. And why should they? The high-performers aren't the ones they have to spend time on! And honestly, I would have been more comfortable had he not shared these negative aspects of my performance with me -- they weren't a "big deal", they weren't affecting the great ratings -- leave well enough alone! But the fact that he did bring these things to my attention made me better at what I love doing. I didn't get higher ratings at the next review (though I received feedback about how well I handled the feedback from the last review), and I received far fewer negatives in the process.

Since having that manager, I have told every other manager I report to that "I'm comfortable with receiving criticism" and that I value that kind of feedback, a lot. It hasn't made a terribly large amount of difference in the kind of reviews I've received, unfortunately, but my hope is that by putting that out there, I disarm a manager who is afraid of losing a top-performer as a result of negative feedback.

I've never had to give a review (as a manager; I've done a ton of peer reviews), but the advice I'd offer is: (1) Everyone has something they want to do better and can do better -- call it out. Maybe they don't even realize it's a problem. I didn't! (2) Don't just point it out, commit to working with the employee on the area they received feedback on. (3) Disarm the employee, particularly if their score is high as they'll not expect to see negative feedback. Start with compliments and move into areas of improvement; be as self-deprecating as possible[3]. (4) Actually do the things you set out to do to help your employee. (5) Limit the happy stuff, don't sugar coat the bad stuff[4].

That last point might seem off, and it is -- this only works if you had a boss like the one I had -- he was a great communicator and regularly provided feedback on the positive side. So when he started off the review with "You know how valued you are and how well you do your job", it wasn't placating or dismissive -- I legitimately knew by the flexibility I was given and the constant feedback I received. He was a master at criticising the act rather than the individual, as well, which is something I'd love to be better at.

[0] The comments started off explaining all of the areas that I excel in, but were terse and similarly direct.

[1] This manager also did quarterly less-but-still-somewhat-formal reviews, as well, which I valued.

[2] This was a key point, to me. It was a recognition that part of his job was to make me better and that he wasn't sending me off with negative feedback and expecting me to figure it out -- he was generating work for himself, as well. Honestly, I felt pretty miserable about this particular review for about a month, but during that month, he followed up almost every day on one of the points we discussed and spent several hours providing advice and directly working with me to improve on the areas that he felt I needed help with. I realized that it would have been a lot easier for him to say "atta-boy" and be done with it.

[3] My boss explained that he had the same problem "focusing messages" -- he'd spent an hour with his manager at a prior job agonizing over words in sentences trying to reduce content to a bit over a few tweets without diluting the message. I don't know if that was entirely true (except that this boss was also, easily, the most ethical person I've ever reported to).

[4] As in, don't minimize the negatives, brush them off, or try to find ways that the negative is a positive -- it's placating and dishonest about the intent.

I will readily agree that most common systems unnecessarily bundle multiple high stake issues. For example, most people (me included from time to time) stop listening past "you get a raise of x%" in an annual review.

However, 1 wrong thing (i.e. unnecessary bundling") doesn't invalidate whole whole process.

For example, most performance processes involve goal-setting (I don't know about you, but I find that very very appealing), performance evaluation against goals, soft skill review (i.e. how much do you stress out your teammates?), and plan of action for the next year. Have I received career changing advices through performance review? You bet I have. For example, I pick software engineering because of distribution of my grades (performance review at K12 level!). For another example, don't make stupid & potentially misunderstood jokes.

Sure, continuous & informal feedbacks are important. However, so are formal processes, including feedback and evaluation. Have I improved? How the hell would I know if I don't have things noted down? Should I be promoted? How the hell would another person know if there is no papertrail of evidence of excellence? What am I good at? What role should I play in this team? How should I grow? All of these questions require careful contemplation over behaviors and performance in a long period (a year or at least a few months). Maybe all of you Bill Gates are so smart that you don't need them. But I am mere mortal, and I love feedback.

So, for the love of craftmanship, dedicate time and resources to performance review. It will only matter WHEN YOU MAKE IT MATTER. That's the thing. You can drive the best car the in the world badly if you hate driving. Similarly, if you think that you are so smart that no system can properly evaluate you, well, the system will fail. To be more precise, you fail the system.

When reviews are once or at most twice a year they don't provide guidance a manager should be providing full time. All they are a means for a company to protect themselves from recrimination.

That's not the case in all companies, but for many rings true.

I've read through most of the comments posted thus far, and I'm far from surprised with the varying sentiment. We run into this at Eager Labs, where we facilitate 360s, performance assessments, and more, for companies. Because we actually embed ourselves within the organizations, I get an opportunity to see how different company cultures trigger different reactions to the process of delivering feedback.

A few things we've observed from our work so far that might be interesting to those following this thread:

[1] For many employees, sitting down with their manager and having a conversation around performance is the thing they value the most. This often occurs because the manager doesn't regularly do this as a part of a 1:1 cadence. Having a formalized time where the company "mandates" this conversation can be a useful forcing function when some managers are less willing / apt to have these conversations on their own.

[2] Getting peers to provide actionable feedback is a real challenge. We've invested a lot of time in crafting our process (both in software, and in a workshop we run) to guide people towards providing less feedback along the lines of "Great job, keep it up", and towards S.B.I.A feedback, (Situation - Behavior - Impact - Action). Even if you have something positive to say to someone, give a concrete example of a situation where they exhibited a positive behavior, how that impacted you, and any actions you want them to take going forward. For example, "When you speak up in meetings and share your opinions, it helps me to feel more empowered to share my own thoughts. I'd love to see you speak up more frequently, if not for your own benefit, than for mine!"

[3] Giving regular feedback is great, but make sure you avoid giving 'drive by feedback'. Knowing the right moment to deliver praise or critiques is a skill, and a lot of peers / managers don't know when the right moment is to deliver feedback. For example, as an engineer, one of the most challenging times to personally receive critical feedback is right after a really hard push to deliver some massive new feature or product. The feedback may be totally valid, but knowing WHEN to provide that feedback can be the difference between it being motivating and just discouraging. So, while I totally agree that "feedback should be a regular part of any peer, manager, or mentee relationship", finding the appropriate times to deliver said feedback matters just as much as the feedback itself.

[4] There is no one size fits all solution for performance reviews or feedback. Whether it's what questions to ask, how to deliver the feedback, or what the cadence should be of delivering that feedback... Every team, department, and organization has unique wrinkles that make them special. We end up spending a lot of time customizing our assessments down at the team level for this very reason, because we find that what makes a sales organization tick is wildly different than an engineering department, and while there may be cultural overlap because of company values, they each have their own needs. This is why it can often be challenging for an HR / People Ops department to craft a process that works for the entire company, which may result in a lot of people having a sour experience.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to share their thoughts so far on this thread. It's been a real pleasure to read.

What? A performance review is never something I've dreaded. They're just a regular, mundane, thing that happens. They tell you 'good job' give you your raise, which is sometimes just cost of living, sometimes it's $3 to $5k, and then you go back to your desk and go back to work.

It just feels like it's a standard in place to make sure people get income bumps every years. I don't think it's as big a deal as the author is claiming.

Seriously, what performance reviews in 2018 don't involve a self appraisal? Pretty much everything he recommends has been part of the performance review process at my company for the last 8 years. And I'm not saying our process couldn't be improved, but this article offers no real insights of any kind.

Real World: X depends on your livelihood.

18 months I’m a team leader myself and they sent me on the course for doing reviews. And there they taught me the first thing you should always say is “if I took a poll...”

The whole system is toxic

Maybe that wouldn't work everywhere, but it's tripled my starting salary.

Specifically around the mechanism of the performance review, this piece is pretty practical for framing thinking about an alternative approach: https://medium.com/the-carrot-or-the-stick/the-performance-r...

Managers, acting politically, will blame failures on subordinates or push out top performers who could prove a threat to their own job security.

Formalized performance reviews feed many problems by increasing the amount of politics: - Managers looking to increase headcount might avoid giving feedback to average or below performers. - Stack ranking makes it difficult to recognize multiple good performers and forces you to recognize average performers

In that role, they can work very well. (My role being one of observation, not use of / manipulation.) Of course, they aren't really even trying to objectively measure and improve performance.

I mean, they work well for furthering the politics and furthering the ambitions of those in control of the review process.

I didn't find this very productive, in terms of the organizational performance nor, long-term, well-being. Existing powers become entrenched, and turf becomes more important than progress.

Eventually, "outsiders" are brought in, one way or another, to break this up. And most of them know very well and make a career of putting themselves first.

The review process tends to be or become separated from day-to-day work and communication. It exists "out-of-band", and it can end up -- including deliberately -- uninformed by and mis-informed about that actual day-to-day and project results.

I.e. It's very easy to manipulate. And there are always people more than willing to take advantage of this.

Every company is different, but for some traditional companies Reflektive works with them to initially roll out Performance Reviews because companies have dedicated budget for it. Then, once they're comfortable with our tools, our Customer Success team partners with them to craft a roll-out plan for our "Check Ins" product, which is a lightweight feedback tool intended on used every 3 months. For Check Ins, it's meant to be purely about development; at Reflektive, our Check Ins contain no performance rating scores nor do we use it for compensation (we have a separate process for that).

The good news is that a LOT of companies, ranging from small startups to large 50k-employee enterprise companies, actually want to shift towards a more employee-driven model. Our team's number one priority right now is to empower employees/managers to own their own feedback process and to increase the frequency of feedback between managers and their teams. I'm super excited about what's coming down the pipeline!

[1]https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1df5MALZKZU6lOeIXUiO-...

I guess the odds were in my favor.

A simple rule for employees: If your raise/bonus is bad, then they want you to quit. If it's good, then they want you to stay.

In my experience, I've found that they've lead to an, "oh, I better get out of this place ASAP," or, "oh, there's a problem with my manager that I better raise ASAP with his boss."

They spend SO MUCH time on it, for a thing that is mostly irrelevant to how things seem to operate. It’s not like drastic changes are being made to peoples’ salaries or hours off it. Or job titles.

That is more purpose than most of your work has, if you really look at it from a bird perspective.

> A performance review is supposed to be a tool for learning and career development.

This is the misunderstnading. If a politician says he's going to lower taxes, we laugh about it. But when a CEO says he wants to do performance reviews because he cares about how good his worker bees are we believe it? He mostly cares about his bonus and having people clap at his brilliant presentations.

Here's why you are not being promoted this year...

Here's what you need to do to be promoted next year...

Here's why you only got X increase in salary...

Here's what you can do to get a bigger increase next year...

If you are satisfied at your current level, here's what you should keep doing to stay in it...

Keep a file on each one of your direct reports. In it, keep notes about their accomplishments, failures, etc. Also, note how they reacted to those. Note any feedback from peers.

Give constant feedback throughout the year.

Be fair in your assessment.

Formulate a succession plan. This includes things like who will take your place when you get promoted as well as who will take the place of your team lead when they move away.

Finally, and this is the most important takeaway, there should never be any surprises in a performance review. EVER. The person being reviewed should go in knowing what they'll receive based on the constant feedback.

This is all management 101 stuff.

It doesn't seem like a good system if the person being reviewed can just select friends for reviews. Conversely, if you only sample a select group, you can surface grudges. An employee with a grudge can be "honest" in their feedback and completely turn a review.

It's just subjective all the way down. You could have managers "interpret" the results and compile them, but that leaves their own biases.

Corporate structure usually has a ceiling for raises in the department, so there needs to be a paper trail on how that gets divided.

If a manager or the company isn't aware of this then they're not paying attention; you shouldn't have to do their job for them.

"What have I done for myself?"

What? Who cares? That's my business.

"What do I want to be when I grow up? (And what do I need to get there?)"

I'm already grown up, do you think you hired children? If of course you meant what do I want to be by next review, well the easy answer is more adept and better paid, hopefully with your help.

It's the conversation together about what the next chapter could be and should be that can be really valuable.

If there is a performance problem with somebody who happens to be a minority, documented performance reviews that are handled the same for all employees are necessary to show that the employee was not promoted or dismissed or disciplined due to bias.

Q: What is the goal? What are the problems or opportunities it is addressing? A: Be as "fair" as possible in determining raises and promotions, attempting to control for different roles / projects / levels / external factors.

Q: What is the cost? A: 2-4 weeks of company time each year.

Q: Is the process achieving that goal, for an acceptable cost? A: Yes... how else would you accomplish this goal?

On the flip side, I find very few of my reports want to hear negative feedback. It takes a while to build the trust to enable it.

Lets say you're a big home improvement chain opening a new store. You need to get 150 workers to staff the new store.

Do you want to hire 250 people cold and hand the new store off to them? No.

You want to take the top 100 performers from nearby stores, who are busting for a chance to prove themselves, and pepper pot them into the new store, in positions of team leadership, seniors, etc. (And then do a bunch of hiring for the remaining 150, and the 100 to replace the ones you just transferred).

These are the sorts of win-win efficiencies you can pull off if you have good performance data for employees.

(Also astonishingly rare to see in action in the real world, but that's another story :)

That is so true. Probably why people leave every couple of years. I hate performance reviews. They try to be objective and yet so many personal feelings involved.

Finding a good manager is hard. Someone who understands tech and gives frequent objective feedback. That’s really really hard.

Most managers I’ve seen go into Management because they don’t like coding. They then want to be far away from it. That creates problems because they don’t understand why things are constantly regressing. They blame it on their engineers and start handing out shitty reviews when the actual problem was there is just a metric ton of code debt that they don’t want to hear about.

The other thing is they like being people managers. All the way up to Group managers (managers of managers). They truly enjoy re-orging people around. I guess that’s how they feel important. But they forget it’s the product that matters. As the org gets bigger, less and less people actually give a shit about the product as a whole.

I have yet to find a manager that takes code debt and product seriously. I’m on my Manager #10.

If you are a manager, I kindly urge you to listen both to your customers and your engineers. Get a reverse performance review. The world will be happier.

So at that level, it's exactly like I say it it is: a boss just decides if they like their report or not. They go with their biased gut feeling that's probably based more on superficial characteristics like clothes, hair, or the way a person talks. From there the person will either be thrown the sharks, or given a lot of support and opportunities.

I'm sure not all organizations are like that, but most that have 5000 employees or more have been exactly like that from my experience.

Unfortunately, I would bet the point is to do exactly the kinds of things that "really sucks" which this individual encountered. I'd hazard a guess that the multi-year review situation isn't consistent, either. It probably is decided "it's review time" when management has decided things aren't going well, so they use the reviews to crap all over staff. I wouldn't be surprised if this review cycle comes immediately before a round of layoffs/redundancies, as well.

The moment somebody gets a whiff you didn't reward one of your employees for their work is the time your organization starts its decline (people talk). Frankly, I don't think you can avoid it as nobody can be really objective and tunnel vision is real. I just take it as a "nature's" way to move forward - blindspots of one company become strengths of another one, and due to past history, people would really compete against each other because of past perceived wrongdoings.

Sometimes they are. Sometimes they aren't. Different roles are going to require different personality types. There are scenarios in which "complacent, trustworthy, consistent" are the 3 most important traits someone needs for a role. Those things may also combine with the other skills you're mentioning, but not always.

Some roles just don't have a career track for advancement, and there's plenty of times where advancing an employee is less beneficial to a company overall so it's best to hire for someone who's just going to settle into their role and be happy with a slight pay increase from time to time.

I used to think the same. But over time, i realised passion in other stuff doesn't correlate to passion at work. sometimes they end up being distraction.

Also there are people who don't like to share much outside of work.

I think more than passion, focus (esp. attention to details) is essential. Someone who understands depth of his/her work is likely to be better learner. For e.g. everyone can use an open source library but underlying working of libraries are explored by a few.

And for what it's worth performance reviews are not a remedy for cases like Balwani's. Anything like that which said something different from what the CEO wished the perception to be would simply have been rewritten/squashed/ignored. At least in a small company you can get a clear perception that this kind of thing is going on and get out, or make a conscious decision to stay because you think you'll be showered in filthy lucre or whatever.

Sure, those disagreements still happen. But, when things are transparent, there's very little risk of a "system breakdown" and a very high chance that a dissatisfied employee (who doesn't seem to be performing well in our scenario) will leave to make room for someone with more potential.

Edit: I just noticed the GP was jedberg; we both spent enough time at Netflix to see what each of us is describing work well in practice. :)

In perfect world I'd have a mind-reading powered live dashboard I could check that shows a graph of anonymized averages of my perceived performance across broad categories (teams, peers vs subordinates vs leadership, etc.) and a single point for my direct report.

Getting feedback each year when there's no surprises feels like a formality and waste of time. In the rare case that there are any surprises it's disappointing and I get to make adjustments months late, having been left in the dark.

I hate this so much. I hate it even more, because it's mostly true that it works. YMMV, and I'm talking of non-technical organisations or organisation where tech is a cost-centre rather than value-add.

Those who don't fully understand it (it being whatever technical disagreement or choice made), which is usually the majority, will side with you. The remainder are usually people who can see that the organisation is structured this way and either give up out of apathy or leave for greener pastures.

If someone literally yells at me, I'm out. Notice in that day, usually within the hour. If the organisation is willing to allow that behaviour, it's usually toxic. If I'm on contract (which I always am now), my opinion within that organisation will no longer be respected. Notice of non-renewal immediately.

Please, if anyone has ideas about what a good performance management SaaS would look like - share!

Now I need you to make me want to. And no that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reward me, often it’s enough to feel like I won’t get in trouble for going the extra mile, or that at the very least it will be noticed when I do.

There’s only so often a person will give suggestions and extra effort to a lukewarm or negative response before they say fuck it and stop caring.

And how do I know I won't be yelled at or punished if I happen to get this wrong?

The work ethic in question involves “long hours and self learning“ self learning implies that it probably also happens outside work hours. People who are in a relationship are obviously less likely to work long hours and self learn in their free time.

Statistically, young people are also far more willing to do long hours.

I'm a bit torn on bringing gender into it. Women are more likely to work half time, but I would expect them to be better at predicting needs (yes, I'm aware that's potentially sexist).

So basically I find everything very reasonable if you assume he didn't mean the worst possible interpretation. I don't see the gender bias, but I'm sure there are arguments I'm not aware of.

Through, my experience with this organizational style was bad, mostly because people ended in quite ugly competitive behavior. Mostly due to rules being unclear, resentment being build up, people choosing highly visible tasks instead of needed tasks and so on and so forth.a lot of insecurity everywhere.

There were also a lot of of random attempts by random colleguess to take control and micromanage random people+responsibilities in attempt to look like natural leaders. Did I mentioned insecurity? Someone tring to look like autonomous leader while being completely insecure about limits of his responsibilities and powers is highly unpleasant to work with. You deal with politics like 80% of time as result.

Other people are certainly willing and able to work hard and independently, but you do have to provide more formal guidance because you cannot expect someone living in a different cultural context to meet all the standards you hold yourself to. There may simply be a misunderstanding, and because I guarantee the employee would be acutely aware of the understanding gap, it’s on the manager to be aware of it as well.

Informality has a lot of benefits, but it’s also necessarily exclusive to people who don’t know the unwritten, informal rules under which you operate. This can and will lead to a homogeneous team that seems productive from the inside, but may miss other goals because they’re just unaware of them.

He's saying that it's harder to compete on self-teaching and long hours if you also, say, have a child that you're trying to teach good values to and need to pick up from school at 3:30pm during the week. Which is a reasonable critique of the parent post, IMO.

It is an unquestioned, invisible belief, which may bring up defensiveness when pointed out, as it is no longer (as) politically correct.

As we are sloooowly transitioning from institutionalized sexism, it becomes obvious how a premise which is offensive to someone who sees and values everyone’s contribution and dignity could be seen as naive or outlandish by people carrying unquestioned old beliefs.

It sucks that this takes as long as it does.

That's not a solid conviction, but it's how I'm leaning.

Why?

Surely some clients do yell, and presumably if they think it is acceptable to yell, they would be surprised at an abrupt end to a contract!

sure, there are exceptions -- but they are exceptions.

my career has taught me that adding as much value as you see the potential for adding is a surefire way to get a promotion, complete with an extra 2% salary and the new expectation of you continuing to work at 110%.

oh yeah, and you get a good reference.

but seriously give me a break. if you're in a position to add so much value to a company, you should be elsewhere in another company, two levels up. good companies don't leave easy pickings hanging.

Formal reviews distill virtue signaling into a standard process with explicit rules rather than an informal set of norms that individuals may or may not be aware of.

There’s an entire industry devoted to helping women and minorities better integrate with the business climate (Lean In, et al). I guarantee these people are doing a ton of work just to be able to “fit in” and close the cultural gap.

In that context, it’s not unreasonable to ask companies to do something as well. The workers most definitely are.

Growth and attrition are a regular part of a person's life cycle at a company. You ask if someone should be promoted both because companies need adept managers and because most employees look for growth trajectory. You ask if someone should be fired because companies need to continue refining their workforce for skill and cultural fit, or because it is financially necessary.

(This might not be rational.)

Gaining trust means you signal properly to the people you are attempting to influence. With records you now move mechanisms with which your signal that trust.

Real world examples:

1. I went into one company knowing I knew more than the “team lead” who was 10 years younger. I wasn’t careful not to step on toes.

2. At work, especially at a large company (the same company as #1). Everyone was jockeying for position and to get known. “Friends” were more than eager to stab you in the back. Also, a lesson I was too naive to know early in my career was that your manager is not your friend.

3. I’m not going to let anyone know that I am jumping on the new high profile, new to me technology to pad my resume. I’m also going to act like I care about my review and that Im happy with the meager raise all the while I am looking for another job.

5. Once you get a bad reputation - it’s impossible to recover from. Even if it’s not your fault. Once that happens, it’s time to jump ship.

I could go on.

Nothing that corporate America does is in the best interest of their employeres. Working is a simple transaction. They pay me for 40 hours a week, I do my best work while working for them but there is no loyalty from the employer so why should we be loyal to them?

Of course I’m not implying being unethical - goofing off, corporate espionage, competing against your employer,etc.

Which “law” do you disagree with? I’ve already said that I think 7 is unethical.

#1 is fantastic advice. If you make your master insecure you are finished at that location. You either have to quit or move up/elsewhere in the organization.

If you are going to shine then you have to shine in ways that are not in direct competition to your immediate masters.

Even a seemingly great workplace can turn toxic very quickly

Also when you gossip to one person about another or let that person gossip around you, you are "committing" to that person and taking sides - something else you shouldn't do.

The key here is to not get complacent. You need to carry that same attitude and approach to work that you enjoy so much out of the people you work with. Luckily, for me, I worked in a very low moral environment for quite a while and outside of my closest friend and coworker, and less than about 7 other people, we had to be the uplifting folks. When I started working at the job that followed the one I stayed at way too long, and people were excited to work on projects, didn't complain before meetings started, and generally didn't have a negative thing to say about the company, the customers or their coworkers, I was in shock for a bit. I didn't believe a place like this actually existed. I'm now moved on from that place at another place with the exact same kind of people. It's amazing how different things are when you are surrounded by people like that versus when you're surrounded by people who are demoralized full-time. I'm a pretty strong optimist and don't require much in the way of external motivation -- (4 kids, single-income family -- a paycheck is the only motivation I need), but it sure is easier to stay motivated when everyone around you is having fun, too.

Working 60+ hour weeks for a paycheck that can get gotten elsewhere provides no one with satisfaction. Anyone who rides programmers that hard will find the programmer firing his manager.

Almost none of the people that push you to do that are worth working for. Even a startup that provides RSUS.

If you want what the OP wants in an employee, you need to pay a minimum of a 30% premium over what they can get elsewhere.

Evaluating performance is tough. Evaluating performance without greatly distorting incentives is much tougher. I agree fairness should be a consideration, but it is not the primary purpose of a business.

This goes along with the three types of power in an organization - relationship, expert and role power. You'd be amazed by the things you can accomplish in smaller organizations with no role power if you build the right relationships and you prove yourself.

That's law #1, "Never outshine the master."

>>Good managers seek people smarter than themselves then try to get the best out of them.

Fundamental laws of power say, Never hire anyone that could be become your boss.

>>Great organizations and teams don't have time or tolerance for much of the stuff in this doc, they are too busy doing.

No such organization exist. Power structures are an axiom of the very groups existence.

I once had a contract-to-hire job in which the contract supposedly stipulated that I was guaranteed a full-time permanent position if I passed the six-month performance review, otherwise I would be terminated. They told new hires this to convince them that it wasn't really a temp job. They kept me a temp for ten months, and then laid off all 120 of us.

I would love to believe that management is categorically reasonable, comprehensible, and truthful, but that’s not my experience.

a higher-level manager somewhat arbitrarily comes out of the blue and wants to fire one of your team. You have no paperwork to back the idea that the request is misplaced/misguided.