Performance Review

It's that time again. Time for the annual (or in my case biannual) performance review at work. Maybe I'm a freak, but I actually look forward to this part of my job. I see it as an opportunity for me to get good solid feedback about my performance and an opportunity to set new and challenging professional goals for myself. In my six years and 14 days on the job, I've always gotten excellent reviews. I think that's due in part to my desire to set a high bar and get more out of my job than is in my job description. It's also due to the fact that in recent years, the organization lets employees set their own goals on which to be reviewed.

But some people here and elsewhere HATE performance review time. They see it as a scolding from their managers about all they DIDN'T accomplish in the course of the year. And unfortunately, that can be a sad reality; some managers use the review as a whipping rod and some people fall far short of their goals and objectives through no ones fault but their own.

I think it would be great to get regular "performance reviews" from the people closest to us. Not a formal written assesment of your performance as a spouse or parent or child or sibling. But an opportunity once a week or once a month or once a quarter or once a year to say, "How am I doing?" and "What can I be doing better?" A friend posted an article from the New York Times about questions couples should ask before getting married. And they were all great questions that I'm sure many couples never think to consider before making the leap. But how much better are the above questions asked on a regular basis of the people closest to us!

I have a couple of those people in my life and have for about the past 6 months or so. I have an accountability partner that I check in with on a regular basis about issues personal to me. One of the associate pastors at my church meets with me about once a quarter for coffee or breakfast to discuss spiritual growth and interpersonal relationships. A long distance mentor (though he's never met me, I consider him a "mentor") talks of meeting for a friendly lunch with a group of his closest team members in ministry who had a frank and brutal discussion with him about his increasing arrogance and pride in his new leadership role. It was like an intervention. It was an eye-opening experience that forever changed his perception of himself and the way he communicates. We all need those people in our lives who love us enough to tell us what we need to hear not just what we want to hear. But hearing it isn't enough. We have to act on it. Or at the very least, give it careful and open minded consideration. I once got the same kind of feedback from a manager and from my wife, within the same week, and neither knew that the other had said it. Alright, I thought, maybe they're on to something here.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is Proverbs 27:5: Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed (NKJV). Love manifests itself sometimes in honest constructive criticism. The older I get the more I realize that there is so much wisdom in God's Word that is still relevant to us in the 21st century. We are called into relationship with each other not just for good times and happy memories, but to improve one another "as iron sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17). But it's the wise person who uses life's performance reviews as springboards to growth and improvement.