benj_e's Journal: Performance reviews and management by objectives

After working here 5 years, it looks like I'll be getting a review for the first time at the end of 4Q 2004. In order for the new CIO to do this review, I (and the other P/As) have to come up with objectives.

Now, in principle, I don't mind this - it gets everyone on the same page as to what is expected and what will denote success. But, and this is a big one, objectives can not be developed in a vacumn. An employee and his/her manager have to develop these together, using not only the employee's job description, but the organizational and departmental goals as well.

The problem here, then, is that each of us has to come up with our own objectives, without seeing the newly redone job descriptions, and with no organizational or departmental goals on record.

This is, IMHO, a receipe for disaster, career-wise. If you don't know what is expected of you, how can you meet those goals? The very act of creating objectives becomes a performance issues - you are measured on how well you wrote your objectives before you are measured on how well you achieved them.

Without clear guidance from management, writing objectives becomes a crap-shoot. What I think is important may not mesh with the CIOs vision - which will make you seem out of touch with the organization.

We'll have to see how it all falls out, but I'm not too encouraged by the effort so far.