Why reviews are dreaded

Almost nobody enjoys performance reviews, and the reasons are specific and fixable.

Nothing in it should be new. A review containing feedback the person has not heard before is an ambush, and the failure happened months earlier when it was not said. A good review is a summary of conversations that already took place.

It is usually too late to act on. Told in December about something that started in March, the person has spent nine months doing it wrong and cannot change the outcome.

Recency dominates. The reviewer remembers the last six weeks vividly and the earlier ten months vaguely, which is why somebody who had a difficult March and an excellent November is rated on November.

It is tangled up with pay, which means the person is not listening to the development discussion because they are waiting for the number. Separating the two conversations, even by a fortnight, changes what is heard.

It is vague. "Needs to improve communication" is not something anybody can act on.

And it is frequently unfair in ways nobody intends. People similar to the reviewer are rated higher. Visible work is rated above invisible work. The person who asks for attention gets more than the one who does not.

Knowing these six is most of what it takes to run a review that is useful rather than endured.