Reviews: Worse than dentist visits?

~SHEILA NORMAN CULP offers tips for surviving the yearly dressing down from your boss.

I hate annual reviews, and I know I am not alone.

I can have a perfectly good relationship with my boss for 364 days of the year. But as soon as we start my review, I get into a defensive crouch worthy of an NFL linebacker. My boss hems and haws, then mentions my latest mistake. After a tense 15 minutes, we switch to a neutral topic.

So much for my talents, or my future. I leave so annoyed I can barely speak.

On the bright side, many management experts think annual reviews are so archaic and morale-busting that they should be banished. On the dark side, your own company will probably keep doing annual reviews for the next millennium.

Here's some advice for those facing the annual review firing squad.

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ANNUAL MEANS ALL YEAR LONG

In business, seven months ago is the Middle Ages. Twelve months ago is before Christ. That means most reviews focus on the last two months, about how long a person can remember without notes.

This works to your advantage if you're new or are rapidly improving. However, if you had a smashing January and February and a ho-hum spring, you might be surprised.

Workers need to highlight their most successful period and offer good, two-sentence explanations for less productive times.

"The single most important thing is for you to look over the entire year -- your manager will have a very short memory," says Susan Heathfield, a consultant who writes about human resources at About.com.

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LOOKING FOR GREATNESS

Look at yourself from a boss's point of view. Doing a good job day in and day out is what they expect. Obviously, that's a good basis to start your review. But your superiors will always be on the hunt for superlatives.

The best employees noticeably affect their company's bottom line. They take on more responsibilities, listen more closely to customer feedback, make the company more efficient and come up with innovative ideas or products that burnish the company's reputation.

"Companies are saying, 'Yes, we value employees, but we value the contributors most,'" said Heathfield. "The trend in the U.S. lately is to give crummy employees nothing, not even a cost of living raise."

Ouch. But don't say I didn't tell you so.

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THE PRE-EVALUATION FORM

Employees are often asked to fill out pre-evaluation forms. Since the forms are designed to cover a wide range of jobs, the questions are often vague, or just plain stupid. And some people are not comfortable writing a laudatory essay about themselves.

Heathfield's advice: Get over it. Your boss desperately needs this "cheat sheet."

Listing accomplishments in a concise essay helps you rehearse your remarks in the review. Keeping year-round notes helps with this task.

"You need to be your own best advocate," Heathfield said. "No one is going to care more about your annual review than you."

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE HUGE

Your first review will have more impact than the next three combined, yet inexperience increases your chances of bobbling it.

Rule No.1: Go in prepared. Rank your top 10 accomplishments and practice talking about them in that order, in case the meeting is cut short. Writing things down ensures that you don't go blank.

Ask others what to expect. Notice who and what managers praise, so you can emulate them. Think about your 3-year and 5-year plans, because you might not get another chance to discuss them.

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AVOIDING THE BLINDSIDE RUSH

We all know someone blindsided in a review by a list of duties they didn't know were theirs. Your manager should be to blame for so poorly communicating expectations, but in the the real world, you take the fall. Learning how to roll with the punches is very useful.

The trick: Deal with the subject right away. Apologize for not knowing that task was part of your responsibilities and promise to change immediately. Do not vent, call your boss a liar or point out their shortcomings. Simply saying "I did not know, I'm sorry...." will diffuse much of the antagonism.

"Do not sit in stunned silence," Heathfield says, adding that perhaps your review could be changed if your manager realizes you weren't just ignoring instructions.

Still, this problem needs a long-term solution. "Ask your manager much more often how everything is going," she said.

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THE FUTURE AS IT SHOULD BE

The list of management experts in favor of scrapping the annual review process is too long to mention.

But here are some highlights: Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton, authors of "It's not the Big that Eat the Small...It's the Fast that Eat the Slow," wonder why anyone would wait a year to fix an employee problem. They say feedback must be constant.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, authors of the "First Break all the Rules: What the world's greatest managers do differently," can't believe that managers still focus on weaknesses. They believe people don't change much, so it's best to hire for talent and nurture it.

"Most of us agree -- performance appraisals that focus on weaknesses are an insane way to get people to develop," Heathfield says.

Imagine. A review in which they started and ended with your strengths.

Hello, hello -- anyone out there listening?

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asap contributor Sheila Norman-Culp skipped most of those Associated Press pre-evaluation forms. Not a good idea.

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