Why Managers Hate Performance Reviews

Here's something nobody talks about: most managers despise conducting performance reviews almost as much as employees hate receiving them.
They know the process is artificial and unhelpful, but they're required to participate in elaborate documentation exercises that consume hours of time without producing meaningful outcomes.
Smart managers have informal performance conversations throughout the year, then spend review season translating those ongoing discussions into whatever format HR requires. But this creates double work - first the actual performance management, then the bureaucratic performance documentation.
Mediocre managers rely on the formal review process as their primary performance management tool, which means they avoid difficult conversations all year then try to address accumulated issues in a single session that's way too little, way too late.
Either way, the formal review process adds bureaucracy without adding value for people who are already managing performance effectively, while failing to help people who need better management skills.
The Development Planning Fiction
Most performance review systems include "development planning" components where employees and managers supposedly create roadmaps for professional growth over the coming year.
These development plans are almost universally terrible because they're created without understanding what opportunities will actually be available, what business priorities will emerge, or what individual circumstances will change.
"Sarah will complete a project management certification by June and take on team leadership responsibilities in the third quarter" sounds like meaningful development planning. But it falls apart when the certification program is overbooked, the team leadership role gets eliminated in a restructure, or Sarah decides to focus on technical skills instead of management.
Real professional development happens opportunistically through assignments, projects, and learning experiences that can't be predicted a year in advance. Forcing it into annual planning cycles creates the illusion of systematic development while actually constraining the flexibility that makes development possible.
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