It was originally an initiative of one of the top tier Chartered Accounting firms – Deloitte Australia (https://www.afr.com/business/accounting/afr23accdeloitte-20150617-ghq5wu) which broke from tradition and once yearly review.
In doing so they became a pioneer of the the new age of an ongoing performance review process. They relegated the ritual of the yearly review to the annals of human resources management history.
Heralded as a human resource management game changer the practice of an ongoing review process had become a new management mantra and in the process directly responded to an expectation of a generation of Millennials providing them ongoing and instant on the job feedback. Yet another professional services industry innovation which the accountants have orchestrated and can take credit for.
Are legal services firms all following suit ?
There’s a lot to be said for the merits for both reviewer and reviewee to be engaged in ongoing, constructive and open dialogue around performance expectations and associated indicators. Both the qualitative and the quantitative criteria need to be clearly communicated, understood, executed on and monitored with ongoing 360 Degree feedback during the course of a 12 month cycle, rather than being a blind ritual culminating in one convening where the stakeholders have been playing a dangerous, unproductive and senseless game of assumptions, presumptions, speculation and a no news is good news mindset.
How often do we hear – “If I’m not doing my job I’ll hear about it, otherwise I just need to keep on doing what I think should be done.” That’s right up there with the equally dangerous and all too common – “why are we doing it this way ? Because that’s the way we’ve always done it around here”.
There’s been a case for overhauling the review process because for too long the antiquated once yearly sit down review was persisted with for the wrong reason being the way it was always done when there was a better way.
There’s too much at risk to leave it to chance, guessing games or otherwise. It’s a business process where transparency, engagement, free and open ongoing communications along with constructive feedback and 360 Degrees too is paramount. There’s no such thing as constructive criticism it’s a contradiction in terms. All criticism is by it’s very nature destructive and never constructive.
Consequently, adjustments, recalibrations and direction adjustments can be made during the journey of perfroming a role. Obviating the need for any last moment or too much too late type adjustments after the inertia of the preceding period. History reveals that such a belated and reactive approach didn’t help prevent the Titanic avoiding the iceberg and the ensuing tragedy.
So if a 360 Degree ongoing review process with fine tuning adjustments to direction and respective expectations of reviewer and reviewee can avert tragedies in the workplace then surely ongoing reviews rather than being a unilateral and once a year ritual must be a preferred positive, proactice and progressive brave new way to approach the all important review process. It avoids the unexpected, unforseen and the unproductive.
Let’s learn from the lesson of the Titanic when applied to the review process and how reviews can be progressive, innovative and engaging.
If only they’d seen the iceberg sooner.
Ian Dhu
Ian’s an industry expert in the recruitment, career development and retention of lawyers.
Over the last 30 years Ian’s successfully placed numerous lawyers.
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