【英语生活】年度评估管用吗？

At home there is a drawer in which I keep the children's school reports. As I have quite a few children and as each of them has been at school for quite a few years, the drawer is large and full.

In the past couple of days more reports have arrived. The new ones are just like the old ones and say “xyz is a lively member of the form” who has “made satisfactory progress in most areas of the curriculum”.

The reports are always good in a bland sort of way. This is because all school reports are now good: no one dares to risk demotivating a child. Very occasionally buried among the bouquets I find a squashed tomato: “xyz must pay more attention to neatness and spelling” or “can be distracted in class”.

I summon the child, who invariably leaps onto the defensive – a habit passed down through the maternal side of our family. “The physics teacher doesn't even know who I am,” they protest. Shrug. Scowl. Sigh. Then the report goes in the drawer, preserved for I'm not quite sure what.

The pointlessness and sheer waste of effort in these school reports is quite something. However it is nothing when compared with the pointlessness and waste of annual appraisals, which are glorified school reports for grown-ups.

In most companies the yearly appraisal process involves a sticky interview between boss and subordinate followed by the painstaking drafting and redrafting of an exceedingly long form. This bats to and fro and eventually gets signed by both and then is filed away in a drawer and usually forgotten about.

At least school reports serve a clear purpose: to tell the parent how the child is doing. With work appraisals there is no parent to inform. The appraisal is a contract between two people usually entered into in a spirit of embarrassment, false optimism and weary duty. It serves no purpose, and would be far better scrapped.

The first problem is the bureaucracy of it all. I have been looking at samples of recommended forms on the internet. All run to at least three pages, some to 12.

Then there is the tiresome business of trying to make what is subjective into something that can be measured objectively. Many forms invite employee and boss to grade the person on a scale of one to 10 on characteristics including “problem solving” and “integrity”.

This is baffling. Am I a seven on problem solving but a six on integrity? These questions make no sense. What is the scale?

Third is the fanciful approach that appraisal forms take to the future. Employees are mostly expected to have at least three targets for the coming year. This is ridiculous. Anyone who is already doing an adequate job should surely be allowed just one target: to keep on keeping on. This has always been my aim. I see nothing wrong with it, but when I see it on my form it no longer looks refreshingly true. It looks shameful.

An even bigger problem with appraisals is the way they lead to fudge, just as school reports do but more so. The person doing the appraising may spend the rest of the year working with their underling in an apparently democratic team. This makes it almost impossible to say anything even slightly critical in the appraisal. And even if the boss tries, he will put such a sugary layer on it the employee may not notice. Any genuinely critical comment is likely to make the employee react as my children do, with the result that critical comments are usually watered down in the final version.

A falsely glowing report is not only pointless, it can be dangerous. When the useless employee suddenly gets fired, the flattering appraisal becomes a weapon to be used against the company in cases of unfair dismissal.

Larry Bossidy, the Mr “Get Things Done” of the ex-CEO speaker circuit, has come up with a better way. In the Harvard Business Review he lays out his idea of the perfect appraisal form. This takes up half a page and consists of two lists to be written by the boss. The first is headed “what I like” and under this could be written things like “team player” or “innovative”. The second list is “what can improve”, which could include “impetuous” or “often fails to anticipate.” Then the two discuss it.

This strikes me as another giant fudge. If the first column says “what I like”, the second should be “what I don't like” – which is powerful and precise. By contrast “what can improve” is mushy and misleading. If you are impetuous, that isn't something that can easily improve. It's the way you are.

Bossidy says appraisals should be specific, not vague. I agree with this. The trouble is that he and I seem to be working from different dictionaries. He outlaws the term “hard worker” as vague, while welcoming “results oriented” as specific. How is this so? Results oriented means nothing at all to me, while hard working means a lot. He rejects “amiable” (which I like) and suggests “team player”, which can mean whatever you want it to.

Bossidy's problem is that his system isn't nearly simple enough. My ideal appraisal is far simpler, and its Platonic form is described by a sketch from The Office. In it David Brent is appraising a guy from the accounting department. Brent asks him what he thinks his core skills are and the guy looks puzzled for a bit and then volunteers “accounts”?

This is how I feel. If I am a columnist, one thing matters above all. It is not whether I am results oriented, it is whether I can write columns. If yes, all well and good. If no, I need to be told about it long before my annual appraisal.

我家里有一只抽屉，里面保留着孩子们的成绩报告单。因为我有不止一个孩子，而每个孩子都上了很多年学，所以那只抽屉又大又满。

前一阵子，我又接到了一批成绩单。这些新的成绩单像原来的一样，写着“某某是那种活泼的孩子”，他“在大多数课程中都取得了令人满意的进步”。

成绩单总是在“报喜”，语气也都是温和平淡的。这是因为现在所有的成绩单都说的是好话：没人敢于冒险挫伤孩子的积极性。在极其偶然的情况下，我在一堆溢美之词中找到一个隐身其中的“压扁了的西红柿”：“某某必须更注意卷面整洁和拼写”或是“课堂上容易走神儿”。

我把那个孩子叫过来，而孩子总会立即为自己辩护——这种习惯是通过我们家母系一方遗传下来的。他们会抗议道：“那个物理老师甚至都不知道我是谁。”（我）耸耸肩、皱皱眉、叹声气，然后成绩单就进了抽屉，为了我也不确知的什么理由而保存起来。

在这些成绩单上所作的工作毫无意义，完全是一种浪费。不过要是与年度评估的空洞和浪费比起来，这根本算不了什么。年度评估就是成年人漂亮的“成绩单”。

在大多数公司，年度评估过程都包括老板和下属之间一次别扭的谈话，然后是煞费苦心地起草、修改一份极长的表格。这要经过反复推敲，最终双方签字，然后归档，把它扔进一只抽屉，之后通常情况下就被遗忘了。

学校的成绩单至少有个明确的目的：告诉家长孩子的表现。但对于工作评估，就没有家长可以通知了。这种评估就是两人之间签订的一种契约，通常带有尴尬的情绪、虚假的乐观主义和令人厌烦的责任。它没有任何目的可言，如果能够废除这种做法，情况会好得多。

首先的问题是它整个的官僚风气。我一直关注着网上推荐的表格样本。所有表格都至少有3页，有些则多达12页。

然后就是那种试图将主观问题转换成可以进行客观衡量的无聊工作。许多表格请员工和老板给某人打分：在“解决问题”和“正直”等特征方面进行衡量，分值从1分到10分不等。

这让人觉得莫名其妙。我是个在解决问题方面得7分、但在正直程度上得6分的人吗？这些问题毫无意义。衡量尺度是什么？

第三个问题评估表看待未来的奇怪方式。在很多情况下，公司希望员工在未来一年中至少有3个目标。这十分荒谬。对任何人而言，如果他已经胜任工作，那么无疑只应允许他有一个目标：坚持，再坚持。这一直都是我的目标。我认为这没有什么不对的，但当我在自己的表格上看到这一项时，这个目标看起来似乎不再那么正确了。它看起来很丢人。

对于评估而言，更大的一个问题是，它们会导致人们胡说八道，这与学校成绩单一样，但有过之而无不及。负责评估的那个人，可能要在这一年剩下的时间里，与下属在一个明显具有民主气氛的团队中工作。这使得他们几乎不可能在评估中说哪怕稍微有点带刺儿的话。即便老板试图这么做，他也会在上面加一些赞美之词。任何真正批评性的评语，都可能让员工有我孩子那样的反应，结果是批评性的评语通常都在最终版本中淡化了。

一份漂亮但不真实的评估报告不仅毫无意义，而且可能相当危险。当没用的员工突然被炒鱿鱼时，这种讨人欢心的评估就会成为一种武器，在不公平的解雇事件中被用来反击公司。

拉里•博西迪(Larry Bossidy)——前首席执行官演讲者圈里的“完成任务”先生——想出了一个更好的办法。在《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)中，他展示了自己对于完美评估表格的想法。这张表只有半页，包含老板要写的两个清单。第一列题为“我喜欢的”，下面可以写“有团队精神”或“具创新精神”等。第二列是“可以改进的”，其中可能包括“冲动”或“经常预料不到（事情的进展）”等。然后老板和员工两个人进行讨论。

这对我而言像是另一种非凡的胡说八道。如果第一栏是“我喜欢的”，那么第二栏就应该是“我不喜欢的”——这样才准确有力。相反，“可以改进的”则是软弱无力且有误导性的词语。如果你容易冲动，那并不是轻易能改进的东西。那是你的行事风格。

博西迪说，评估应是精确的，而不是模糊的。我同意这一点。麻烦的是，他和我似乎用的是不同的字典。他宣称“努力的员工”这个词是模糊的，但认为“以业绩为导向的”是明确的，而且对此表示欢迎。怎么会这样呢？对我而言，以业绩为导向根本没有意义，而努力工作则意味着很多东西。他排斥“亲和力”（但我喜欢），并建议应该“有团队精神”（但对于这个词，你想让它有什么意思，它就有什么意思）。

博西迪的问题在于，他的体系并不足够简单。我理想中的评估要简单得多，它是那种柏拉图式的形式，就像《办公室》(The Office)故事梗概中描述的那样。其中大卫•布伦特(David Brent)在为会计部的一个人作评估。布伦特问他，认为自己的核心技能是什么，那个老兄看起来有点儿困惑，然后主动回答道：“记账”？

这就是我的感觉。如果我是个专栏作家，首先至关重要的只有一件事。那不是我是否以业绩为导向，而是我是否能写专栏。如果是，那么一切都好。如果不是，那么我需要有人在给我做年度评估之前很久就告诉我。

译者/梁鸥

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