Prof. Samuel A. Culbert on Getting Rid of the Performance Review

Episode Page Episode #117 is a conversation with Prof. Samuel A. Culbert of the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Along with Daniel Pink, he is a fellow alum of Northwestern University. Prof. Culbert has a BS in Systems Engineering, the precursor of the Industrial Engineering department in which I was a student. Dr. Culbert then earned a PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA. Today, we are talking about his most recent book, Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing–and Focus on What Really Matters. Much like Dan Pink's take on incentives in the workplace, Culbert is a contrarian about the generally accepted (yet dysfunctional) practice of the “annual performance review.” In his writing, Culbert calls them “corporate theatre,” as well as a “sham,” a “facade,” “immoral,” and “intimidating.” In the podcast, we talk about the problems and alternatives to this common management practice. For a link to episode, refer people to  www.leanblog.org/117. Recent articles by Prof. Culbert via my blog posts: Professor Channels Dr. Deming and Writes “Get Rid of the Annual Review” New Book Gives Negative Review to Performance Reviews Prof. Culbert mentioned that he only discovered the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming a few years back, although they were both railing against the annual performance review in 1980. They must be “long lost cousins,” Culbert says, and I would agree.