Performance Reviews

October 28, 2024

Good morning! Do you think there is anyone still alive who remembers October 29, 1929? It was a good week/end to rake leaves — or to mulch them — or to compost them. Are you a rake-as-they-fall person, or a wait-’til-they-all-fall person? Nature is giving us a spectacular extended autumn… still plenty of time to plant tulips. Are you planning to attend one of the remaining games of the World Series? The cheapest nosebleed seats are going for about $1,100.

• Unless someone is holding out on us, this will be the first year in a decade we haven’t welcomed at least one new grandchild to the family.
• There are more and more Teslas being sold, but profits are down; make your call.
• Do you remember terminal velocity from your Grade #8 physics class?
  • An object falling through space, affected by gravity, can only accelerate to a certain speed before friction neutralizes gravity.
    • In other words, 32 feet per second per second is true only in a vacuum.
  • And so it would seem, notwithstanding Juan Ponce de LeÓn, humans are reaching, or might have reached, terminal aging.
    • (He at least seemingly searched in the right location, though, didn’t he?  Juan that is.)
  • Life expectancy doubled — and then it doubled again — and now it might be screeching to a halt.
  • Life expectancy around the world (the U.S. isn’t even in the top 40 countries for longevity) is plateauing and it turns out we likely won’t live forever.  (Olshansky, 2024)
• Yes, but how about the Cheeto?
  • What is the terminal consumption total before skin transparency sets in?
• Nearly half of all adults living in Oregon or Alaska report feeling lonely.
  • The average number of all adults nationwide who report feeling lonely is 40.3% throughout the United States.  (U.S. Census Bureau)
  • Tennesseeans feel the least lonely (~<36%) — maybe it has something to do with country music, or with Vanderbilt beating Alabama?!
  • Having now just narrowly lost to those Texans, Cornelius must be feeling proud.
• But, chin up, we DO get more done than anyone else in the world.
  • Productivity in the United States is better than ever, with an average worker producing $171,000 of goods and services annually.
  • Compared to $120,000 in Western Europe and $96,000 in Japan.
  • Among the G7 nations, the United States now contributes approximately 50% of the total, up from 40% a few years ago.  (The Economist, 2024)
  • The bad news:  Worldwide productivity is declining — among all eight billion of us, that is — on average.
• Too big to fail?
  • How about Boeing?
  • There’s a culture to study.
  • Forensic psychology anyone?
• The other day a doctor, one of many I frequent, looked me straight in the eye and said, “You’re cheating.”
  • No prologue, no obfuscation, no sympathy or empathy, no euphemisms, no gentleness, just, “You’re cheating.”
  • And, he was right.
  • I had been ever-so-slowly but surely straying from the strict regimen needed to keep myself as healthy as possible.
  • “You’re cheating.”  He knew it, but I really didn’t… I had become somewhat delusional… except I did know it.
  • Such blunt, accurate, and honest communication is rare.
• I’m sharing this personal wake-up call because it ties directly to the supervision and leadership of your staff/ team/ employees.
  • How in the world do you expect your people to know how they’re doing if you don’t tell them?!
  • Amazingly, the supervision norm in most organizations is to have an euphemistic, so-called Performance Review once a year or maybe twice a year.
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, the conversation needs to happen far more frequently, maybe even daily depending upon what it is you do.
  • The construction trades are better at this because almost everything is in-the-moment and you can’t tolerate mistakes.
  • “Hey, ____________, you ____________, turn that (expletive) the other direction!”
  • Performance instantly communicated, accurate, honest, relevant, helpful, complete — until the next time.
    • Try it.