Performance Anxiety

What motivates all of us to do our best work at the office?

Management guru and UCLA professor Dr. Samuel A. Culbert answers this question by placing his magnifying glass on that corporate subspecies known as the performance review. In his new book, Get Rid of the Performance Review, he teams up with Wall Street Journal senior editor Lawrence Rout to pink slip managers who have built a corporate culture based on intimidation and fear, and to offer a substitute that instead promotes both creativity and productivity in the workplace.

Handing over our queer magnifying glass to Dr. Culbert, we asked him what gay men and women can do to get through the review process.

Dr. Culbert:  "The review is not objective. It can't be. This is why most employees get different ratings simply by switching bosses. Instead, reviews simply reflect the relative comfort a boss feels with the subordinate, rather than how effective the employee might be or what the employee is doing for the company. So, to the extent that a boss might be less "comfortable" with gay men and women, these employees will tend to suffer relatively more under performance reviews than others. 

My advice, therefore, would be the same advice I'd give to all employees—try to discern what it is the boss wants from you, as opposed to what you think the boss and company should want from you. The boss's opinion is all that counts. And give the boss what he or she wants. 

In other words, exploit the corruption of the review process for your own benefit by making sure it's in your boss's interest to review you favorably." 

For more information on bogus performance reviews and why you should not take them personally, check out the book.