‘Appraisal interview’ is a familiar term in the lexicon of management. This is a regular interview, sometimes as infrequently as once or twice a year, when a manager sits down with their subordinate and appraises the work of the subordinate against their objectives. ‘Don’t tell me that the man is doing good work,’ said Andrew Carnegie to one of his plant bosses. ‘Tell me what good work he is doing.’

During an appraisal meeting you should create an environment where you can have a constructive dialogue with a subordinate (or superior or colleague, for that matter) on the following agenda:

• Past performance.
• Future work to be done, targets, priorities, standards and strategies.
• Matching perceptions of what each can reasonably expect from the other.
• Improving skills, knowledge and behaviour.

Remember that the performance appraisal interview has as its main purpose the improvement of an individual’s work contribution. (It may have as its secondary purpose providing grounds for a salary review.)

There is a necessary condition that has to be met before you can hold an effective appraisal interview. If you haven’t set or agreed objectives some months or weeks in advance, it is a waste of time to have an appraisal interview.

For while you can and should, of course, discuss interviewees’ performance of the general or ongoing duties of their offices or jobs – what they are being paid for – it is much easier to do that if both of you know that some progressive objectives covering all or parts of the job will be under review.

Somehow people are less inclined to take on board suggestions or criticisms that come ‘out of the blue’ and relate to a general function of their job, such as being nice to customers.