You may not know I am on a global work assignment in Japan from the
  United States. I get to have two management teams, one in each country,
  and two performance reviews! Ain't I lucky?

  My US manager sandbagged me with my review. I woke this morning to a
  meeting request for my review at 21:00 JST. There was no warning and no
  notice.

  My history with these types of activities is complicated. I won't go
  into detail now. Suffice to say I find little value in these lazy "one
  size fits all" retail approach to HR. A good leader does not require
  such a complicated artificial construct, nor do truly empowered and
  well lead employees.

  Never the less, I'm shackled with this time consuming obligation. I
  need to take time and reflect on good old fashioned stoicism to get my
  head right. It would be great unwrapping myself from around my HR axle
  as well.

  First, it's important to remember at the moment my career path, goals,
  and objectives align with my employer. The alignment is temporary.

  Second, my employer's goals and objectives reflect what is right for
  the company. There is nothing requiring me to like or even agree with
  the goals and objectives. Gainful employment encourages my active
  engagement toward them, yet my gainful employment is not the object of
  my life.

  Third, the common theory of "you will get out of the process what you
  put in" is false. It is not true in physics, engineering, romance,
  cooking, finance, politics, small appliance repair, Pokemon Go, or much
  of anything in life.

  Fourth, these retail HR systems are more and more geared toward
  meaningless concepts and platitudes which fail to bolster any concept
  of anti-fragility or resilience. Anecdotally friends and peers shared
  ratios of three or more positive comments to every negative comment in
  reviews. Others shared "the bell curve" - in any team the manager plots
  the best and worst performers on a chart and scores everyone else
  somewhere in between because "you can't have a team of all above
  average or below average" members. Arbitrary artificial constructs like
  these try to pave over the world's variables (I've seen plenty of teams
  with no above average performers, typically in non-critical roles) plus
  fail to offer employees any tangible constructive feedback (i.e., "You
  were rated a 2 out of 5 because there are too many 3s and 4s on the
  team already.")

  Fifth, companies want some degree of fragility in their employees. They
  cannot rely on loyalty any more, especially in the US and other
  countries with at-will employment. Employee retention is usually a
  balancing act between enough training, team building, and encouragement
  to make employees feel empowered & add value while subtly keeping them
  just fragile enough to fear change.

  [1]Stoicism and Us | New Republic talks about these concepts in other
  contexts, such as the cancer diagnosis in the opening paragraph.

    What matters, in good times or bad, is not whether you have a job,
    an income, a family, or a home, but whether you have the inner
    strength to realize how little such things matter.

  This quote, Dear Friends, helps me unwrap my mental axle.

  [2]Stoicism is having a moment in the robot revolution | The Financial
  Times talks about a new book by Svend Brinkmann, [3]Stand Firm:
  Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze - Kindle edition by Svend Br….
  Full disclosure: I have not read the book yet. This article however
  talks about a few of the concerns I laid out above in the context of
  the current stoicism fad in Silicon Valley. This neo-stoicism smacks of
  exuberant exceptionalism without embracing the negative things in life.
  The side bar about this in relation to Ryan Holiday's writings (which I
  enjoy) intrigues me.

  This idea of embracing the negative leapt to my attention today when I
  read [4]Feeling bad about feeling bad can make you feel worse |
  Berkeley News. This study (full disclosure: I have not read it yet)
  seems to reinforce the concept of the negative things in our lives can
  make us better at living our lives.

  This long, rambling screed flowed fairly quickly. I feel better about
  my impending US performance review (and the soon-to-follow Japan
  review). I remain bearish toward the whole process, but at least I can
  get on with my day. And I hope to learn something more about dealing
  with things like this in the future.

  What do you think? Am I off-base? Do you agree? Have I missed the boat
  entirely? Add your tempered, well reasoned thoughts in the comments or
  on the social media.

  Date: 2017-08-15 Tue 11:54

  Author: Paul Jorgensen

  Created: 2017-08-15 Tue 13:55

  [5]Validate
  Also on:

  [6]Twitter
    __________________________________________________________________

  My original entry is here: [7]Axle Wrapped: Performance Review &
  Stoicism. It posted Tue, 15 Aug 2017 08:56:49 +0000.
  Filed under: business,

References

  Visible links
  1. https://newrepublic.com/article/73814/stoicism-and-us
  2. https://www.ft.com/stand-firm
  3. http://amzn.to/2i0c46H
  4. http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/10/emotionalacceptance/
  5. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer
  6. https://twitter.com/prjorgensen/status/897381628233871360
  7. https://www.prjorgensen.com/?p=683

  Hidden links:
  9. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6tBYWK/comments

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