BOOK REVIEW: Maybe Following the Crowd Isn’t All that Bad

Books like Performance Appraisal Phrase Book abound to help managers capture the best words that describe an employee’s organizational contributions and personal challenges. With all these available resources, then, why do so many supervisors tell me that the employee performance review is the document they most dread writing?

Eric Mosley’s The Crowd Sourced Performance Review has a reasonable answer to that question and an innovative solution to the problem. It’s not so much that writing the performance review is hard because of its linguistic biases, generalities, inaccuracies, limitations, and redundancies. In fact, those major annoyances are the symptoms, not the cause, of the problem with traditional performance reviews. At its heart, insists Mosley, the evaluation system itself makes little sense.

Lessons learned from social media suggest that there’s a better way. While tweeting protesters during the Arab Spring of 2011 and uprising in Turkey of 2013 make the most headlines, multinational corporations and smaller businesses alike have long used social networking platforms to get out their brand to the world. The consensus is that through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like, companies can tap into the wisdom of crowds and increase their brand recognition, bottom line, and community goodwill.

Mosley reports that some companies have begun to see the value of internal social networking in their performance reviews. By “crowdsourcing,” management can get insights from an employee’s colleagues, thereby eliminating the single source of opinion, the employee’s manager, which has been at the heart of the traditional system since its inception. A diversity of opinion and a greater range of assessment areas should result in a more accurate, comprehensive, and worthwhile employee review.

The author painstakingly covers the undeniable flaws of the traditional review system through numerous examples from the corporate world. He also shows how crowdsourcing currently works and how it can be folded into any organization serious about its employee development program. Skeptics may claim that crowdsourcing might amount to nothing more than a popularity contest, but The Crowd Sourced Performance Review recommends several safeguards against that scenario and concludes quite practically that crowdsourcing  be used in tandem with the traditional system.

With the technology available for providing key insights in revolutionizing a long-broken evaluation system, crowdsourcing is positively worth serious consideration. This book lays out a clear blueprint to get started.

Struggling with Words, Part 4: Regardless or Irregardless?

[This is the fourth in a series of posts on commonly confused words.]

The words regardless and irrespective are synonyms. Perhaps a respected speaker once mixed up the two words by coining irregardless, and the double-negative misuse stuck for some. Prefer regardless or irrespective, and avoid irregardless.

Struggling with Words, Part 3: e.g. or i.e.?

[This is the third in a series of posts on commonly confused words.]

Most writers get e.g. right, but many get i.e. wrong. Here's the difference. The term e.g., an abbreviation of the Latin expression exempli gratia, means for example; the term i.e., also an abbreviation, of the Latin id est, means that is. Another way to get these terms right is to remember e.g. as example given and i.e. as in essence. 

Here are some examples:

• Allison can recite in order all the United States presidents (e.g., Washington, Lincoln, Obama). If I had written i.e., then I would have to mention all 44 US presidents.
• The most populated cities in China (e.g., Shanghai, Beijing) are trying to alleviate pollution. If I had written i.e., then I would have mentioned Tianjin and Guangzhou, which are also more populated than New York, the most populated US city. 
• Tonight Benjamin will see his wife (i.e., Carol). If I had written e.g., then Benjamin is a polygamist.
• In session are the justices of the Supreme Court (i.e., Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan). If I had written e.g., then I would not have had to mention all the justices.

Some teachers suggest that we avoid using e.g. and i.e. because they come from a so-called "dead language" and instead write out for example and that is. I'm not buying it. Attorneys, doctors, and lawyers still liberally use Latin terms, so let's get these terms right. 

Struggling with Words, Part 2: Principal or Principle?

[This is the second in a series of posts on commonly confused words.]

Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that an elementary school teacher taught someone, "You can tell the difference between principal and principle since the principal is your pal."

Not a very helpful tip because when I saw what was due on my first home mortgage statement, I said, "That amount is not my pal." But a capital sum placed at interest is also principal, and so is a chief, or principal, reason for doing something.

So while the following tip might not be as cute as the elementary school teacher's, it is certainly more helpful: principal means chief. Examples:

• The principal (chief of the school) dismissed the students.
• The principals (chiefs of the company) decided to issue an IPO of their company stock.
• The principal (chief) function of the manual is to guide you in using the software program.
• The principal (chief part) of the loan is $400,000.

Then what is principle? A fundamental belief or rule. Examples:

• The right to vote is a principle of democracy.
• She will not compromise her principles. 

So here's a principal principle about error-free writing: when in doubt, look it up.

Struggling with Words, Part 1: Flammable or Inflammable?

[This is the first in a series of posts on commonly confused words.]

Arguments about the meaning of words pop up all over the place. Let's rely on standard dictionaries to resolve these disputes, starting with flammable/inflammable.

The online Oxford Dictionary says: 

The words inflammable and flammable both have the same meaning, ‘easily set on fire’. This might seem surprising, given that the prefix in- normally has a negative meaning (as in indirect or insufficient), and so it might be expected that inflammable would mean the opposite of flammable.

Dictionary.com also considers the words to be synonymous. It notes that while inflammable is older than flammable by about two centuries, flammable now is used more technically, again to avoid confusion with the negative prefix, while inflammable is used in nontechnical or figurative contexts.

Bottom line: Go with the word that minimizes confusion: flammable.

Cool Off, Will Ya?: Using Email to Express, Not to Depress

A conversation I had today with a high-ranking executive of a major New York corporation reminded me of a tip that I wrote in my book The Art of E-Mail Writing:

Consider whether e-mail is the best way to reply. ... Think about whether a phone call or a walk down the hall to your targeted audience would be more practical.

The executive said, "I try to get my staff not to hide behind email. It's easy for them to fire off at people when they don't have to face them. But when they do see them face to face, they're forced to find a more respectful way to communicate."

Several executives have expressed to me the same concern: too often their employees inappropriately use email as a means of attack or retaliation. Remember that email is a tool for communicating information, no different from a memo, letter, or report. It is also a powerful means of building or destroying relationships, so use it for its positive ends. 

Writing through Tragedy

Photos by Philip Vassallo

Six months after Hurricane Sandy devastated so much in its path from the Greater Antilles to the United States northeastern seaboard, I visited Long Beach Island, New Jersey, which was especially hard hit by the superstorm. These images of Holgate, the southernmost town on the island, hardly begin to tell the story of the havoc wreaked by a Category 3 storm with 115 mile-per-hour winds traveling across countries and 1,100 miles and causing sea surges as high as 32 feet. The death toll of 285 and assessed damages of $75 billion are likely underestimates considering the population density and property values in the affected region.

Reflecting on this tragedy reminds me of the healing power of writing. I go into some length about this point in the final chapter of my book How to Write Fast Under Pressure, relying on the wisdom of Matthew J. Loscalzo, the Executive Director of Supportive Care Medicine for City of Hope in Duarte, California, and a leading authority on pain management and palliative care. Loscalzo does not believe that time heals. “Sometimes, grief can never be lessened,” he says.

The key to dealing with grief, says Loscalzo, is getting the executive function of the brain active. The executive function is the part of the brain that controls emotions, organizes issues, and solves problems. “Get back into your routine within a week,” Loscalzo suggests. “When you are confronted by another human being, you are impacted by them. It is inherently therapeutic. It gets you out of yourself to be helpful.”

Experience tells me writing can tap into the executive function of the brain. “Writing is a way of fueling the executive function,” Loscalzo concludes.

I have found writing helpful to me in dealing with the loss of many loved ones, including my parents. Writing has also enabled me to manage my emotions over disasters that have struck close to home, such as the September 11 terrorists attacks. So writing can serve as a positive force not only in moments of anger as well as despair. If for no other reason than to tap into unproductive, negative, or paralyzing emotions, try writing.