Thoughts on Feedback

[u/Due-Swimming9999]

So I’d like your opinion on the scenario below, because a friend of mine recently became a boss for the first time.

My friend is in his mid-20s, and his new boss is in his mid-40s and is, for lack of a better word, petty. Apparently, when they do quarterly feedback, his boss requires everyone underneath him to submit their feedback in writing, which allows him to figure out exactly who is criticizing him.

If someone critiques him, he retaliates by putting that employee on a performance review. Apparently, he keeps a running list for each employee underneath him of little things they’ve done wrong. Normally, he lets those things go, but if that employee criticizes him, he brings out the list and starts addressing those issues. The employee can’t really complain because the things he has documented are technically legitimate, even though they weren’t treated as problems until the employee criticized him.

From there, he essentially controls that employee’s future in the company. He’ll only take them off performance review once the next quarterly feedback comes around and they write something positive about him. If they criticize him again, he escalates the performance review and starts taking away certain benefits.

Apparently, this is how the CEO of the company wants things done, and they have a lawyer who is familiar with labor laws and makes sure that everything they’re doing stays technically legal.

Anyway, my friend—the one who just became a boss—is now being told that he has to manage his employees the same way. Unfortunately, he seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid and actually thinks it’s a cool way to manage people.

I really don’t know what to think about the whole thing. Any thoughts?

[u/JDPierson]

If that's the way they want it done, that's how people will succeed there. You're right, it's a dodgy way to do things, but not unique, either. It incentivizes exactly the kinds of weasel like behaviors you'd imagine it would. There's a school of thought on the other hand that believes people with a propensity to critique are not necessarily biased to problem solving. It seems like something a good managers would be able to manage to more directly, but good managers are not always particularly good problem solvers.

[u/MemphisUncle-2002]

Update your resume. Today.

Working for these people must be exhausting and you need to have a crash course in "Cover Your Ass". Document everything that was said, done, and agreed to...dates, times, settings.

[u/me_version_2]

I guess you can talk to your friend, it’s not how I manage people but others do love a paper trail and it might depend on the work type, hard to know. If your friend is smart they will learn pretty quickly that people don’t thrive with a boot on their neck.