We often talk around the heart of our business ethos relating to how we wish to encourage organisations to focus on the meaningful conversation between employee and their line manager at performance appraisal time or as the culmination of a 360 feedback process.

A good read is 'Authentic Conversations' by Jamie Showkier and Maren Showkier which feeds much into this ethos and offers a way for organisations to change culture through conversation.

Many things stand out as great pointers to how this might come about; the adoption of a mindset which recognises the freedom of choice in others, the intention to move from manipulation to engagement, and how conversations should move away from trying to get compliance and towards committment or engagement.

Performance management is the primary vehicle of communication between a line manager and their team and can drive this engagement; each conversation can build comittment or try to reinforce compliance in others.

With the right intention the right techniques can do wonders; conducting a well structured performance appraisal is a good start but it has to be coupled with a sincere desire to treat people as adults who make a choice to offer their committment.

John