Here is an excerpt from an article written by Mona Patel for Harvard Business Review and the HBR Blog Network. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, obtain subscription information, and receive HBR email alerts, please click here.

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There’s growing evidence that conventional performance reviews are not working. According to a CEB analysis, organizations can only improve employee performance 3% to 5% using standard performance management approaches. Last fall, 53% of human resources professionals in a Society for Human Resource Management study gave a grade between B to C+ when rating how their organization managed performance reviews. Only 2% gave an A to their organization. As a result of findings like these, some companies are doing away with annual performance reviews altogether.

As my company grew, I started seeing the issues with conventional reviews firsthand. Most performance management systems are simply too cumbersome and formal for today’s startup world. Plus, the time reviews require is itself a huge barrier to doing them well. For me, spending one hour with 30 people each quarter, one-on-one, plus all the preparation and documentation required, didn’t seem scalable. And since our employees received immediate feedback on performance issues, I found there wasn’t a lot of new information to share at these check-ins.

When I unraveled these factors, what we now call our “Tough Love Reviews” emerged. A Tough Love Review is simply a 10-minute, one-on-one conversation with each employee to talk through the one thing he is doing exceptionally well and the one thing that he needs to improve to reach that next level. The result is a meaningful conversation that gives employees a choice in how the conversation unfolds, and results in two key takeaways that are memorable and actionable.

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Mona then explains in great deal how to schedule, plan, conduct, and evaluate a 10-minute “Tough Love” performance review. Yes, I was very skeptical…until I read her article.

Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Mona Patel is Founder and CEO at Motivate Design and UX Hires. She is the author of Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think. She is also a member of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC).