Oh yes! It's time to start the year and look forward to performance appraisals. Trouble is, most managers loath giving them and most employees hate getting them. They feel it is an opportunity for managers to tell them what they are doing wrong.

What a conundrum - needed but not liked. Perhaps it's time to try a different approach. The purpose of a performance appraisal is to help people achieve their goals. So lets look at this from a different perspective:

• What if you were to ask the individual what goals he/she would want to achieve in order to assist with the developmental goals?
• Ask the individual to set his/her timeline to reach the milestones to get to these goals?
• Ask how you could help in accomplishing their goals?
• Ask how you could praise him/her once the goal has been accomplished?

When you're sitting together, you now have the chance to be a team - each contributing to the success of the organization.

When was the last time you said these two little words? They aren't rocket science; they're just good manners.

In this day and age, sometimes we forget the little niceties that make the work place a nicer place to spend our 8 hours.

Try it! - Thank you for holding the door, thank you for completing the report on time, thank you for your innovative idea on.... It just might brighten your day - I know it will brighten the day of the person who hears it.

"It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret."