I often think of the “performance management” regime at most companies as a kind of social engineering designed to have us forget our tremendous power. It’s too

I often think of the “performance management” regime at most companies as a kind of social engineering designed to have us forget our tremendous power. It’s too focused on the employee and what the employee needs to change, not on the employee-employer relationship, where both sides have value. Usually it’s couched in terms of arbitrarily assigned levels/titles with status and exclusivity assigned to them. Or certain kinds of work from the employee favored over others. If you read the book Influence, you’ll recognize things like social proof and scarcity that can be used to manipulate us. It _isolates us_ in our negotiating position with the organization. We have no idea, really, if we compare favorably or not to our peers. Hearing criticism without understanding how our contribution compares to others, how our _compensation_ compares to others puts us in an unfair negotiating position. But at the end of the day, you don’t have to buy into that regime. If you’re competent, you can just vote with your feet and you will get another job. The trick is to frequently exercise your power away from your employer. Write the occasional blog article, speak at a conference, or contribute to open source. You can use these as external signals to make your own decisions about your performance, and also get signal from the community about the marketability of your skills. This can come fairly directly in the form of hiring interest from other companies based on your activities. In short, don’t wrap all your career options in your job. Keep a toe outside the company and always test those waters in case your situation at your job goes unfavorably.