As an engineer, navigating a performance review can often feel daunting due to its opacity and subjectivity. Understanding how to set goals and how you are being evaluated is a crucial skill for long-term career growth.
I recently finished ‘People Whose Salaries Rise Even When Missing Goals’ (目標未達でも給料が上がる人). While the title is provocative, the book offers a cold, realistic look at the mechanics of corporate evaluations. In short: the strategic goal-setting in the first half is quite insightful, but the political tactics suggested later are difficult to reconcile with a professional moral code.
Understanding the Evaluation Specs (Ch 4 & 5)
The most valuable takeaway from this book is how it defines evaluation not as a feeling of ‘hard work’ but as a calculated combination of specific factors.
The Evaluation Equation and Importance of Difficulty
The author presents the following equation for performance reviews:
Evaluation = Goal Difficulty × Goal Achievement
Achievement (the actual results) is hard to change after the fact, but Difficulty can be adjusted through careful planning at the beginning of the cycle.
By setting goals that appear “challenging” to others compared to your actual skill level, you can maximize the “difficulty” weight. This serves as a practical safeguard: if a goal is too easy, your evaluation won’t be high even with full achievement; if it’s too ambitious, you risk a catastrophic failure to deliver.
Reverse SMART and Keyword Strategy
The book criticizes the commonly taught ‘SMART criteria’ (Specific, Measurable, etc.) for potentially pinning down employees too strictly, leaving no room for adjustment as projects evolve.
Instead, the author proposes ‘Reverse SMART’—keeping goals abstract enough to allow for re-interpretation when unexpected changes occur. Using corporate buzzwords that leadership gravitates toward is key here:
- Terms like ‘Focus and Selection,’ ‘Differentiation,’ or ‘Competitive Advantage.’
- The ‘K-Word’ rule (in Japanese context): terms like Strengthening, Establishment, Contribution, and Update.
Strategically using these words can elevate the perceived importance of your projects in the eyes of management.
Negotiation During Review Meetings
A key takeaway is viewing the performance review meeting not as a trial but as an opportunity to ‘educate’ your boss on why you deserve a high rating.
This requires preparation: understanding your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and simulating potential questions. By asking, ‘What is required to achieve a higher evaluation?’ you shift the conversation into a logical, constructive negotiation rather than an emotional defense.
The Dark Side of Corporate Politics
However, the ‘survival tactics’ described in the latter half of the book were deeply unsettling.
The suggestion of ‘scapegoating’—directing a manager’s frustration away from yourself and onto a colleague—is ethically questionable at best. While the author frames it as a necessary survival mechanism, such tactics destroy the trust essential for a healthy team and can ultimately damage your reputation in the long run.
Conclusion: Strategic Wisdom with a Moral Filter
Why do these subjective systems persist? The author suggests that for management, the review process is a ritual to exercise and feel their power. This cynical analysis helps to demystify the absurdities often found in large organizations.
While the book provides powerful tools for self-protection and negotiation (specifically Chapters 4 and 5), following its advice on workplace politics could lead to a loss of personal integrity. The best approach is to adopt the strategic goal-setting techniques while discarding the toxic behaviors, using the latter only as a warning of the darker side of organizational dynamics.
