I like to believe I am good at providing performance feedback but I didn't learn it from my past managers, I rarely if ever got an honest to goodness sitdown discussion.

In fact during one 5 year career period working for one manager I wrote my own reviews and he submitted them as I wrote them. Of course if he ever did want to give me feedback I would not have placed much value on his comments.

Although not always recognized as such, performance feedback is an important responsibility of those who manage the work of others. In the crush of activity that often seems overwhelming to the manager, it's easy to overlook the minor problems and infractions that occur and easier still to ignore the employees who seem to be doing a reasonable job while causing no problems.

It has been said that the Pareto Principle, the well-known "80/20 Rule," can be applied to problem employees and employee problems. It says that 20 percent of a group's employees are responsible for 80 percent of the problems. As a result, the troublesome 20 percent command most of the manager's attention and attract the most feedback on both performance and behavior, while the non-troublesome 80 percent chug along with no one paying much attention to them.

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