Following this most recent cycle of performance evaluations and conversations, my supervisor and I were discussing why they are such an unpleasant experience. At best, performance evaluations are uncomfortable. At worst, they can be demoralizing and painful. And yet, we also know that regular conversations about performance are integral to developing a culture of learning.

Of course, there’s a difference between discussing your performance at least once a month with a trusted advisor (reflecting on what’s been going well, what you’ve learned, etc.), and annual performance evaluations. While the former should be challenging (metacognition is itself a skill we must train), the latter has a narrative (rightly earned) around it that they are impossible to walk away from with anything meaningful. I regularly hear that people have been told “no one gets 4’s or 5’s” and that being a high achiever is the supervisor’s “meets expectations” standard. This is to say nothing of the many biases that compromise scores, even when controlled with a calibration tool.

As my supervisor and I were rehashing these points, he noted, “For many folks, it often feels like they’re giving something up during the performance evaluation process.” To which I replied, “At its core, this sense of loss likely stems from the feeling of giving up on having one of our needs met.”

That feeling of loss could be many things, including our sense of autonomy or control over our career, or our perspective on a series of events. What’s worse, not only do we feel like we’re giving up having one of our needs met, we also actually give up on an opportunity to agree on a different way to meet that need. When both people involved focus on competing to control the narrative and protect their own needs, collaboration is no longer an option.

So, what does any of this have to do with the role of mentoring and employee engagement? Quite a bit, actually.

Like most workers, this January, I too had a performance evaluation. And yes, I did cry. Our later, post-eval discussion began with me sharing some initial reflections on what I took away from the conversation. I would argue that this second conversation was itself pretty normal, if not banal. And the moment it shifted, it became a “mentor moment.”

Mentor moments can happen between anyone, at any time. You don’t have to be someone’s supervisor to experience a mentor moment, and you may find yourself having as many mentor moments where you’re the mentor as you are the mentee. What makes mentor moments special is that they aren’t scripted and are instead an authentic bid for connection focused on storytelling and collaborative deep thinking.

The high pressure and often higher stakes of performance evaluations don’t often leave space for the organic fluidity of mentor moments, which causes us to miss out on an opportunity to think together. In more ways than one, mentor moments and performance evaluations are the antithesis of one another. Whereas mentor moments are an invitation to share a story, performance evaluations are the imposition of a narrative on a person.

As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds us in her TEDTalk, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” Even the most skillfully conducted performance evaluation cannot control for this outcome.

The difference is best seen in the following breakdown:

As learning and development (L&D) professionals, we regularly seek out multiple stories in order to make the best programming for the people we serve. Plus, we know performance evaluations aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. They’re constantly in their own state of workshop it seems, hopefully for the better. And maybe we can help.

I encourage us all to re-imagine performance evaluations as an opportunity to have a mentor moment, and to be open to the ways this may change your organization’s performance process. We know what is needed to foster employee engagement: transparency, accountability, autonomy and support through training and adequate resources. Now is the time to re-imagine the infrastructure that thwarts our ability to sustain that engagement, together.