A bungled interview consequently could mean disaster. Counselling interviews should not be conducted by amateurs

The client usually is emotionally distraught and often has turned to the counsellor as a last resort. A bungled interview consequently could mean disaster. Counselling interviews should not be conducted by amateurs: only after thorough training should one engage in this type of interview.

The Appraisal interview

In some ways the appraisal interview is the antithesis of the counselling form. While in counselling interviews valuation of the client usually is avoided, the entire functibn 'of the appraisal interview is to evaluate the individual's job performance. Davis points out that

management profits from appraisal interviews because they give ma.nagement the opportunity to allocate resources within the organization, reward employees, provide employees with feedback, and maintain fair integroup relations. Labour alo desires this type of communication; research by Howard and Berkowitz and Stolz and Tannenbaum demonstrates that while people prefer positive feedback, and while negative feedback creates anxiety, workers still prefer negative feedback to no feedback at all. These findings also illustrate the paradox attendant on the appraisal interview: the employee desires feedback concerning performance but is anxious about that feedback and likely to behave defensively when it is given. In the appraisal interview, then, the interviewer must provide feedback concerning the interview's performance while making the situation as non-threatening as possible.

Given the difficulty involved in conducting an appraisal interview, it is hardly starting to discover that such interviews often are mishandled in modern organizations. Lahiff reports that appraisal interviewers often tend to dwell upon the individual's negative characteristics-a highly destructive approach. Kay, Meyer, and French found that the more weaknesses the

manager mentioned during the interview, the poorer the

worker's performance became and the lower he rated the company's appraisal system. In part this tendency to focus on negative characteristics seems to stem from a general lack of daily feedback. Rather than pass problems along as

they occur, managers often store them up over a period of time and then unload the entire list during the appraisal. A day-to-day system of feedback would serve to minimize this sort of occurrence and thus avoid some of the tensions of the appraisal situation.A second misuse of the appraisal interview, Davis reports, is the manager's tendency to "sell" the employee on his need for improvement. This tendency ignores the fundamental differences between appraisal and sales interviews. In the latter, the buyer has the security of knowing that he ultimately will make the final decision, so he feels free to express his true feelings and has the power to say no. The individual being appraised has none of these benefits; the interviewer possesses the power, controls the situation, and has the ability to make final decisions.