No doubt you’ve had the experience at some point of having a sit-down with a superior, a boss or a teacher, who told you how well or poorly you were doing-a performance appraisal. A performance appraisal is a single event, as we discuss later in this section. Performance management, by contrast, is a powerful ongoing activity that has produced such spectacular results as 40% higher employee commitment, 50% less turnover, 10%-30% higher customer satisfaction-and double a firm’s net profits.