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This chapter is excerpted from ‘Conversations About Job Performance: A Communication Perspective on the Appraisal Process'. Researchers and practitioners have devoted substantial time and effort over many years to develop satisfactory performance appraisal systems that impart useful information to employees about their job performance. Nonetheless, problems continue to arise, principally because managers often find it difficult to provide feedback on performance to their employees. We offer a Communication-Centered Approach (CCA) to performance appraisal that is focused on its most challenging part, viz, the appraisal interview. The CCA is intended to facilitate this discussion between managers and their employees by addressing the communication issues involved in preparing for, conducting, and reporting the results of a conversation about job performance. The CCA is useful because, despite the continuing evolution of performance appraisal, a conversation about the employee’s performance is still a very important component of the latest systems. Also, focusing on communication offers a valuable perspective on all aspects of performance appraisal: defining performance and its various facets; how performance information is given and perceived; and the interactional context that affects the meaning of feedback. The CCA, in other words, offers ideas pertinent to the pre interview, interview, and post interview phases of the performance appraisal process that make discussions of employee performance more effective. Importantly, the communication literature that is the basis for each of these ideas is described and illustrations are offered of how the conceptual foundation may be translated into practice. Samples of materials consistent with the CCA that were developed at a renowned research and development laboratory are woven into the presentation.