5 Things The Best Managers Do During Performance Reviews
I will never forget the time I received a cookie-cutter performance review. Sitting across from me was the District HR manager, who gave me a copy of my written review. My eyes followed each word carefully as she read the document aloud.
I was dumbfounded. Why did the review address my coworker in the feedback? I double-checked the top of the document to ensure it belonged to me. It did. I then realized that my manager literally gave me the same generic review as my coworker but forgot to replace the name “Tracy” with my name “Jesse” throughout the document.
At another company, I always received positive feedback. All performance reviews led to a promotion, salary increase, or approval to grow my team. Until one day, I was let go due to no longer being “a fit for the company.” I did not see that coming.
At my last job, before starting my own business, I mainly received positive, if not stellar, comments. To develop my career, I was told that I needed to “build an executive presence.” When asked how to do that, my manager didn’t have a clear answer of what I could do except that I needed “more time and experience.”
As you can see, from three different companies, I received three ineffective performance reviews that either discouraged me or left me confused. I know I’m not the only one who has felt this way.
After a decade of managing teams and facilitating training workshops on performance management, I’ve learned that there are five things that the best managers do when delivering performance reviews.
1. They focus on performance AND development.
The best managers add a future development component to the review instead of just focusing on past performance. In addition to highlighting the employee’s strengths and weaknesses, you can also talk about the skills the employee has developed and can develop.
Try this: After discussing the targets achieved and missed, end the performance review conversation by highlighting skills and competencies the employee developed from the various projects they’ve tackled throughout the year. In addition, coach the employee by asking them what skills and competencies they would like to build or enhance to be more effective in their career.
You can help capture the employee’s development goals on a Career Development Plan.
2. They advise the employee what to Stop, Start, and Continue.
Your company may have its format on how to fill out a performance review. If not, I believe the fairest and best way to structure your performance review is by sharing with the employee what you want them to stop doing, start doing, and continue doing. Highlighting what you want them to start and continue doing will help them see what success looks like.
For example, let’s say you have an employee who habitually shows up late to work but they excel at providing excellent service to clients when they’re in the office. You may want them to stop showing up 30 minutes late to work. So instead, you would ask them to start coming to work on time. And, you can encourage them to continue providing incredible service to the clients they serve.
Try this: To help frame your performance review, think of the conversation in three different steps:
What the employee should stop doing because it inhibits progress
What you want them to start doing instead to be more effective
What they’re already doing that you want them to continue doing because it has added value to the team
3. They’re specific about the behaviors they see and want to see.
Feedback should be observable and specify the behaviors and actions employees can follow to succeed. In my Delivering Feedback class, I focus on providing feedback based on behaviors and not judgments so that the employee is more receptive to hearing what you have to say.
For example, you may observe an employee who is 30 minutes late to work each day (behavior). Because this employee is tardy every week, you may think that they are lazy (judgment) or they don’t care about their job (judgment).
How would you feel if someone told you that you’re lazy and don’t care about your job? You’d probably be defensive and want to explain yourself, right? Most people will feel guarded and not attuned to the rest of the conversation.
Try this: To help employees be more receptive to feedback, change a judgment into a behavior by asking yourself, “What did this person do to make me think that they are [judgment word]?”
4. They help the employee see the impact.
When delivering feedback, one of the most critical items is to let the employee know how their behavior has impacted the job, team, company, etc. People are more engaged and productive when they understand how they add value and why they’re important to the team. Once they know how their behavior has influenced outcomes (whether positive or negative), they will understand what behavior they need to change or continue.
For example, let’s say you tell your employee, “When you don’t submit your portion of the project on time, it slows down the product launch because the marketing team has to wait for your deliverables before they can create the marketing materials.” The impact of the employee’s behavior is that it slowed down the product launch. The employee now knows that in order to not slow down the product launch, they need to not submit the project late.
Try this: To determine the impact of an employee’s actions, ask yourself, “Why is it important that the employee does X? How does doing X directly or indirectly impact the individual, team, or company?
5. They invite the employee to create the solution.
If you ever feel like you don’t know what to do to help the employee develop, then simply ask them. Or, if you have an idea of how to help the employee develop, let the employee share their idea first.
People support what they help to create. A byproduct of allowing the employee to come up with the solution is that they will hold themselves accountable to achieve it.
Try this: Ask the employee, “What do you think you can do to have a more favorable outcome next time?” Once the employee shares their solution, you can also provide your support by asking, “What can I do to help you in your development?”
Not only do the most effective managers use these five techniques during performance reviews, but they also use them all year round because feedback is an ongoing process, not a once-a-year event. During the performance review discussion, there should not be any surprises, and employees should generally know what you will say about their performance.
To learn more about what you can do to help make every performance review simpler, check out my blog on How to Make Every Performance Review Simpler.
Happy Performance Review Season!
Jesse
4 Tips to Write a Promotion-Worthy Self-Review
TL;DR:
To write an impressive self-review, share your accomplishments and areas of opportunity in a story sequence that highlights the specific actions you took, the results you achieved, the impact you had on the organization, and the skills you developed throughout the process.
Use this Self-Review Template to help you write your self-review.
I like to see the self-review as a free pass to professionally brag about the contributions you made to the company and how you added value to the business. This is not a time to be modest about all the sweat and tears you put into your work, instead, it should be an opportunity to proudly share the incredible results you produced. I mean, who else is going to vouch for you besides your mom?
While you’re writing about your accomplishments, you’ll also need to be honest about 2-3 areas for continuous learning and improvement. You can discuss projects where you fell short or emphasize skills you’d like to develop to produce more favorable results for your organization.
In this blog, I’ll share with you four actions you can take to make your self-review more impressive. To supplement the reading, I’ve also created a template you can use to jumpstart your process, including where to gather all the data for your self-review.
1. Tell a series of short stories.
I've had the chance to review hundreds of self-reviews in my experience, and unfortunately, too many do not do the employee justice. The most ineffective reviews are the ones that only share a list of accomplishments. Even if you share a remarkable set of achievements, the longer the list does not necessarily mean the more valuable the employee.
Look at the goals you set forth for this past review cycle, and tell a series of 3-5 short stories that spotlight your significant achievements or areas of opportunity connected to the business goals and objectives. Writing in a story format is a great way to show your perspective on the rigorous process it took to achieve your goals--this helps remind your manager of your effort and contributions that they may otherwise have forgotten. You should be able to paraphrase your value to your manager within 4-7 sentences for each story.
For each accomplishment, share the problem or project you had to overcome, the actions you took to resolve it, the results you've achieved, and the impact you made for everyone around you. Focus on the value you add to the company.
For each area of opportunity, share the area you’d like to improve, actions you plan to take to produce more favorable results, why it’s important to develop this skill, and any lessons learned throughout the process. Focus on your growth and development and how you will continue to add value in the future.
2. Highlight your growth via skills you developed.
Most skills are transferable. When you emphasize a skill you developed, you illustrate your growth potential, making it easier for your manager to consider you for future projects or roles that require those transferable skills. Whereas if you only mention projects you've completed, there may not be another time you’ll work on that project again (but there will be plenty of opportunities when you’ll use the skills you developed in that project). In other words, the project lifecycle ends when you've completed it, but the skills lifecycle carries on to future projects.
Note: When your manager and HR are considering you for a promotion or raise, they’re measuring the skills you possess in addition to the projects you’ve completed.
Ask yourself: “What am I able to do today that I wasn’t able to do last year? How have my interpersonal, technical, business or functional skills improved?’ or ‘What skills would I like to improve?’
Example: This year I excelled in my project management skills while working on the Netsuite integration.
3. Provide specific, actionable examples.
With any story, supporting facts are needed to paint a picture and help the reader understand the information. In your self-review, you want to provide examples of specific actions you took to help reach your accomplishment, or things you can do differently to obtain a better result.
Ask yourself: ‘What observable actions did I take to help me achieve my goal?’ or ‘What can I do moving forward to produce more favorable results?’
Example: I was able to help our company meet the July 1st go-live date by ensuring all parties did their share of the project. Anytime we were running behind schedule, I called, emailed, or pinged stakeholders to remind them of the deadlines and their role in the overall success of the project. I also facilitated check-in meetings to update everyone on the project status and obtained feedback to better the process.
4. Show your impact.
This is your chance to illustrate that you are an asset. Think about the impact your contributions have made or will make on the team, department or company, and use quantifiable facts with supporting qualitative evidence to portray your value.
Ask yourself: “How did I make the experience for my colleagues or customers more positive? Did I support company growth, increase revenue or help acquire more customers? Did I reduce expenses, save time or make the process more efficient for those around me?’ or ‘How will I be able to add value in the future?’
Example: With the successful, timely implementation of Netsuite, we are able to increase our data integrity with a better system and workflow for everyone involved, and no longer will have to cross-reference multiple spreadsheets for the most accurate data (which is very time-consuming and frustrating for the team). We also helped the company save a projected $50,000 in additional consultation fees. These savings will allow us to redirect our focus on the technical training essential to helping us build out our video strategy next year.
Ready to try it out?
For those of you who just received a reminder email from HR to complete your self-review pronto, I’ve created a couple of templates to help you get started.
Examples of Weak and Strong Self-Reviews - I find it can be helpful when you see a comparison of what good and bad look like.
Self-Review Template - I sometimes get writer's block so find it helpful to write down my thoughts when specific questions are asked to me. When you’re ready to write your review, use this template to guide you through a step-by-step self-review process.
Good luck! For more support, contact us at hello@feedlearning.com.
Happy learning!
Jesse
Founder, Feed Learning