“Also, in the next few months, it might be good for you to get involved in an orga-nization like Toastmasters, so you’re more comfortable speaking before a group. I know you’re going to be called on to speak again. Let’s make it a priority for you to improve this aspect of your job. This is training the company will pay for.
“And once again, great job on the research. That was really impressive.”
This action plan includes follow-up, which is necessary to check for progress. If the employee is able to demonstrate mastery of the things you’ve asked for, that’s a skill upgrade that should be noted in the next review.
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Do the best you can to sandwich bad news between a couple of things you can com-pliment; hearing something positive makes it easier for the listener to absorb the cri-tique. Don’t go overboard on the good stuff, though, just because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. The point of feedback is improvement.
Applaud mistakes. Those who enjoy nothing but success may not be learning any-thing, but a person who is making mistakes is moving out of his comfort zone and trying to grow. In time, a person who works his way out from under a mistake may be far more valuable to the company than one who never colors outside the lines.
Immediate, specific feedback helps pinpoint trouble spots, but it reinforces good habits as well. “Jenny, I liked the way you approached that customer who was looking for the Atomic Roboman 4000. I noticed that you didn’t just point and tell her it was on Aisle 3; you walked her down to the electronic toy section and showed her exactly where to find it. You were friendly and helpful. Great customer service!”
That kind of detailed feedback lets Jenny know exactly what behavior her boss values. Chances are she’ll con-tinue delivering exceptional service to other customers.
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“You just can’t keep quiet, can you? Did it ever occur to you there are times when it’s not appropriate to run your mouth?”
When reviewing perfor-mance, stay away from phrases such as “You always …”
or “You never ….” Sweeping gen-eralizations are usually inaccu-rate. Describe only the instances of behavior you’ve witnessed and how often you’ve observed them.
Don’t Do It!
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That’s feedback all right, but it’s a cold, vindictive, personal attack, and that’s not good. Zero in on what she did, not who she is, and tie her behavior to self-interest.
“Stella, I noticed that you were passing notes and giggling during the president’s presentation. That was inappropriate. People who are speaking, and especially the president of this company, deserve our full attention. I hope that in the future you’ll be more courteous because it reflects badly not only on you, but also on the whole department. I’ll need to see you showing more maturity before I can recommend you for promotion.”
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Feedback takes advantage of what educators call the teachable moment: that is, a time when someone is primed to learn from an experience, either good or bad. It’s an opportunity to explore why something occurred and to figure out how to replicate it or prevent it from happening again.
The teachable moment may be a time of great growth and change—an “aha”
experience—and if you miss teachable moments by relegating your observations to a formal once-a-year or even once-a-quarter evaluation session, you may rob your team of opportunities to develop and mature.
Assistance and feedback must be continually available if you want to see measurable growth, not just at appraisal time, but day by day, week by week, and month by month.
If your company still does annual reviews, frequent feedback makes them far less stressful because they are, in fact, actual reviews of what employees already know about their strengths and weaknesses. What they hear is not a surprise because you’ve been guiding them toward better performance every day. They’ll never feel that you’ve sandbagged or ambushed them.
The teachable moment is the time when the learner is most responsive to understanding something new.
If you have scheduled a performance review with an employee, don’t cancel or delay it. Employees, especially those whose review is linked to compensation, want to have their reviews on time so they can plan for their financial futures. It’s not fair to keep them on edge by delaying the review. In addition, not holding the meetings tells employees that they aren’t a priority in your organization.
Words to the Wise
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Because the tension of the review is relieved, you and your employee are far more able to concentrate on the company’s plans for the period before the next evaluation, whether that’s three, six, or twelve months from now.
You can spend the review time building greater rap-port and communication with your staff member, clarifying her strengths as well as areas that need some attention, and charting personal development goals that are linked to department objectives.
While a standard-brand performance appraisal may demotivate, employees who spend quality time with a supervisor often say that those exchanges are among the most motivating aspects of their jobs. And since intrinsic motivation fuels performance, that’s what you need to strive for.
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The most helpful thing you can do to ensure that you respond adequately to your review is to prepare for it. If there hasn’t been enough feedback between you and your supervisor (and in many places there isn’t), you need to be ready to demonstrate what you’ve done that’s been good for the company.
Because many reviews are tied to compensation, if you want more than the standard cost-of-living adjustment, you need to have examples of why you’re worth it. Far in advance of your review, and in fact, almost from your first day on the job, you should be keeping a log of achievements that are above and beyond what’s on your job description. You’re not asking for a raise per se, but you’re setting the stage by explaining how your activities have benefited the company.
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There are always a few bad apples in every barrel, but most employees work hard and try to advance the company’s goals. They show up for work on time, spend little time gossiping, and rarely abuse company policies. They have a sincere interest in learning, growing, and succeeding. For these people, a negative review can be dev-astating, and often a bad review is as much a function of poor management as it is a Intrinsic motivation arises from
within people themselves. They work for the joy of work because the tasks are meaningful to them, both vocationally and emotion-ally. It is the opposite of extrinsic motivation, which occurs when people work for an external reward such as a paycheck or a promotion.
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reflection on the employee’s own efforts. The main reason a review can become contentious is because there’s a significant divergence between the employee’s assessment of his work and the reviewer’s perspective on it. That difference of opinion may come about because the employee doesn’t know precisely what management wants.
Goals may be ill-conceived, change may be too rapid, or communication may be vir-tually nonexistent. When employees are unclear about what their supervisors expect, they may miss critical deadlines, do slipshod work, or not understand when a project is headed for disaster. At review time, they end up taking the fall for what are essen-tially management errors.
Years ago, I heard a tape of singer Don McLean performing a song called “Babylon”
in concert. After I’d listened to it several times, I realized it was one of the best exam-ples of coaching and feedback I’d ever heard.
It’s an audience participation song; McLean began by playing the song a couple of times so the audience could learn the tune. Then he led the audience in singing the song. At that point, he described the meaning of the song and the group sang it again.
Only then did he say that he was going to divide them into three groups and have them sing the song as a round. McLean sang with the first group as they began the round; while they continued, he brought in the second group, singing the beginning of the song with them so they knew when to start. He repeated that action with the third group. And then he told them to “just keep singing.”
After a few more repetitions, he stopped singing entirely, but he played loudly enough and with a heavy enough beat that it was almost impossible for the audience to get lost. They never sang without his participation in one way or another, but he stopped overtly leading them.
Toward the end of the song, he indicated that one group was to stop singing, then the next, and finally the third.
In this experience, McLean demonstrated exactly what a great manager should do.
He set clear expectations, shared the goals, taught the steps, gave a progressively greater challenge, kept the team on track, and, with the instrumentation, let the
“employees” know how they were doing while they were in the midst of performing.
By the volume of the applause, it was easy to see that the audience thought the song had gone well. The constant feedback had made success possible. It will do it for you and your team, too.
The purpose of a review is to improve performance, not to find scapegoats for minuscule failures.
Talking Points
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A smart reviewer will concentrate on only one or two areas that need improvement.
She won’t harangue you for an hour with every nit-picky thing you’ve done wrong for the last year. Even if the supervisor sticks to big issues, though, it’s hard to hear nega-tive things about your performance and you may be tempted to respond angrily. That won’t help the process.
When your review is going badly, here are some things to remember:
U Do stay cool. A review is about how you perform your job; it’s not about you personally.
U Do be honest with yourself. Step away from your feeling of being judged and ask yourself if there’s a grain of truth in what you’re hearing about your perfor-mance.
U Do ask lots of specific questions. Don’t let a reviewer get away with a blanket statement about some aspect of your work. You can’t fix what you don’t under-stand. Say, “When you say my reports are substandard, do you mean that there’s not enough research or that that they need more editing?”
U Do give reasons for sub-par performance, but don’t offer excuses or blame others. “I’m not sure you remember, Donna, but last October, I had pneumonia.
Even though I missed only a week of work, my return to full strength was much slower than I thought it would be. I shouldn’t have taken on the Robinson pro-posal. It was too big a job at that time. There’s no question there was a dip in my performance then, but I think it’s back to its previous level, don’t you?”
U Do ask for time to think things through. If you feel besieged and don’t think you can be objective in your responses, ask if you can take a day or so to reflect on what’s been said. Continue the conversation when you’re calmer.
U Do respond in writing. If you think the assessment is unfair—and they often are—ask for a copy of the review and write a careful, reasoned (not flaming) rebuttal. Discuss the document with your supervisor before asking that it be added to your review and kept in your personnel file. Don’t make general state-ments about the injustices in the review. Back up any disagreestate-ments with con-crete examples for which you have proof. If you have any reason to believe that your document will be “lost,” take a copy of the review and your response to human resources yourself.
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U Don’t be rude or combative. Calling your supervisor an idiot doesn’t win points. You can say, “I’m surprised to hear that I’m not careful enough in citing my sources. After I presented my last report to the committee, you wrote me this note saying how impressed you were with the strength of the references.
Can you help me understand how I can do this better?”
U Don’t sulk, pout, or whine. Be a professional, not a baby. Disagree if you feel there’s an error, but do so calmly and rationally.
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Supervisors generally aren’t any more enthusiastic about performance reviews than employees are, and one of the things they dread most is the employee who comes unhinged because her review isn’t perfect. When you’re in the supervisory position:
U Let the employee speak and listen carefully to what she has to say.
U Upgrade the assessment if the employee can give you compelling evidence that you’ve made an error in your rating. On the other hand, be ready to provide examples that support your position if necessary.
U Acknowledge the employee’s feelings, even if you stand by your opinion of her performance. “I know it’s hard for you to hear these things, and I don’t like say-ing them either.”
You want to avoid demotivation, and one of the ways to do that is to show true regard and respect for the employee’s emotions. Even if a review is negative, it doesn’t need to be unkind. Delivery can be everything.
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U Although most supervisors and employees don’t like annual performance reviews, they’re still a fact of life in many companies.
U Performance reviews can be subject to many sorts of inequities, most of them based in human error.
U Continual feedback is a more effective way of managing and summarizing employees’ performance.
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U To be effective, feedback must be immediate and specific, as well as constructive and positive.
U Many mistakes for which employees are blamed are really management errors.
U The performance review should be a collaborative venture, in which both sides listen to one and respect one another.