The Secret to Not-so-Scary Performance Reviews
The snow is falling, the birds are, I don’t know, hibernating(?), and I am personally living every New Year, New Me cliche up to and including the exercise in humiliation known as Zumba.
And for many of my clients, it’s the most wonderful time of the year — performance review season!
If I’m being honest, I’d prefer to have a hundred performance reviews than face the horror of another pop music inspired fitness class. In fact, I don’t find performance reviews that scary. I’d rather get constructive feedback linked to improving my performance at work than have another gym instructor tell me it’s great that I “just have fun with it” (I didn’t) and “don’t care about doing it well” (I do).
So why are performance reviews so anxiety-inducing for managers and reports alike?
It’s awkward.
Giving and receiving critical feedback can be uncomfortable, so people avoid it. But, like that load of dishes you let pile up for two weeks before washing, it is a task that gets much, much worse when you put it off.
It’s too late.
It’s tough to hear you aren’t doing well at a task, but it’s DEVASTATING to learn you have been doing a task badly for a year and everyone knew it but you.
This completely avoidable situation results in the feedback receiver getting defensive, which reinforces the reluctant feedback giver’s perspective that giving feedback is awful for everyone.
I know what you’re thinking — “this is so incredibly insightful, ZJ. Your ability to observe human behaviours is, frankly, astonishing”. And you’re right. Thank you for the feedback.
Now, how can we break the cycle?
Don’t sit on feedback.
Give feedback all the time. Year-round. Managers: DO NOT SAVE UP ALL YOUR FEEDBACK FOR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS. Feedback is helpful and impactful if delivered in the moment, while it’s fresh. Delivering it in the moment shows a desire to help the person succeed that dropping an annual feedback bomb on them does not.
Don’t get caught by surprise.
If you don’t know what the person reviewing you is going to say, make it your mission to find out. Ask. If they’re not forthcoming, ask different ways. Ask at 1:1s, ask at lunch, ask immediately after your big presentation, your board meeting, your project launch. You owe it to yourself to get that feedback, so don’t wait for someone else to take charge.
There are other nuances of course. Like how to write a good self-evaluation, and how to identify biases that affect reviews. You can learn why we’ve done away with the “compliment sandwich” and how to use something called SBI to model your feedback. You can, and should, read Radical Candor.
But the most important thing you can do is to start preparing for next year’s performance reviews right now, by resolving to give and request feedback every day. New Year, New You.
See you at Zumba.
ZJ
About us:
Bright + Early is a modern HR consultancy on a mission to craft the world’s best workplaces. We partner with early to mid-stage companies who need to scale fast but stay friendly. Nothing in place? Don’t know where to start? No problem.
