|
 talent
retention
team building
newsletter
for February 2005 ...
(please see Request Form
at the end for permission to copy content)
Issue #2...
(please see Request Form
at the end for
permission to copy
content)
During our team building work with client
organizations, we've compiled a collection of barriers that we see creating
enormous stress for individuals, blocking performance in teams, and robbing
organizations of productivity.
Each month, one of these barriers will be addressed in
our newsletter.
We'll include some suggestions for breakthrough
thinking to give you ideas for
how you might begin busting through these
barriers.
"Performance reviews are a combination of ultimatum
and ambush."
The boss says your performance is "x" and that
means there's no room for discussion.
Once a year I get a performance review to justify
the lousy salary increase they had already planned on giving me.
Studies
continue to prove that managers identify performance reviews as one of the most
unpleasant parts of their jobs. Why? For a lot of the same reasons
that you, the employees, dread them. Conducted improperly, they are one of
the biggest sources of frustration and demotivation for everyone.
But the winds of change have
hit the old-style performance review process, and there are many things you can
do to improve the process ... even if your organization is still hanging onto
the old style of "tell-&-judge" reviews. Talk to your human resources
folks or search the internet for the latest developments in performance
discussions. Then, take some initiative to get moving in the new
directions. Here are two ideas for starters:
-
First,
give your boss a break - they are probably just doing it the way it's always
been done in your organization. Given a choice, they will likely welcome
some fresh ideas. Suggest to your boss that you'd like to have more say in
the discussion. Under the old
autocratic management style, employees were “seen and not heard” during
performance reviews. The bosses filled out the forms in advance and then rendered edicts
and decisions like fearsome courts of final appeal. You were judged worthy or
not with no right of appeal or hearing.
That’s changed. Now,
managers are open to new forms of performance conversations. One of these is
self-assessment in which the employee takes the lead in self-diagnosis and the
actual performance meeting. Even if you don't have this system in place,
take the initiative to review your own performance in advance of the meeting.
Write down examples of how you think you've performed against your job
objectives. Try to start the meeting off with your self-assessment and
then ask your boss for their reactions to your perspective. Now you have
positioned your boss as a partner, providing feedback from management’s
perspective ... not a judge and jury.
-
Performance reviews
were traditionally tied to salary reviews: at your review meeting, they
told you what your raise would be. Today, the two are often separated.
Current thinking is that there is no need for you to wait a full year to get a
course correction. Reviews are now known to be more effective on a quarterly,
monthly, or even weekly basis. The BIG annual review, then, is simply a
summary of all of the feedback conversations over the past year.
If your boss doesn't
have a scheduled feedback process for you ... ASK! And keep asking until
you feel you're getting enough information on your performance. One way to
measure the quality and quantity of feedback is to notice if there are any
surprises for you in your formal performance review. If the answer is
"yes," you and your boss need more communication. You should never have to
wait the full performance period to discover that you're missing the mark.
So don't wait around for someone to offer feedback ... just ask for it - often!
It may come as a
surprise to many employees to learn that there is no conspiratorial plotting
behind the performance reviews they receive. Organizations bent on retaining the
best people and helping them get even better will use the performance review as
an opportunity to encourage both managers and employees to achieve greater heights.
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