The year-end is approaching – it’s performance review time. Facilitating the development of those you lead is an essential and strategic responsibility. Your people want and appreciate the one-on-one time with you; it helps them clarify your expectations and their sense of how much they are valued.
But the debate continues about the worth and methodology of these performance discussions.
One perspective continues to favor dedicated, scheduled meetings with each direct report, held two or more times each year. The primary opposing perspective abandons this approach in favor of ‘in-the-moment’ conversations.
Supporters of the first viewpoint cite these benefits:
- Provides regular, documented feedback on performance, clarifies expectations and goals, and helps track progress;
- Fosters dialogue about career progression, helps align individual goals with company objectives, and identifies training and development needs;
- Creates a record for promotion/compensation decisions, while providing legal protection for termination cases.
Proponents of the ‘in-the-moment’ process offer these advantages:
- Because feedback is delivered soon after an action, it is more meaningful for the employee and can occur as needed;
- The investment for leaders and employees is reduced by minimizing preparation and meeting time that might be better invested elsewhere;
- The more structured process can feel artificial, a ‘box-checking’ exercise, that may focus more on past performance than on future development, and can be inconsistent since different managers may vary in performance standards or be affected by personal biases.
However you prefer to assess your people’s performance, do so with a forward-looking mindset of guiding their developmental progress, rather than as a backward-focused performance grading exercise.
And make the performance/development process more meaningful and productive by including these elements:
- Be present, mindful, and focused on the employee, encouraging a two-way dialogue versus a one-way evaluation;
- Let the employee guide the discussion, leading with their perspective, using either their draft review form or their view of the action that triggered your meeting;
- Create a more holistic and motivating exercise by including a review of behavioral consistency and values alignment, plus a conversation about career goals and developmental opportunities, to balance current performance with cultural fit and long-term progress;
- Focus on key, clear, and objective performance criteria, and frame your feedback constructively with explicit actions or behaviors; require specific examples to support ratings improvements;
- Implement continuous feedback tools/systems that facilitate more regular informal coaching or mentoring discussions, and enable related, ongoing documentation.
How might these concepts make your performance discussions more meaningful?
