Improve Your Performance Review in Two Easy Steps

Managers tell me that the most challenging negotiations they face are often with colleagues within their own organizations.

It’s not like buying a car, they say, where if you don’t like what you’ve been offered, you just go to another dealer. Instead, if you and co-worker disagree about how to launch a new product, you’re stuck with each other. To make matters worse, some people have private agendas — and long memories. Whatever you do to solve today’s particular problem may have consequences down the road.

It recently struck me that there’s another problem: failure to recognize untapped opportunities to negotiate within an organization, especially over performance reviews. That realization dawned on me after reading a new book "Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well," by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. (Full disclosure: I know them through the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, though we’ve never worked together.)

The authors say that feedback is difficult for both receivers and givers because three conversations often get all tangled up. One is about appreciation so that an employee is motivated and encouraged. That’s different from the coaching that’s aimed at skill development and personal growth. And both of those are different from evaluation, where a person stands now and what he or she should expect going forward.

That’s a big agenda, so there’s plenty of room for miscommunication and crossed signals. When we’re on the receiving end of feedback, we want to be loved and respected (that’s the appreciation part). So if your boss tries to coach you on how you could improve, it’s easy to hear that as being under-valued. Of course, the fault can just as well lie with the messenger. Some bosses skillfully offer constructive advice. But others seemingly can’t or won’t.

That’s all the more reason, though, for being proactive rather than passive when getting feedback. According to Stone and Heen, that requires two steps.

The first is internal. Stone and Heen call it cultivating a “growth identity.” It involves the attitude you bring to the review experience. You need to look at yourself honestly, so that you know the emotional triggers that make you tune out what others tell you. It’s hard to hear negative feedback — especially when it’s right. When somebody calls you out for making a mistake — and we all make them — check the impulse to react defensively. Instead be open to what you can learn from it.

The second step is interpersonal. It means playing an active role in how the review process unfolds. Monitoring what the authors call “the arc of the feedback story” enables you to address specific tasks in the opening, body, and closing phases of the review.

• The priority in the opening is ensuring that both parties are aligned about the purpose of the session, whether it has been scheduled for months or is spontaneous. For instance, there must be shared understanding about whether this is a narrow discussion (about how a particular project was handled, for example) or a broader assessment of your long-term future with the company.

• After that’s resolved, turn the body of the conversation to exchanging and clarifying information. It’s in your interest — and your boss’s — that he or she has an accurate picture of your overall work to date. Likewise for the metrics that will be used to judge your ongoing performance. Stone and Heen have good suggestions how to do that deftly without overstepping boundaries.

• Finally, the closing phase is about confirming commitments and establishing a process for continual feedback and coaching. Don’t tackle this until there’s alignment over the scope of the review and the information that it’s based on.

Dealing with each of those issues sequentially is important in its own right. More subtly, but equally important, it enhances your influence over how the process unfolds.

"Thanks for the Feedback" doesn’t wish away the power imbalance between bosses and subordinates. And it doesn’t ignore the fact that you won’t always have the sort of bosses you’d like. Real-world performance reviews don’t take place on a level playing field. But as in any negotiation, the less power you have, the more important is using every bit of it to fullest advantage.

PS: A special request. Later this spring, I’m planning a post on bargaining skills and styles. It draws on research I did several years ago. I want current data, so I’ve created a short SurveyMonkey poll. (No personal identification information is being collected.) It should take three minutes at most to complete. I’d be grateful if you click here now to take the survey. Many thanks!

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Harvard Business School Professor Michael Wheeler is the author of The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World (Simon & Schuster).

He has been a key figure at the renowned Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School since its founding 30 years ago. During the 2013-14 academic year, he continues to teach in executive programs at HBS and PON, and is also a visiting professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Photo credit: Caroline McDougall/Broken Drum Productions