HOW TO MASTER PERFORMANCE REVIEWS - A strength-focus guide to (actually) engage employees and improve performance through performance reviews

We've reached that time again, the (semi-)annual or quarterly performance review, where we are evaluated against a set of performance standards and ratings - Most often, your managers or peers make idiosyncratic observations that most often leave employees confused or surprised.

After lunch with a friend of mine, she told me about their semi-annual performance reviews with a sense of frustration in her voice. Like myself, her top talent is 'Targeted' - always pursuing achieving or accomplishing goals. She has consistently requested clarity on the targets she was expected to meet and was typically met with a reply along the lines of "everything can not be measured in hard targets''. Her frustration from the performance review builds on not getting enough clarity on which points she was evaluated on. This frustration also vents from hearing constructive feedback such as "improve presentation technique" and "stay longer and be more helpful at social events" for the first time at the end of the year. These were two points she did not know were part of her job description in the first place.

Performance rating systems have dominated corporate culture to evaluate and give feedback to employees but are typically flawed and often do more harm than good. According to Gallup, Only 26% of employees strongly agree that the input they receive is accurate and only 29% strongly agree that they are fair. Not surprisingly, the result is that performance reviews make performance worse about one-third of the time. Here are five ways to reverse the trend and engage employees and improve performance:

1. Start by defining what success looks like

Before we can evaluate anyone or anything, we need to understand what we are considering against - The more specific and concise, the better, as any room for interpretation leaves room for misunderstanding and bias. Typically this is a job description, set of outcomes, or a framework that standardizes evaluation metrics. At FirstMind, we work with three parameters:

1. Goal(s): Given Outcomes they are set to achieve
2. Strategy: The "playing-field" they can operate with in when achieving their goals
3. Culture: A set principles we expect them to follow

As these parameters are defined for each employee (Culture always remains consistent, Strategy contains similarities), we need to keep our employees accountable every day, so no surprises appear in the review.

2. Understand that each person is different and value their talents

Think about this as a football team:

• Every person in the group is accountable for their responsibility.
• No player is more important than the other.
• No player should be left out of the team.

We need to evaluate every player (employee) against their responsibility and acknowledge that different players have different ways of attaining their goals. For example, Messi does not score many goals with his head. Yet, every team in the world would be willing to pay a fortune to have him in their squad.

The most efficient and reliable way to build mastery and reach close to perfect performance is to leverage talent, natural advantages and our psychological home-field. Great managers recognize that employees have different talents and motivations and maximize engagement and performance.

Keep the employee in mind for the review - Do not rate Messi on the number of headers he scores?

3. Leverage the past, focus on the future

Some managers approach performance reviews with criticism and directness to make them honest and meaningful. It's almost in the word "review" - Let's look back at everything you did wrong. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Employees are more motivated and empowered by understanding how to improve, the opportunities that lay ahead, and the progress and goals they can achieve. Leverage the past as data points and examples to plan the future - use talents in performance planning.

People learn best through a constant loop of real-life experience and timely feedback. Go back to your triangle of parameters and talk Strategy - How should you operate to best reach your goals by putting your top talents into play?

...And involve the employee. There's nothing more rewarding than knowing that you can contribute to the team's success - and that only you have the unique gifts to do it.

4. Review your team and enable partnerships

At FirstMind, we create team reports where we aggregate the individual FirstMind Talent Profiles from all team members to understand the collective team's behaviour, how each person contributes and the top talent of each person compared to each other.

This helps leaders discover complementary strengths, enable collaboration and communication, resolve friction and create a gap analysis of the desired culture vs the culture today.

Leverage these insights in your performance review and future planning by creating specific actions or objectives with the employees that revolve around enabling a high performing team. By including these actions in the performance review, you set the expectation and keep the employee accountable.

According to Gallup, strong partnerships also help build a more lasting commitment to the organization. Employees with just one collaborative relationship are 29% more likely to say they will stay with their employer for the following year.

5. Is performance issues really talent issues in disguise?

If I only had the count of dissatisfied managers pointing out specific traits in employees behaviours and disengaged employees trying to be something they are not. Hearing statements such as "you need to be more responsible", "you need to be more proactive and do things", "you need to think your decisions through", etc.

Many are not aware we are prone to expect from others what we are ourselves - “I mean, why not? It has brought us our success”:

• The Responsible talent would say: "you need to be more responsible"
• The Initiating and Adaptable talent would say: "you need to be more proactive and just do things"
• The Analysing, Assessing, and Thinking talent would say: "you need to think your decisions through"

Employees with different talents are motivated by different things and approach situations and tasks differently. Be aware if you are trying to change their natural behaviour and the person they are, because you will not succeed. Instead, understand how you can play to their strengths. Or if you as a leader miscast a person to the position in reality.

Want to leverage a better understanding of people to improve performance and engagement?

Try FirstMind for free here or reach out to me or any one from the team to hear more.