How to Use the End of the Year Performance Conversation to Accelerate your Career

The End-of-the-Year performance conversation provides a valuable and timely opportunity to reflect upon your accomplishments, receive feedback, and set goals for the future. It is also a time to calibrate with your leader to determine readiness for additional responsibility or even an inline promotion. Leveraging these conversations effectively can indeed accelerate your career over the long term as well as in the immediate role, however, thoughtful planning should precede the actual conversation. Here are a few tips to make the most out of your year-end performance discussion.

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Before the Conversation:

Take a Self-Assessment: take time to reflect on your achievements over the course of the entire year as well as any challenges that you worked to overcome, or problem solved and identify specific examples that highlight your contributions and impact. Get comfortable with calling to mind the additional pieces of work that were not scoped but you delivered or contributed to. Appreciate the fact that your leader may not be intimately aware of the breadth of engagement reach you might have where you brought more value to the broader organization and other collaborative partners.

Goal Review: Review the goals that were set and cascaded to you at the beginning of the year. Highlight instances where you exceeded expectations, demonstrated growth, or stretch. Quantify your metrics (dollars, percentages, #new accounts gained, etc.) and prepare examples to share that showcase the work you have done and the result of your efforts. Prepare to tell the story of origin, present status, and what will be required to get the job completed and communicate timing of delivery. If you took on additional work that was not previously scoped, prepare to tell the story about the business need for the work and why you took the initiative to complete it. By doing these things your review will be compelling and useful demonstrating your ability to be proactive and forward thinking.

Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from colleagues, clients, or team members. Use this feedback to identify strengths and areas for improvement. It is said that “feedback is a gift” and if you are willing to use the feedback to improve, it will indeed be a gift of self-awareness as well as opportunity to further deepen your acumen in areas that will benefit your stakeholders, effective collaboration ability, and efficiency. Consider feedback as “field data” that informs and enables you to become better at your craft and in the day-to-day delivery.

During the Conversation:

Be Proactive: Initiate the conversation by sharing your self-assessment and a great lead into the moment could be: “I have prepared an outline for us to use for our discussion and look forward to hearing your thoughts and reactions as we go through our time together.” Have a copy of the outline to give to the leader and begin by discussing how your contributions for the year aligned with the organizational goals. Highlight your achievements by clearly articulating your accomplishments and the value you brought to the team or organization as well as instances where you collaborated effectively with colleagues to achieve shared goals. Use specific metrics or examples to quantify your success. Acknowledge any challenges you faced and discuss how you overcame them by demonstrating your resilience and a proactive attitude toward problem-solving.

Listen and Ask Questions: treat this discussion as a conversation and listen attentively to what your leader’s perspective is on your work. Ask questions to clarify your understanding and if there is a gap between what you believe to be true and your leaders’ recollection, invite an opportunity to follow up later with additional information or supportive metrics to close the loop. You want this conversation to inform you about how the leader sees your work and readiness for more.

Seek Feedback: Ask for constructive feedback on your performance. You have asked colleagues, or your leader solicited feedback on your behalf, either way, when at the table, you want to ask for your leader’s point of view about your work, after all, they are your rating authority, and this opinion carries the most weight. While listening to what’s offered, ask for specific examples and instances of when points of improvement are noted as well as suggestions for how to handle things differently in the future. Your success in the leader’s eyes is what will help to make the case for future promotions and special project assignments.

Discuss Development Opportunities: Express your interest in professional development and ask about what the timing might look like to achieve the next level promotion. By sharing that you wish to grow while inquiring about promotion readiness will put you on the leader’s radar in an intentional fashion. Propose specific areas where you would like to grow and seek support or resources. If additional business acumen is needed in a certain area, the inquiry now positions you to request training for the upcoming year, additional exposure, as well as education to support being prepared for a promotion. Take notes so that you can wrap up the conversation in writing about what was discussed, next steps, and how to keep the plan in flight to achieve the result.

After the Conversation:

Synthesize: give thought to the conversation and what you and your leader discussed. Begin to think about how you will approach the coming year. Get creative while thinking about how to create triple wins for yourself and the business. Think about how you can be the center of innovative idea formulation and which new teams to collaborate with in the new year to gain additional exposure and experience. Ensure these goals align with both your personal aspirations and organizational objectives.

Follow Up:? send a follow-up thank you to your manager for their time and reiterate your commitment to your goals. A thoughtfully written note expressing thanks for the feedback demonstrates an open mind that is ready for more responsibility and opportunities. Highlight the key points, verbal approvals, or actions that either of you agreed to complete along with a brief timeline.

Create an Action Plan:? develop a plan for achieving your goals, including specific steps and timelines. Give thought to mentor selection, educational needs, or invest in coaching to support your professional development. Stay accountable to revisiting your development plan and make timing adjustments, check off completions or take credit for ad hoc opportunities that may come your way throughout the year. Keep your leader looped into your progress as you go so that they can track, note, and observe your growth in real time. Plan to have a regular cadence of requesting feedback so that you can ensure that stakeholders and collaborators are served in such a way that ensures a positive experience with you.

Style Tip for your Brand:

Maintain a Positive Mental Attitude: Approach this conversation with a positive mindset, focusing on your achievements and growth rather than dwelling on setbacks. Foster a relationship with your leader where together you are partnering to achieve a win-win-win, 1) for the organization, 2) business unit/team and 3) for yourself. You want to make the work that you do count where it also supports your long-term career vision which is possible if you maintain a mindset that is looking for ways to make these outcomes achievable. Embrace constructive feedback as an opportunity for learning and improvement and show enthusiasm by demonstrating passion for your work and a genuine interest in your career development.

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By approaching end-of-the-year performance conversations strategically, you will not only showcase your accomplishments but also demonstrate your commitment to continuous improvement and professional growth. Taking ownership of your career trajectory in this fashion will infuse you with confidence in your ability to advocate for yourself and negotiate for the things that you need to get ahead at the same time. This proactive practice can be initiated at each quarterly juncture throughout the year so that by the time the closing month comes, your leader would have had a front row seat to your progress, results, and development which helps them “help you” in getting more out of your role and ultimately long-term career planning.

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Sheryl Brinkley is a Women's Leadership Pipeline Builder & Sustainer and a Career Acceleration Catalyst Specializing in Hi-Potential & Mid-Level leader progression into Sr. Level & C-Suite positions. She is an Executive & Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness Coach supporting her clients in their holistic self-actualization pursuits while deepening self-awareness for maximal leadership impact.