Must try harder

"You’ve done brilliantly, but you’re not the best."

"What?"

"It’s been a great start, but you’re new to the role. And although it’s been amazing - and I can’t find fault with anything you’ve done and don’t really have much to say about what you could have done better - you aren’t getting a top performance mark this year."

"Oh. Because I’m new?"

"Er, yes. But chin up, I’m sure you’ll get a top mark next time. It'll be your turn."

This was one of my first experiences of a performance-management cycle. And it left me crushed.

My manager did their best to explain it but I was too green to push back. Too uncertain of my value.?

Twenty years on, having sat through more of those cycles than I can remember - on both sides of the desk - I feel a sneaking empathy for that manager.

All too often, these cycles can feel like pitiless affairs: the dreaded duels of calibration, the baring of teeth as everyone fights to get their people a top slot; and then the frantic efforts to dodge the bullets of a ‘guided distribution’ that challenge us to put 10% of people down as under-performers.?

I have memories of chairing such meetings and having to be the decision-maker on marginal cases. Judging some people whose performance I hardly knew first hand, ranking them and bringing down the gavel on where the lines should be drawn. I’m reminded of my father intervening in one of the many screaming matches my sister and I had as teenagers. It was over a t-shirt. He came in, took the shirt and tore it in half. His name was Solomon.?

So as we emerge from last year’s cycle and start to plan ahead and set performance objectives, how can we do things differently? A process is obviously?needed - how else can pay rises and bonuses be decided in a fair way? How else can we satisfy our people's natural urge to understand how they’re doing, not just against their goals, but relative to others too??

But I think there is a better way - one that doesn't involve trying to reduce the beauty, diversity and mess of our performance to a single word, letter or number.

And yet there's no escaping the fact that most of us still operate in systems that have this at their base. So the question for now is how can we show up as leaders in these imperfect systems and make the best of them?

• ???First and foremost, do the work. I don’t just mean having the required meetings and filling in forms before mid- or end- year reviews are due. I mean really committing to the development of your people as an end in itself and letting that guide how you spend your time and energy. One specific way to do this is to book in very regular feedback meetings where you ask for and give feedback systematically – that way you don’t need to put in a (terrifying) ‘Can I just give you some feedback?’ call if you see something you want to improve. As well as just being great for motivation, engagement and impact, this kind of foundation can help insulate your team against the potentially more bruising aspects of the performance management system.

• ??See the work. It can be pretty challenging to really know how the people you manage are actually performing. What’s it like to work for them? How are they with clients, partners or customers? Do you only have their word for it? Do you see them in action enough? Between hybrid-working and your busy schedule you might not even get the chance (and that’s assuming you’re even based in the same city or country). Find ways to expand your sources of data and insight – use 360 tools, make sure you’re accessible to people who can bring you this insight, and find ways to do ridealongs. And remember that unsolicited complaints will tend to outnumber spontaneous compliments so make sure you get a rounded view and don’t over-index on individual events.?

• ??Restate your goals. Starting the performance management discussion with a debate and commitment to why we’re doing this at all can help to frame more productive conversations. It can also give you as a participant the means to call out behaviours that don’t meet those goals. This also goes for unconscious bias. Just highlighting the evidence on bias at the start of a meeting can help a group spot and challenge it.?

• ? Have rules. One of my bugbears is the sudden appearance of new ‘feedback’ for your team member that only comes up when there’s a tough decision on who gets the top (or bottom) award. The temptation to engage in these ambushes is strong because the stakes for your people are high. Decide on rules that help you all play a clean game – such as no feedback in the meeting that hasn’t already been given to the individual or their line manager in advance.?

• ??Drive change. If you find the performance management system is hindering, rather than helping, your organisation achieve its goals, do something about it. You'll need to judge whether the context is ripe for evolution or revolution, but whatever you do, approach the conversation with a commitment to curiosity and compassion for those who are running the process. Acknowledge that this is hard – if there were a simple alternative we’d probably all be doing it already – and that your colleagues in HR are trying to meet multiple, often competing, objectives. Listen and be prepared to change too – don’t just expect others to change.

Way back then, I complained that it was all so unfair. But, over the years, I’ve found myself drawn into playing the same game in ways I haven't always been proud of. So now I recommit to taking every small step I can to eradicate the damage it can do. One of the first is to recognise, and indeed to celebrate, the fact that nobody's perfect. No one can ever tick all those idealised descriptions of top performance that masquerade as the objective criteria for our assessments. No one. By all means set standards to aspire to, but don't stop being open-minded or forgiving others for their beautiful, diverse, messy humanity along the way.?

What responsibility will you take for improving how we manage performance this year?