A Negative Performance Review is a Terrible Thing to Waste

poise

 noun (1)

\ ?p?iz  \

 1a: easy self-possessed assurance of manner: gracious tact in coping or handling also: the pleasantly tranquil interaction between persons of poise. No angry outbursts marred the poise of the meeting

b: a particular way of carrying oneself: BEARING, CARRIAGE

 If you haven’t noticed, poise is diminishing in business, politics and our personal lives, which when you demonstrate it, makes it an even greater opportunity for you to gain the respect of others and yourself.

And there are few great better opportunities to do that, than after you’ve been just handed a negative performance review.

The awkwardness of receiving one of those is bi-directional, in that it is felt both by the giver and receiver.

 Why?

 Because the giver anticipates that it will be upsetting to you, the receiver, and either cause anger or hurt or even tears. Rarely will the giver expect an alternate response because he or she is projecting on you what he or she would feel if they were to receive it. One of the last things they are expecting from you is to demonstrate poise. When you do, it will not only be surprising, but it will also be disarming and quite possibly cause them to immediately respect you more for showing more graciousness than they would.

Therein lies the opportunity for poise if you are the receiver.

 Here is how to take advantage for this opportunity for poise.

 1.    After you receive your negative review, contact the reviewer and ask to meet with him or her.

2.    When you meet with them, thank them for taking the time to do the review and calmly with a “need to know” tone, ask them how they came to the conclusions they did.

3.    Then say, “To get the most value from your review, what consistent observable positive behaviors did I fail to demonstrate and what consistent observable negative behaviors did I demonstrate that if I were to correct both, would have caused you to give me a more positive review? Also, it will help if you describe those behaviors in specific observable terms, so I will know what I need to correct.” Please feel free to ask to clarify what they say.

4.    After they finish, then say, “Might I ask an additional question that is rather hypothetical but will help me improve even more?” Hopefully they will agree. Then say, “Going forward, what consistent observable positive behaviors if I were to demonstrate and what observable negative behaviors if I were to never show that would cause you to rave to your boss about how I completely and positively turned myself around more than anyone you have ever worked with?”

5.    Let them respond and say to them, “This is much too important for me to have misunderstood a word you said, so I’m going to repeat it back to you to make sure I heard everything correctly.” Then repeat back to them exactly what they said and finish with, “Did I get it right? (If not, have them further clarify what they said) Great! So now I have a clear idea of how to go from a negative person to a superstar in your eyes! I’m on it! By the way, I would like to check in with you informally every month for 15 minutes for you to weigh in on how I’m doing according to what you just laid out for me. Would that be okay?”

Please modify the verbiage above to suit what comes natural to you.

A final benefit from doing the above is that if you have someone who tends to be negative about you by nature or worse is gunning for you, gaining their participation in the above manner will tie them to being a promoter of your progress and make it more difficult for them to bad mouth you in the future.

In other words, just as we said at the beginning that a negative performance review when given, cuts both ways, gaining agreement from your evaluator to the above conversation, holds them as accountable as it does you.