Tips on Performance Ranking Maximization

Here is some hard-won advice for hard-working folks who selflessly do all the right things to add value to their company. You must maximize your performance rating and ranking. It's the best thing for you, and in a roundabout way, it's the best thing for the company.

Now, if you are in a system that is fair and genuinely used to improve and reward your actual performance, count your blessings; you won the lottery. Save this article for your next job.

If not, you are probably in some version of:

• Set targets at the beginning of the year.
• Gather data at the end of the year.
• Provide the data to the boss.
• Have a performance discussion.
• Your boss rates your performance with a preliminary value.
• All the bosses hold a competitive cross-team raking session to rank everyone in statistically minimum-sized groups across teams and within job grades.
• Ratings are given to employees.
• Ratings are used to size bonuses and decide who to discard. Oops, I mean downsize
• Repeat for the next year.

If you are in a system like that, maybe the following can help.

Storytime: In 29 years, I had about 16 bosses. Three or four of them were great leaders. The rest required me to manage them and their perceptions of me to varying degrees.

I was ignorant of this need during my first six bosses across my first ten years. Although I did the same quality of work every year for each boss, my ratings varied randomly. My promotions stalled, and I was almost downsized until I dedicated myself to learning some things about performance ratings.

Then, like magic, I did better and better, almost always ranking near the top, and moved right on up to the top of the technical (i.e. non-general management) ladder.? Eventually, I was the technical leader of a few teams and used these same skills to ensure my amazing staff was ranked consistently near the top.??

I want you to fully internalize that performance rating and ranking is an actual game, with subtle rules, players, judges, winners, and losers. It is unlike almost every other interaction in your life. It's the rare case of a pure zero-sum game, and that is by design. Therefore, you need to put significant time and effort into understanding the rules in your workplace and playing this game.? It's not an official part of your job, but you must do it. I'm sorry that it is this way.

What about everyone else? What do they do? Most people don't understand the game at all and/or don't care.? That means you can be more successful by doing some 'reasonable' things that don't require you to sacrifice your dignity or morality, take up golf, or waste too much time. It's just a bit more work you must mix into your regular work. Again, I'm sorry.

So, here are some tips.

First tip: Never be humble or conservative in estimating your performance as part of the performance review process.? You must start each part of the game with 'I did fantastic this year.'? In a forced ranking system, your bosses probably have only good and great people, and so are truly desperate to find an easy "poor" rating for someone on their team.? It's great for them when they can lay a lesser rating on someone who basically asks for it by being a good, self-reflective person and then says something like, "I did OK, but I could have done better."? Don't ever let that be you. Make your boss work hard, really hard, if they want to rank you less than great.? Examine every angle of potential attack. Build your defense cases. Convince them to look for easier prey, for example, the team member who doesn't want to 'play the game.'? Of course, do everything nice and professional; don't give them a reason to dislike you.

Second tip: Make your boss's job in rating and ranking you extremely easy.? Most bosses forget about performance ratings and procrastinate until the end of the year. At the approach to year's end, you want them to know already how great you are and have a 100% defensible position for that feeling. You want them to see you as a star and have many reasons for your fantastic performance rating (e.g. numbers, numbers, numbers, and testimonials). You will have understood the rating criteria and prepared a defense of each criteria that your boss can easily use, whether they procrastinate on the rest of the team or not. It won't matter how carefully you document things if your boss isn't inclined to believe you.? Go all the way and get them to review your performance monthly, starting 11 months before your annual review.? Send a recurring calendar invite to them monthly for the year.? If they are hesitant, call it an 'informal feedback session', no boss can say 'no' to that. After each, be sure to document everything with a note that says, "Thanks for the feedback! These are the things I learned."

Why do this? It's a cognitive bias that people will do anything to avoid changing their minds.? So, put a lazy boss on the spot each month, and get them to tell you that you did fine because you told them what you did fine. A lazy boss who doesn't pay you much attention will find it easier to agree with you.??Or, if you are lucky, utilize your great boss and have them coach you through how to do better.? Why? Besides actually improving your performance, most people are heavily biased to favor people that they are coaching, lest they have to admit their own failures.

The best relationship I have had with a boss was one of a 'conspiracy' to increase our whole team's performance, strategizing with my boss the whole year.?It was a great way to find out how the system really worked, and I was able to help my boss design ways to negotiate better team targets as well as provide intelligence on other teams' performance (for the competitive cross-team ranking sessions), to find more opportunities to present our team's good news to management, etc.? We added lots of company value, but importantly, we were ranked at the top, myself included--supercharged ranking in part because of the biases mentioned earlier.

Third tip: Do not simply keep your head down, keep quiet, and do your best work. That was my mistake for the first 10 years. Do things like these and you will increase the chance that you will be remembered favorably at performance rating/ranking time:

• Never leave a meeting without speaking.? Ask questions.? Agree. Disagree. People are forming an opinion of you. 'Unknown quantity' is not the best you can do.
• Speak with calm authority when you know you are correct. Project your voice. Be confident. Ask if people are understanding. Look at everyone in the eyes. Slow down. Watch Vinh's videos. Learn and practice public speaking.? I know, you dread public speaking, just like everyone else. I was only able to like it once I realized that I was being asked to help everyone in the audience via my public speech. I like helping people more than I hate public speaking. Win!
• Be helpful in meetings. Offer to facilitate.? Take notes and make minutes.? Record notes and actions. Send them out after the meeting, e.g. "Here are my notes, in case they might be helpful." The one who writes up the notes has substantial control over the outcome of the meeting and, therefore, on the direction of the team/project. Everyone will conclude that you had much to do with the team's results when things turn out well.
• Learn something useful and coach others. Run a lunch-and-learn for them. It helps everyone and it creates reciprocity bias.
• Learn to write and communicate very well. If you are a technical person, communicating your work badly will substantially reduce the benefits of your great work. Poor communication (writing, explaining, graphics, etc.) distracts from great work.
• Join industry committees. Run industry events. It may count substantially if people outside your organization say nice things to those in your organization. It's also probably a lot of extra work that won't get recognized internally without some extra tactics and effort from you.
• When they deserve it, praise colleagues to their bosses with details (this will make the teammate's boss' job easier, too). "Excuse me. Hi, I'm Burney Waring. I work with Marie. I wanted to let you know that Marie was able to solve the thermal limit problem that our team was having on the big project in a creative way. Our team appreciates her work very much." Besides helping your colleagues (they will remember you for it), this will ensure that those other bosses know at least vaguely who you are and that you are associated with some sort of great work.??When competitive cross-team ranking sessions happen, they may say nice things about you or at least not argue against you, making your boss's job of ranking you at the top much easier.

Yes, these things are a distraction. But is taking time away from your 'real work' to do all this nonsense an unnecessary distraction? One that hurts the company's bottom line? No! Because if you are mistakenly given a poor rating and downsized despite your great work, the company will suffer. So, play the performance rating game and do it proudly.

If you have more tips, please leave them in the comments!