Why I cried during my performance review

For the first time ever, after working in Silicon Valley for nearly 30 years, I shed tears during my performance review.

Those who know me can attest to the fact that I am not one who cries at work. Please. I’m the Chief People Officer. I support the criers, and the managers of criers. And I’ve certainly never cried during my own performance review. At least I hadn’t until yesterday.

For context, we recently revamped our performance review process. When I came to Turo five years ago, I inherited the traditional annual review process that had been in place for years. You know the one — the bloated, overly-complicated, time-consuming process that takes months to complete and builds up anxiety for individuals as they wait to enter the room to have the dreaded performance discussion with their manager. The experience where you didn’t actually hear any of the true appreciation, feedback, or areas for growth from your manager because you were too anxious about your “rating” — a rating which was very likely tied to your salary increase for the coming year. The review where you walked out of the room disappointed. Either disappointed with the lack of appreciation, actionable feedback, your performance rating, your salary increase, or all of the above. Yup. That was our process, at least it was until we took bold steps to change it.

Last year I asked our Exec team, “Why do we spend months reflecting on the past year to give feedback in January that should have been provided last May? Why are we short-changing our precious time to talk about areas of improvement from a year ago when, if we were truly good managers, we would have discussed those growth opportunities real-time?” And instead, we now find ourselves spending months preparing “documentation” for those performance discussions. I mean, if I screwed up last March, shouldn’t my manager have told me then and not nine months later? Instead of spending all of that effort reflecting on the past year, wouldn’t our time be better served by focusing on the future? Let’s talk about how I can have an impact in the next six months. Let’s talk about our company goals or our team goals. Let’s talk about my own professional growth and development, or how I can better model our company’s values. Genius, right?!

Not really. Most companies today remain wedded to the annual review cycle with ratings, and continue to tie that rating to salary increases. Fortunately, there are a growing number of forward-thinking companies that have blown up the annual performance review cycle. With this in mind, we knew that continuing with performance review ratings that were tied to salary increases wasn’t right for us. We have top talent at Turo. Top talent doesn’t want to be, nor should they be, given “ratings”. It dawned on us that we had outgrown that old performance management model. So we took a brave step forward and decided that we had matured as an organization. It was time to decouple performance ratings from compensation. As I told my CEO, Andre H. , last year, “It’s time.” He agreed. It was time.

So this year’s performance conversation was very different. To start, my CEO had a different approach for this review cycle. He told me that he took time to read, re-read, and then read for a third time the self-assessment that I drafted. It detailed what I felt to be the areas in which I had the greatest impact over the past six months and where I believed I could be of impact in the next six months. It highlighted the areas in which I felt I needed to develop and could use his support, as well as how I felt I modeled our company values.

He read.

He digested.

He understood.?

He reflected.

And then… he wrote.

When we sat down in the conference room yesterday to discuss my review, he asked me how I felt about it.?

How I felt.?

Not whether I agreed or disagreed with what he had written. Instead, during that moment, he recognized that this was personal. He saw me as a human being, not just as an employee. How did I feel upon reading what he had written about my performance, contributions and areas of growth? I responded authentically. I told him that my written review from him was a true gift. It was warm. It was thoughtful. It was real. I felt heard and seen. And, it was personal.?

In that moment, I truly felt his appreciation and care. And as I looked up from the written review on my laptop, I realized that this was also a personal experience for him. We locked eyes, and then the tears welled up — for both of us. I knew in that instant that we were aligned, not only as manager and direct report, but as people. He not only recognized and appreciated my successes from the past six months, but we were also on the same page about my areas for growth. It wasn’t just about my “performance” at the company. It was personal. He knew me. And he cared for me — not just as the Chief People Officer on his executive team, but also as a person. How special was that?!

As Kim Scott , author of Radical Candor, wrote: “Feedback is personal for the person receiving it. Most of us pour more time and energy into our work than anything else in our lives. Work is a part of who we are, and so it is personal.”?

I feel extraordinarily lucky that this performance conversation with my CEO was exactly that. He intuitively knew that it would be extremely personal for me. But this conversation inspired me in that it shouldn’t just be personal for the person on the receiving end. It should be just as personal for the manager delivering the review. Not that the review should be about you, the manager, but personal in that we show our true care for our direct report. Real feedback comes from a place of care.

And it’s for this reason that I decided to delay the performance conversations with my own direct reports this week. What I had written over the past two weeks for their reviews was rushed.

Sure, I had some solid bullet points about the highs & lows of their performance over the past six months, and areas for growth, but was it my best? No.?

Did it show the full depth of my care for them? No.?

Was it the review that they deserved? No.?

Could I do better? Yes!?

My conversation with my CEO inspired me to take a similar approach. I needed to slow down and take the time to digest what they had written in their own self-assessments. My People & Places team give their all to support our folks here at Turo. What they deserve is a very thoughtful and personal conversation about their performance and impact. They deserve a true expression of my appreciation for their work and contributions to our Turo community. They should immediately understand that I am driven and committed to supporting them in their areas of continued growth and development.?

At Turo we believe that feedback is a gift. My direct reports deserve a true gift — a gift like the one I got yesterday, even though it made me cry at work.