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Performance Reviews Help Create Great Employees
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Article 6: Focus The Review On Employee Strengths
No one looks forward to being judged. And the performance review is no exception. Even if we think we have been doing good work, we’re still nervous about what our supervisor might say.
“The feelings we have about performance reviews are very similar to those we had back in grade school,” notes Dick Grote, a Dallas-based performance management consultant. “Even if we always got good grades we were still nervous about our report cards.”
Wouldn’t it be great – and lead to more productive reviews – if the negative feelings about evaluations could somehow be diminished?
“I don’t know if you can ever get people to look forward to reviews,” notes Grote. “But here’s something that can help: Keep in mind that the payoff in performance appraisals comes not from focusing on weaknesses, but from building on strengths.”
The more that you can focus on finding people’s strengths and talking about what people do well, he says, the more people will look forward to the performance review.
“You may have to talk about weaknesses for damage control, but that’s not where the payoff is.”
You can get some help from the employee in developing a clear picture of strengths. Before the review, Grote suggests saying something like this to your employee: “Dick, pretty soon I will be doing performance reviews. Before I start thinking about yours, over the next couple of days please jot down a list of things you have done in the past year that you really feel good about. What are you really proud of?”
This list of achievements – you might call it a “good stuff list” – is in addition to the more balanced self-appraisal that you might also ask the employee to prepare. It’s good to separate the two so the employee won’t hold back when it comes to trumpeting his or her achievements. Ask for the “good stuff list” about a week after the self-appraisal and just before the review is scheduled. That will promote a positive mind set on the part of the employee as you go into your meeting.
Indeed, a positive attitude on the part of both employee and supervisor will go a long way toward creating a morale-building event that will be a springboard to the year ahead. And it will assure that the employee’s achievements are recognized.
“There’s nothing more embarrassing for a manager than to hand a performance review to an employee, only to be reminded of a forgotten critical project the person had finished over the past year,” says Grote. “You can say you ‘forgot.’ But the employee will never forget.”
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