This is the time of year when it is popular in the business press to criticize performance appraisals and everything about the performance appraisal process.  Consultants and critics roll out their long lists of everything that is wrong with sitting down once or twice a year and telling someone what’s wrong with them and what they need to change. 

Of course, the consultants and pundits are fundamentally right, there are many problems in the way organizations structure and managers deliver performance appraisals.  However, the small victory of being right in this case doesn’t help the thousands of well-intentioned managers sitting at their desks staring at the stack of performance reviews that they need to complete.

Today, instead of doing my best to describe everything that I think should be fixed in the performance evaluation world, I am offering my empathetic and hopefully, helpful suggestions for the managers about to embark on the lonely and painful journey of figuring out what the real measurable difference is between "meets expectations" and "exceeds expectations." 

A Manager’s Survival Guide to Completing the Annual Review Process and Doing a Good Job

  • Every person on your team deserves your undivided attention while completing the review paperwork.  Block out time, turn off your cell phone, close your door or find another location other than the office to work on reviews.  The local library is my favorite choice.
  • Hopefully, you’ve been meeting with your team members regularly, providing constructive and positive feedback and even discussion professional development.  If you’ve been doing your job in this regard, an important preparation step is to take the time to run through your physical and mental notes of those discussions and the outcomes. 
  • Make certain that you understand the rating system used for your performance reviews.  If the instructions are not clear and you missed the training session, check with the responsible HR specialist to clarify the rating system definitions. Also, remember that you don’t look better if everyone on your team has a high rating!  That’s an old game and everyone above you sees through it.
  • Effective feedback is specific (fact-based), focused on behaviors (the what not the who) and supported by a business rationale.  Every comment that you write must incorporate these components!
  • When offering constructive feedback (the tough stuff), avoid sugar-coating the message.  Excessive sugar-coating is commonly used to soften a difficult message, but what usually happens is that the real message gets lost.  Remember, specific, behavioral and fact based.  Oh, don’t forget brief.  As my partner says, "Use the one sentence-one behavior rule."
  • Don’t write all of your reviews in one sitting.  In fact, don’t write more than one review without taking a break to clear your mind.
  • Never write performance reviews when you are in a bad mood–for obvious reasons.
  • If your associate has not heard your constructive or developmental comments in earlier discussions, you’ve got a problem.  Reviews are never time for surprises. 
  • Review your reviews with your direct manager.  S/He will be slightly more objective about the performance of your associates.  Your manager may be able to offer suggestions to tighten up feedback, and better align development opportunities with firm or department goals.
  • Carefully plan the performance review discussion.  Now is not the time to wing it.  Think through your core message points, plan your opening statement, and plan how you will cover your key constructive points with your fact-based, behaviorally focused, business oriented, brief comments.
  • Pre-schedule  your review meetings and block out an appropriate amount of time for a quality, constructive discussion.
  • Pay attention to body language (yours and the recipient’s).  Your posture, demeanor, eye-contact, and facial expressions communicate volumes to your associate.  Alternatively, your associate’s body language will provide you clues on how your message is being received.
  • Encourage questions and healthy dialog.  Your associate should have an active role in helping create plans for development or behavior change as well as for goal setting.  Additionally, you should encourage your associate to ask clarifying questions on the ratings or your comments.  Be prepared to provide honest answers as well as to admit if you need to follow-up.
  • Schedule your follow-up discussion and summarize the agenda at the close of the meeting.  IF you’ve not done a good job conducting regular discussions, now is the time to start. 
  • Consider adding an Individual Development Plan (IDP) component to your work with your associate.  The IDP process can be formal or informal, and provides you and your associate with the opportunity to think about next step (and beyond) career objectives and to identify developmental assignments and needed training.  The IDP alone is a great reason to sit down regularly, talk about progress and performance and identify new learning opportunities.

The list is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully, you will find some helpful suggestions to improve your process and your results.    As a leader, your role in helping evaluate and supporting the development of your associates is core to your existence.  In our firm’s research, the majority of managers surveyed over a multi-year period indicated that they wished that their managers were better at providing feedback. The performance review process is one of what should be many points in time over the year for you to meet expectations!

Great suggested readings: Everybody knows the performance appraisal system is broken, by Wally Bock, and The Six Dimensions of Effective Feedback, by Rich Petro.