Reframing Feedback

What is the purpose of conducting Performance Reviews? Even though it isn’t the most popular activity for supervisors, in a majority of organizations, it is required.  So it may help to take a moment to reflect on why we do them in the first place. 

At its core, the performance review is a tool that can (and should) be used to facilitate communication between you, the supervisor, and the employee.   Your employee needs to know what your expectations are, and how they’re doing in meeting your expectations; plain and simple.  The difficulty comes when you have to tell the employee something they may not want to hear.  If you’re like most of us, you agonize over how to communicate this message, and may even sugarcoat it a bit to ease the blow.   In sugarcoating, you may dilute the message, leaving the employee confused and unsure of the steps they need to take going forward.  This is not the answer.

When providing difficult feedback, it is critical that you utilize behaviors when communicating what the employee needs to stop, start or continue doing.  For example, let’s say your employee “Sally” has a bad attitude, and during the last staff meeting she went out of her way to communicate her disapproval to everyone.  After the meeting, instead of telling Sally you didn’t appreciate her “bad attitude,” it would be more effective to tell her that you observed her “eye rolling” and heard the negative comments she made to her neighbor while you were sharing the new company policy with the group, which is not acceptable.    Utilizing specific behaviors, instead of generalizations, most often takes the emotion out of the conversation and places the responsibility squarely on the individual.  Going forward, Sally knows exactly what your expectations are, and what she has to do (or not do) to meet your expectations. 

Utilizing behaviors is also just as important when communicating to an individual what they are doing well.  For example; after a presentation, if my boss tells me “You did a great job!” I may be happy for the acknowledgement, but I don’t know exactly what I need to continue doing i.e.; providing an agenda, keeping the meeting on time, encouraging everyone’s input.  Whether you are completing an annual performance review or giving informal feedback, communicating specific behaviors is the key to effective, actionable feedback. 

If you are interested in learning more about providing effective feedback, completing meaningful performance reviews that drive accountability, avoiding rating errors or the performance management process in general, look for the open enrollment program, Differentiating Employee Performance and Creating Accountability that I will be offering through Kent State’s Center for Corporate and Professional Development in the Spring of 2016.