with the medical staff, I will be forced to make some changes.”
“Now you’re threatening me,” Brenda exclaimed, “when their laziness is the problem? Why should I have to make the changes?”
Ethan’s discouragement was now joined by a sense of being cornered. He did not have a “next move” in mind, so he asked Brenda to think about it and adjourned the meeting, scheduling a follow-up conversation for the next week.
Ethan’s encounter with Brenda is all too common. He thoughtfully offered her advice on how to act in the future. Yet Brenda was argumentative and defensive. Behind such behavior she likely felt offended, hurt, threatened, or angry, whether or not she was aware of it. She interpreted the situation exclusively from her own point of view. She did not understand what members of the medical staff experienced when she said things to them in certain ways. Brenda lacked self-awareness, an understanding of how she had behaved, and a realization of the impact that her behavior had on others. She did not receive Ethan’s feedback well, and a developmental opportunity turned into a stalemate. How could Ethan have handled it better?
Reviewing Performance Reviews
At the Center for Creative Leadership, we often hear complaints about performance reviews. If an employee is meeting or exceeding expectations, reviews likely offer no substantial developmental direction. If an employee’s performance falls short of expectations, corrective advice typically focuses on specific tasks. Sometimes, issues are not honestly addressed or are totally avoided, clarity about needed improvement is not established, and support for change is absent. Often, developmental and performance goals are not differentiated, or one of the two will be absent from the review. Common employee complaints about performance reviews include the following:
• “It’s just a ritual; I don’t get anything out of it. We’re just checking off the boxes.”
• “I just agree with everything, wait for it to be over, and then go out and do the best I can.”
• “I never come out of the review feeling motivated.”
• “I was judged against goals that were never made clear to me in the beginning.”
Reviewers complain too. Their common complaints include the following:
• “I hate having to confront people on underperformance because they get upset or defensive.”
• “I think we have set corrections in motion, but then nothing changes.”
• “I know that either I am overly direct or I talk around the issue without really making the point.”
• “It feels more like combat than working together for everyone’s benefit.”
One remedy for these problems is effective feedback. In fact, effective feedback is one of the most important components of successful performance reviews. Quality performance review feedback engages the employee in the conversation, informs the employee as to why expectations and goals are set as they are, clarifies priorities, aids measurement of progress or regression, increases awareness of how the employee is perceived by others in the organization, and highlights the organizational results of the employee’s behavior.
In CCL’s work with organizational leaders and managers, we have found that giving effective feedback to others is one of the most important skills for any leader or manager to master. Often it is one of the most difficult skills to apply consistently and well. Many leaders and managers have told us that they would far rather receive feedback about themselves than give feedback to someone else. And most senior leaders indicate that they want more feedback than they receive; this problem is greater the higher in the organization the leader operates.
The Role of Feedback in a Review
Performance reviews vary from one organization to the next. In some settings they serve compliance and legalistic needs, in others they are used to drive performance, and in still others they are part of a talent development process. Sometimes the “annual review” is the only feedback an organizational member gets; other times goals are set at the beginning of a period, feedback is given along the way at frequent intervals, and the end-of-the-period performance review contains no surprises, celebrates progress, and sets new goals. There are many other ways in which reviews differ. This guidebook respects that different review processes are appropriate for different organizations and individuals. Our topic here is a small part of the performance review landscape; it is how to use feedback in whatever performance review context you find yourself.
Feedback is important assessment data that either supports continuing to perform in some manner or targets a desirable change in how one performs (doing more or less of something). Performance reviews with no feedback fail to present the argument for making a change, pursuing a goal, or keeping things as they are. They fail to demonstrate the urgency or importance of expectations and goals. And they fail to highlight and reinforce desirable behavior. Performance reviews with poorly delivered feedback create bad feelings, discomfort, distrust, and disengagement.
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