Over at Integrated Teams, we’ve been having much conversation around the effectiveness of the traditional performance review process, wherein we create a slightly adversarial annual performance review that measures soft and hard skills.
1. This same basic review is sent to employee for self-review, to the immediate supervisor for review and to a team member or peer for review. The idea is that this presents more of a 360-degree view of the employee’s performance.
2. Reviews are then collected, and conversation is had with employee, wherein they are basically told what everyone is saying about them, good and bad. Way after the fact, in most cases.
And there is no way to soft-pedal the sense of it being “behind their back” and often about issues that happened months before. I’ve been in so many of these rooms, often the one delivering the results, and I can tell you that it rarely goes well, no matter how gently or professionally I frame it. It can’t help but feel gossipy, in all the worst ways.
The outcome we desire from these reviews is to provide guidance and resources that help employees become the most successful version of themselves within this team context. What we get instead is defensiveness, suspicion, and the feeling of being misunderstood and worse, talked poorly about behind their backs. Often, I receive a long email after the meeting, wherein the employee addresses each of the misrepresented facts from the peer and supervisor reviews. There is always another side to the story, right?
Within our work at Integrated Teams, we’ve been reworking this traditional system a bit. We are spending much more time on the hiring process to ensure we get the candidates that are self and other-aware, empathetic, willing to go above and beyond, humble, and the kind of people who enjoy learning new things. We are writing our job descriptions a little differently and using them as a sync-up tool with the employees every 90 days instead of an annual review. Or even as a learning opportunity in the middle of a specific situation.
The new language might sound more like
“so, how are you doing at being approachable with your team mates? Can you replay a recent scene here at work, where you felt like you really nailed this. What about a time when it didn’t work out so well? Can you identify why you are sometimes more approachable than other times? Is it the person approaching you? How they approach you? Or dependent on what’s going on in your head? Is there anything you need from us to become more successful with this? Would it help to have some coaching or can we schedule a conversation with this other team member (the fail) to work towards a better understanding of the specifics of that exchange?”
instead of what used to happen
“an anonymous team member gave you a 2/5 on ‘is approachable on difficult subjects’. What are your thoughts on that?”
No details. So vague and difficult to defend outside of context.
The first example helps the employee take ownership but also offers a clearly marked road to improvement, and maybe redemption in some cases, while the second example just backs an employee into a corner, with no pathway out.
The reality is that we talk about the people with whom we work. We vent. We rant. We also bond. We love. We forgive. We are trying to take these conversations about how to improve as a team out of gossipy back rooms and murky corners and into the open air of healthy team dynamics, where we can admit that none of us are perfect, even the leadership, but also intentionally move towards a better version of ourselves, in the safety of our community, which is also having these same conversations.
This culture shift of bringing transparency to the performance review process doesn’t happen overnight but it pays incredible dividends as your team begins to self-regulate and see themselves as an integral part of the whole, instead of factions that sabotage and breed discontent within the team. Here’s to joyful days of productivity ahead!