8 Tips on Giving Performance Reviews

I was talking with a colleague today about her strategy on a challenging performance review she has to give and it got me to thinking: what are some of the best pieces of advice, tips & techniques I’ve gotten?

1. Focus on signatures. Don’t dilute your message by giving a litany of everything that sucks about the person, or for that matter list everything they do that makes them walk on water.  Instead, focus in:  what are they known for? What is the single great thing that everyone wants them on the team because of? What is the weakness that is their main limiting factor?
2. Focus on the whats and the how. What did they accomplish, and what was the impact? But also talk about how they got it done.  I have an employee who got very little what accomplished because the project stalled (it wasn’t her fault).  But the how of how she dealt with it and focused on what she could control outshines the poor results.  Conversely, my colleague’s employee walks on water when it comes to project results, but is alienating the team and possibly taking sole credit for team results. Very bad how!
3. Keep it short and lean. I have learned so much about writing my self review and writing others’ reviews, from my boss.  He hardly writes more than four sentences in any section. (We have sections for the whats, the how, and the upcoming plans.)  He cuts out the crap, the fluffy words,  unnecessary adjectives, is firm but fair and gets to the point.
4. Use concrete examples. State observed behavior and consequences. Give specifics. No surprises, either — you should have been talking about concrete examples & feedback all year long. Geez, that’s management 101.  If you haven’t been giving tons of praise and a fair amount of actionable, in-the-moment constructive feedback all year there is something wrong with you and you shouldn’t be managing people.
5. Get partner feedback. Use your company’s feedback form or create your own, and ask 3-5 key partners of each of your employees for specific, candid and actionable feedback.  If they have direct reports, consider surveying their team. It will provide insight you might not have been able to see otherwise, especially if your team member is an individual contributor who operates fairly independently.  Oh, and best to summarize and anonymize before sharing with your employee, duh.
6. Use reviews to inspire. You are trying to inspire behavior changes, not de-motivate and cause people to shut down & disengage.  Talk about how you want the person to be successful, but in order for them to be successful they need to be able to look at poor performance or signature weaknesses straight on and deal with them.  For your A-players, talk about how you want them to take great performance and signature strengths to the next level.
7. Make it actionable. Identify what specific behaviors you want to see more of / less of in 2009. Talk with everyone about how you can support them as manger & coach to improve, or if already great, take their game to the next level. Ask them to identify concrete actions they will take. Follow the review process with a career development conversation and development plan. Keep those career conversations going with your employees throughout the year.
8. Thank them. Tell everyone that you’re glad they’re on the team and thank them for their hard work. (Unless of course you’re deeply, deeply not or they really, really didn’t.) This step is especially important for those of us in companies that are unable or unwilling to give merit increases due to the economy.

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