Listening for Feedback

Your performance review will often generate feedback. The problem is that it is natural to accept feedback that is consistent with your view of your performance and your self-image, and to reject feedback that is inconsistent. But if you don't know what you don't know and/or your perception of standards and requirements differ from your bosses, you may reject crucial information for your development and success.

It is never easy to receive feedback, nor is it often easy for the person giving you the feedback. Here are some tips for taking advantage of this difficult process.

1. Suspend judgement. Don't try to analyze on the spot whether the feedback is "right" or "wrong". Treat the feedback as data to be gathered.
2. Practice active listening. Summarize and reflect back what you hear with your best listening skills. This part of the process is about accurately collecting the data without distortion.
   
3. Make sure you have clarified the information without becoming defensive. Questions along the lines of "I hear what you are saying about my performance; I'm wondering if you can give me a specific example of when I've done that?" Note that this approach is not challenging of the information or the perspective, it is simply gathering more information.
4. Thank the person for giving you the feedback, whether you agree with it or not. Let them know that you want to process the information and, perhaps, respond later.
5. Continue your data gathering by checking in with another trusted source. Again, control your defensiveness. If you approach a friend with "Can you believe he said that I...", you will receive emotional support while minimizing your opportunity to learn. Try instead, "I'm trying to get a better perspective on what the boss is saying; have you seen or heard me acting in X fashion?"
6. When you have a clear picture of the feedback, along with supporting evidence and stories, consider how you will respond to the feedback. Is there potentially a blind spot that you need to learn more about? What part of this situation do you own? Is some of this only one person's perspective? Is it possible that the perspective is more widely held than you think; how can you investigate that?
7. It is easy to react to feedback; much more difficult to choose how to respond. Take your time to decide what you will do with the information and how you might reply.

For additional tips, see How to Receive Feedback with Grace and Dignity by Susan Heathfield.

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Performance Feedback Wrap-up: Send me an email on the good, the bad and the ugly of this round of performance reviews, and I will summarize the most interesting anecdotes in an upcoming column. Remember, we learn from reflections on our own triumphs and challenges, as well as from the experiences of others.

Overestimating Your Capabilities?

David Dunning, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Cornell University explains in a Gallup Management Journal article that most people overestimate their capabilities. If you just had enough time, or started earlier enough, or had the right gear, you too much just play golf like Tiger or tennis like Vanessa or sing like those folks on American Idol; right? A Business Week survey supports Dunning's finding by noting that 90% of American middle managers believed themselves to be in the top 10% of performers.

We overestimate our capabilities because:

1. Normally people will claim credit for their success and blame other people or conditions for their failures. As a consequence, the overall sense is one of success.
2. Feedback from others is often couched in softened terms, may be incomplete or less than honest, and may well not be understood or heard.
3. Frequently people have no way to know how something could have been done differently or better; they are unconsciously incompetent.

Confidence is energizing and can bring its own rewards. Identifying the blind spots and acting on them can be equally rewarding.

Whether with your boss at annual performance appraisal time, with trusted peers, or with an external coach, asking for feedback remains a key step in identifying improvement areas that you just cannot see.

Today's conventional wisdom suggests that you should build on your strengths. That's very true, but without awareness of our weaknesses and finding ways to mitigate them, you may be winning a battle and losing the war. Strong leadership requires that you set high expectations for yourself and others, and demonstrate the ability for continuous learning and growth.

Executive coaching is a tool that supports the identification of blind spots and the development of successful behaviors and skills. To learn more about this investment in your career and the careers of your employees, contact me at Sherry@ReadSolutionsGroup.com .

90% in the top 10% of performers?

Business Week just published a survey of 2000 American middle managers and above, over the age of 25, and found that an astonishing 90% believed themselves to be in the top 10% of performers.

While just a couple of days before this publication, Marshall Goldsmith on his blog entry, The Success Delusion, writes:

Without even being aware of it, we often:

• Overestimate our contribution to a project;
• Have an elevated opinion of our skills and standing among our peers;
• Conveniently ignore the costs of time-consuming dead-ends that we have created;
• Exaggerate our projects’ impact on profitability by discounting real and hidden costs (the costs are their issue – the success is ours).

Many of our delusions can come from our association with success, not failure. Since we get positive reinforcement from our past successes, we think that they are predictive of great things to come in our future.

Self-esteem and confidence are powerful tools in driving success. Yet how best to temper those with a bit of humility? Picking one thing to work on, practice the art of reflection (what will I do differently when I next encounter this situation?) and watching for skills in others that you may want, all will help you to keep a learning mind. You may still believe that you're a top 10% performer, but there's always more to learn.

Self Assessments & Performance Management

Kris Dunn over at the HR Capitalist in What's That Smell? Self Assessments & Performance Management writes:

As an individual who recently revamped a performance management system from the old subjective system (everyone gets the same 80 items, rank on a scale of 1 to 5) to one driven by cascading goals driving individual objectives across the organization, I've had a lot of time to ponder things in the performance management space. One thing I have ran into is the value of allowing employees to evaluate themselves as part of the process (Self-Evaluations!!)....

Now, I don't want go all Dennis Miller and get off on a rant here, but the prospect of self-evaluations is more riddled with holes than the final season of the Sopranos.

Here's why I don't like Self Evaluations:

1. There is always a gap between real and perceived performance, and the gap is always largest with your lowest performing employees.
2. Self Assessments set up managers who struggle with performance management to fail unnecessarily.
3. Self Assessments are often crutches for managers with poor writing skills.
4. Most employees confuse behavior and performance that "meets" expectations as "exceeding" expectations.

Every system has pros and cons. Certainly the downsides listed for self assessments are valid. A self assessment should NEVER be the sole tool of the performance evaluation. Yet just as managers can be lazy about the writing, most of us are over influenced in evaluation of performance by recent events. The manager, who no doubt should take the time to track and discuss performance throughout the year, frequently only gets to it once a year. Should the employee then be penalized because the manager only deals with the issue infrequently?

I argue that the employee has the responsibility to write up their own performance review and offer it up to the manager. They have a greater vested interest in seeing that the performance period is looked at in total; that all of the performance criteria are considered. And besides, who has the most to learn from really thinking about the performance - the manager or the employee?

See my blog posting at Writing Your Own Performance Review for recommendations to the employee on this process.

Helping Others Think

A colleague or subordinate walks into your office and says, “I really don’t know how I’m going to ....” Before the words are out of her mouth, are you already working on the solution? Do you have three recommendations that he can use before he’s even sat down at your desk? All too often, as managers, colleagues and friends, we see someone else’s dilemma as an opportunity to problem-solve, after all, that’s what we’re good at,

If we could take a step back from the situation, we might first determine what our colleague seeking. Does she want an empathetic ear, a sounding board, a brainstorming partner, some counsel, or an answer? Most of us jump immediately to working out an answer; yet from the time we were five, we were pushing away the people who told us what to do. Consider what might happen if the next time you are presented with a dilemma, you ask the question, “How can I best help you resolve this?” Or “Would you like to use me as a sounding board or would it help you more if I used some questions to help you clarify your thinking?”

By using these simple questions, the ownership of the problem stays firmly with your colleague or employee. It is not your problem to solve; it is his problem. You have offered support. In addition, you have respected his capability to solve the problem; you will stay in the role of a facilitator.

Once you have established your role in the discussion, you will usually find it best to assist your colleague in stepping back from the problem, and in clarifying their direction. In his book, Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work, David Rock suggests using questions that focus on the “thinking” she has done about the dilemma. You might consider something along the line of this series of questions:

How long have you been thinking about this?

How clear are you about this issue?

How committed to resolving this are you?

Can you see any gaps in your thinking?

Do you have a plan for shifting this issue?

What insights are you having?

Are you clear about what to do next?

How can I best help you further?

The initial questions will help your subordinate clarify his objective, how long it’s been an issue, and how important it is to solve. Most people will have some thoughts about next steps and in the process of speaking about them, will gain additional insights. By the end of this conversation, your subordinate will be clearer on his direction, have identified the next step, know he has your support and will have retained ownership for the problem and solution. Notice too that the conversation focused on solutions, did not delve into the details of the problem and steered clear about wallowing in dramatics.

Occasionally, your subordinate or colleague may stuck and looking to you for guidance. Your goals should be assisting her to find a solution for herself. Refrain from offering “the answer”, as in, “this is what I would do.” Make an additional attempt at “What’s your gut instinct here?” If she is still stuck, you may want to offer alternatives in the form of suggestions. “Here are a few ways you might explore this question”, and end with “which of these seems like it might help you, or have these suggestions triggered any other ideas for you?”

Rather than solving problems for others, as a manager, let them retain the opportunity to learn the skills of solving their own problems, let them have the sense of accomplishment and the commitment that comes from the accomplishment.

For more on levels of thinking, see the blog “Choose Your Focus”.

David Rock. Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). Questions above from pages 131-132.

Writing Your Own Performance Review

Performance review time – potentially one of the least desired events of the work year. Your experiences could range from receiving seemingly arbitrary comments, vacuous praise, a sense that your manager hates this more than you do, to comments on a job well done and even the (occasional) useful comment.

Can you make this a better experience for yourself and your manager? Can you prepare? Yes to the latter, you can certainly prepare, and even better, develop your review throughout the year. The answer to the first is that it cannot hurt to try, even if you have the most difficult manager imaginable.

Learn everything you can about the review process. What is the corporate policy on reviews? Does your division or organization implement the policy in a specific way? How do the reviews influence the individual’s compensation? Is there an overall summary, for example, a letter or ranking? If there is a summary, is it completely at the discretion of the manager, done by a management team, or based on some form of forced ranking? How are the rankings linked to overall corporate, division or group performance?

Understand your boss’s objectives and beliefs. Is he doing this to check off a box? Does she want to present her employees in the best possible light to others? Is he truly interested in your development? Does she have a hidden agenda? Does he believe that performance reviews are primarily for the benefit of the organization or for your development? Is there any political benefit to your manager for investing her time in this process? What is the political payoff to your manager for over-evaluating or under-evaluating his team?

Gather the relevant information. Throughout the year, keep files of accomplishments ranging from completed project plans, letters of acknowledgment, notes from phone calls. Gather your position description, the goal/objective document for the current year, last year’s performance review, mid-year reviews, and desired competencies for your job (or the one you aspire to).

Put yourself in the shoes of management. What results and contribution was management looking for from you this year? What did you do that contributed to your boss’s reputation? What behavior was your boss looking for from you (e.g., cooperation, team leadership, delivery of results, innovation, compliance)? Did you solve or cause any political problems in the organization?

Write it up. Write it up, that is, from the perspective of the boss – what did you do for him and his organization this year? For format, think about how your boss likes to receive information – does she want all of the gory details? Is he swayed by evidence? Does she want just the facts? Is he interested in shared credit? Put aside your natural style, and provide a review for your boss based on her style. Focus attention on your contributions, your strengths, and how they aligned with the organization’s and your boss’s objectives.

Meet with your manager. Ideally, your manager will use your performance review to acknowledge your contributions and strengths. She will give you a few helpful suggestions for the next year, and then move onto how to build success. Unfortunately, performance reviews are rarely ideal. If you have done your homework, you should be able to anticipate the mood of the meeting. Check your emotions at the door and listen carefully. Listen for the acknowledgments of contributions and strengths. Listen for the suggestions and criticisms – don’t argue – take these away and try to learn what the message is. Listen for the underlying beliefs and needs of your boss. What behaviors and contributions is he looking for from you?

Debrief. Review the meeting as objectively as possible. Quiet your internal voice that agrees or disagrees with comments made and try to note the words and tone used. Once again, look at the world through your boss’s eyes and needs – what did he get from you and what does he need from you? What pressures is she under that led her to these conclusions? What beliefs, values and motivations drive him that you might or might not hold?

Some systems allow, or even encourage responding to written performance reviews. If you believe your performance review is unfair, carefully evaluate whether the issue is a matter of degree, whether there is some basis for the comment, whether there are any political motivations, and whether you have clear evidence supporting your position. If you believe after careful consideration that you have a case, meet with your reviewer and present any counter-evidence you have not previously provided. If the review stands (remembering that the boss usually wins), consider whether it is you are in the right job.

In the best possible world, performance reviews provide you an opportunity to review your contributions, calibrate your understanding of expectations, receive affirmation of your strengths, and learn about how to contribute even more in the next year. More likely, you need to be doing your best to influence opinion throughout the year. Remember that the more you can see the world through the eyes of your boss, the more likely you are to be able to meet her expectations.

References and Additional Resources:

Heskett, Jim, What’s to be Done About Performance Reviews – HBS Working Knowledge , November 27, 2006.

Murray, Joanne, Effective Performance Reviews – Management Career Advice from Monster.com

McKay, Diane Rosenberg, Performance Reviews – How to Prepare for a Performance Review and What to Do if You Get a Bad One

Copyright 2007 Sherry L. Read, All Rights Reserved