Managing Performance Well

We are in Performance Management period for a lot of companies (those that run twice a year reviews). And as a first time manager this can be an interesting space to be in. Your role as an IC was once complete feedback on others and do your review. As a new manager you need to write your teams reviews, peer feedback plus your own one too. You also need to follow the company performance structure when looking at compensation changes or promotions within the team.

This can be all very new and somewhat confusing. A lot of companies will run through some training for managers ahead of the review process kicking off, but they will only cover off what you need to be doing during the review process and limited insights in key details or items you need to be looking at before review process starts.

In this weeks newsletter lets explore your new role as a manager in running great performance processes for your team.

Before the review process

One of the things that I always talk about with new managers is that your teams performance should be continuous and not once or twice a year. Once you move into the new role I would highly recommend that you get all the prior review data from your team and review this. Then discuss this with your team understand their thoughts, and most importantly, how the development areas are in their current objectives. By doing this you will get a lot of information and insights on the history of the development of the team. Not only that but it will help you to understand if there are any underlying issues and how you might want to manage these going forward.

Early on in your role as a manager get an extended 1:1 meeting with them to go through in detail the prior development plan and what this looks like in their current career goals. Going through this in detail with them will show them your passion and interest in developing their careers. This will also help you when you are looking at delegation tasks.

Make sure your team also knows their role and responsibilities well. Too often people are hired and have a certain expectation in relation to their role but going through what you expect of them also puts in place a good understanding between you and them on what they should be focussing on and goals etc.

It’s also worth having a space to track progress of the objectives. This is certainly good practice to get into which drives better accountability across the team as well.

Before the review process starts its worth connecting with the team together and explain what is expected of them and how they should be gathering the feedback and data for building out their reviews. If there are certain people you want your team to request data from again worth mentioning this to them. Using a system to track this is a lot easier than having a spreadsheet and hopefully your company has something like this in place.

To get ahead of this make sure those you would like people to get feedback from are aware and know this will be coming. Not only will this be helpful for them to plan or decline but also gives them time to start thinking about the feedback in more detail.

Running Effective Review Process

As a manager you will need to meet with all your direct reports and based on the feedback from others as well as what you have observed from working with them and what needs to be expected of the individual. Doing these well can be the difference of having engaged employees or having some further challenges leading to exits and need to hire.

Ahead of the meeting there are two different ways to share the feedback:

1. Share ahead and allow them to read before the meeting. This will mean more of a conversation at the review meeting but also worth you ensuring your written form is strong as it could be misinterpreted.

2. Share points in the meeting and then share written points after the meeting for further digestion. This could lead to more conversations on your points and rating after the meeting but not a bad thing as these should be continuous and not a one off thing.

Neither approach is wrong or incorrect it will all depend on the individual and how they to process the feedback initially.

When talking about the review it’s recommended that you follow a structure and have all your points you want to talk about documented and detailed out. This is to help you make sure you cover off all points you want to cover.

You may want to follow something like:

• Starting out with covering off their self review

• Your feedback & peer feedback

• Moving forward & goals

• Q&A

• Next actions

In terms of how to run through the review it’s often seen as good practice to start with the strengths before moving into the development areas. Reason is that you can capture their attention and pivot to goals and positivity around this at the end. Can be harder to do this if you end on the positives.

Next you will want to work with them to build out development plan going forward, if they already have one in place what needs to be changed.

Managing Promotion Items

As part of review process you will have people that are promoted and those that aren’t. The ones that are promoted is very straight forward and is one of the most rewarding things to do as a manager. These are pretty straightforward where you communicate the promotion and any salary change.

Where the challenges arise are those that just miss out on the promotion. This can be a difficult situation to manage but gives an opportunity as their manager to show them how you will help them to move forward and next review be promoted.

To do this well I would recommend following the below structure:

1. Be clear in your communication and points, don’t waffle and jump around. This means your talking points and feedback need to be strong. Think about the SBI model.

2. Focus on facts and data points. By focussing on the facts and the data you are able to highlight where the individual has fallen short.

3. Link to development. Linking the feedback to a development plan will be a key thing for the employee to hear. This means you are shifting to opportunities to progress and what support you will provide to help moving forward.

4. Timeline and expectations. Be clear with them in terms with timing and expectations for them and what to expect going forward. This gives them some clarity and understanding going forward. It avoids ambiguity.

5. Document everything. Make sure you have this development plan documented and detailed down. This will hep with ensuring there is accountability and reference point for all future conversations.

If there are any additional resources needed or support be clear in how this is to be accessed or whether approval is needed. This may well be some additional courses or external resource that could be beneficial for them in development.

As a Manager your role is to continue development and coaching of your team. Make sure you have development plans and be clear with how you will support. Most importantly do this throughout the year with regular check-ins perhaps once a month or once a quarter to hold people accountable and change items if needed.

Hopefully these points will help you as you shift into performance review process.

Let me know how you get on.

Book recommendation

First, break all the rules: What great managers do differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

A well researched book from Gallup on what great managers do differently to everyone else.

PS I am giving away free email mini-course for first time managers get it here

PPS If you are hiring and not sure how to make sure you find the right people, my interviewer training course is for you.

Coming soon: ManagerOS training course.