by Alison Green
3. State the impact of the behavior on you and, as appropriate, on your team, department, or organization: “We ended up not having time to reach conclusions and had to schedule a follow-up later, and we lost the attention of a couple of people when the topic we veered into wasn’t relevant to them.”
4. Make a recommendation: “Try allotting specific amounts of time to each item on your agenda to keep the meeting on track.”
This structure applies for positive feedback as well (with the recommendation at the end amounting to, “Keep it up!”). For corrective or developmental feedback, make sure to do one additional step:
Follow up. Make a note to revisit the topic a month or so later and discuss how it’s been going. You might need to give additional guidance or correction, or you’ll be able to recognize and praise the staff member’s progress.
Providing Additional Resources
Particularly for help in developing specific skills or knowledge, you can steer staff members to books or articles, workshops, or other people you have found helpful.
Pulling It All Together
In practice, you’ll often use more than one of these techniques at a time. You’ll also choose different techniques for when you’re helping someone develop a technical skill versus a behavior. For instance, writing effective press releases is a skill, while being consistent in work product is a behavior. You might use “I do, we do, you do” with the skill but would probably rely on naming the issue and giving feedback for the behavior.
Here are a few examples of development needs you might face and how you might approach them:
You want to help your program director run more effective meetings. Start by naming the issue and giving her feedback on her technique, followed by some key principles for running a meeting well. Then you might have her watch you run a meeting and talk with her afterward about what she observed. Next, you’d watch her run a meeting herself, using the guidance you’ve been giving her, reflecting afterward on how it went.
Your database coordinator is quick, but, perhaps in the pursuit of speed, too often she makes mistakes in her work. In this case, you’d name the issue and emphasize the need for accuracy. Then you’d check back a week or two later and provide feedback on her progress.
A manager is having trouble addressing a performance issue with one of her staffers. In this case, modeling the skill might mean role-playing the conversation, starting with your playing her role so that she can hear what the conversation might sound like. Then you’d switch roles and have her play herself while you play her employee, allowing her to practice the tough conversation on you and allowing you to give her feedback on tone and language. She’d then speak with her staff member directly, and debrief with you afterward.
One thing the approaches in all three scenarios share is that developing is usually a process, not a one-time event. So in addition to surfacing the issue, a good developer of people will stay engaged to see how the staff member is progressing. Then she will ensure that a step-back conversation happens once the staff member has had a chance to improve to see how things are going. (Sound familiar? If you said, “This is just like the delegation cycle in Chapter Two!” then you’re our favorite reader. If you’ve read ahead to our “Time and Systems” chapter and said, “Yeah, and I’d have to put a note in my calendar to remember to revisit this topic!” then you should come and work with us!)
LAUNCHING DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS—CHOOSE YOUR MEDIUM
Conventional wisdom will tell you never to raise a sensitive or difficult topic over e-mail, and instead to always have such conversations face-to-face. We agree that’s usually the ideal, but sometimes you might deliberately choose a different medium. For instance, sometimes you’ll be raising an issue with someone you know will respond better if she has some time to absorb and process your feedback first. In that case, it can be both kinder and more effective to raise the issue initially in e-mail (or, depending on your culture, in a phone call or voice mail), before you discuss it in person. In other cases, you might be the one who has trouble raising an issue face-to-face, and so you might raise it in e-mail first in order to ensure the discussion happens at all.
We want to be clear: This isn’t an excuse to avoid hard conversations; ultimately you will need to talk face-to-face. And in fact, make sure you include “let’s talk tomorrow” in your message, so that the topic isn’t left hanging. But sometimes surfacing the issue in an e-mail, phone call, or voice mail can help both parties.
“Earlier in my career, I hired someone, and it quickly became clear to me that he was so disorganized that we had made the wrong decision. In trying to reverse that decision, which is very difficult to do, I learned the limitations of trying to do things in a covert way. It doesn’t work; it just backfires completely. I should have said, ‘Here are the things you need to do to be more effective,’ and had a rigorous process to evaluate against those things. Since then, I’ve realized that in that situation, you need to create extremely short-term goals that reflect the positive behaviors you want to see, things that are easy wins. If you do that in very short cycles, it clarifies whether the change is possible in a lower-stakes way than if you let the problems build.”
DAVID BENNAHUM, FOUNDER, AMERICAN INDEPENDENT NEWS NETWORK
PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS
In addition to giving feedback on a regular, ongoing basis throughout the year, you should also conduct more formal performance evaluations. These evaluations give you a vehicle to assess an employee’s performance and progress against goals, provide suggestions for growth and improvement, let you find out how the employee is feeling about her job, and, in the case of lower performers, send clear messages about the consequences of failing to improve.
Effective Performance Review Processes
Organizations vary in how they structure performance review processes, but typically a manager provides a written evaluation to the employee and then the two meet to discuss it in person. Managers often ask employees to fill out self-assessments ahead of time as well, ideally using the same form that the manager will use for the assessment.
Most organizations conduct evaluations annually, sometimes with a second midyear review. As we noted in Chapter Three, if you want your staff members to take their goals seriously, set the cycle for your evaluations so that you can assess whether the staff member achieved her goals for the relevant time period (as opposed to reviewing performance on staff members’ anniversaries of employment). In addition, you should also conduct an evaluation with new employees two or three months after beginning the job in order to reflect on fit for the position and identify areas for growth. These can also include questions about how the employee is adjusting and what additional help she may need in the role.
What a Performance Evaluation Form Should Include
To be truly effective, a performance evaluation should focus primarily on the employee’s results, how she got those results, and an overall summary and tenure considerations. A common mistake organizations make is focusing on how the employee did her work, to the exclusion of the actual outcomes she achieved, but in a results-oriented organization, the evaluation should start with outcomes:
1. Results. List the employee’s objectives for the year and assess how well she met each of them. Take the context into account. For instance, if your development director didn’t meet her fundraising goal for the year but it’s because the stock market dropped 20 percent, acknowledge that. Conversely, if she met her goal but only because of an unexpected large bequest that she had little to do with, point out that she should have been able to vastly exceed the goal.
2. Performance factors. Next, assess how the employee approached her work. You might divide this section in two, first addressing organizational values that you expect all staff members to demonstrate (integrity, continuous improvement, persistence) and then assessing skills that are specific to this employee’s role (say, public speaking, writing compelling briefing papers, building relationshi
ps with policymakers).
3. Summary and tenure considerations. In the final section, discuss how the staff member is performing overall. Are there any next steps for improvement she should take? In order to send clear, unambiguous signals about the staff member’s performance, we strongly recommend using a rating system. You might also discuss the extent to which her continued tenure in the role makes sense. For higher-performing employees, the tenure question can be a sentence or two in which you flag the topic to be raised in your in-person discussion: “I’m excited to talk about what you’re thinking about your future when we meet.” But if you have concerns about the staffer’s fit for the role, put that in writing here, noting that if she does not improve, she may face dismissal.
Elements of an Effective Performance Evaluation
Keep the following principles in mind when you’re writing performance evaluations of your staff members:
Ideally, nothing in a performance evaluation should be a surprise, because you’ve been giving the staff member feedback throughout the year. (But if that’s not the case, don’t let that prevent you from being direct now.)
Be specific and use examples to illustrate your points when praising and when identifying areas for improvement. For instance, you could say, “You did a great job with the new inventory system,” but it’s more effective to say, “Your revamping of the inventory system has saved the organization money, and I’ve heard several people comment about how much easier you’ve made it to find the supplies they need.”
Pay attention to the overall picture you’re painting. We’ve seen managers inadvertently write lukewarm evaluations for stellar employees whom they would be devastated to lose. And if the employee needs to make major improvements, make sure that comes through in the overall message. Think of the evaluation as a mini-essay, where you want to make sure that your thesis statement (“You’re doing great!” or “I need you to reach the next level quickly”) comes through. Tools 7.3 and 7.4 provide samples of completed evaluation forms.
Resist the temptation to be overly influenced by recent events. If an employee has struggled with something all year but recently improved, or if she has done well all year but recently made a major error, be sure the evaluation reflects the whole year, not just the past few months. At the same time, if someone has struggled all year but improved recently, be sure to note that so the person doesn’t feel her efforts went unnoticed.
Consider getting feedback in confidence from others who work closely with the employee. You may find out aspects of the person’s performance, both good and bad, that you didn’t know about.
KEY POINTS
Invest in your best, because your best staff members are usually the ones who will grow the most.
Know what you can change (skills and knowledge) and what you can’t (talents and basic inclinations).
Distinguish between development needs and serious performance issues, and don’t allow development to distract you from dealing with underlying performance issues.
The best staff development stems naturally from strong, hands-on management: pursuing ambitious goals, being held to high standards, and being given candid and direct feedback about what is and is not leading staff members to reach their goals.
Additional ways of developing staff members include naming the issue, articulating key principles, giving stretch assignments, introducing one new facet at a time, modeling, giving feedback, and providing additional resources.
Provide feedback on a constant, ongoing basis in order to reinforce behavior you want to see more of, prevent bad habits from becoming ingrained, and foster an atmosphere of open communication.
Conduct formal performance evaluations each year. To be truly effective, a performance evaluation should focus primarily on the employee’s results, how she got those results, and an overall summary and tenure considerations.
Promotions can be a great way to recognize when a staffer has developed and is ready for new challenges, but the key consideration must be how well matched the employee is with the skills needed in the new position, not how well she has done in the previous position.
Additional Reading
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), especially “Spend the Most Time with Your Best People” (pp. 153–163).
TOOL 7.1
FEEDBACK WORKSHEET
I want to give _____________ (name) feedback on _______________________________ (skill/area).
Setting the Stage
I will set the stage for the conversation by: ________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
Probing Questions
If appropriate, some questions I might use to make this more of a conversation include (circle any you might use):
How did you think that went?
What do you think might be causing this?
How could you approach it differently next time?
What are some other approaches you could take?
Why do you think that went so well?
What are the takeaways from what you did that worked?
What could have gone better?
Do you have thoughts on how you might put that into practice?
____________________________________________________________________________________
Observations
Some observations and concrete examples that I will share:
Statements
Some statements I want to make around impact or what I need to see change:
Questions
Some questions I will ask or ways I will probe:
Suggestions
Some suggestions I could make:
Wrap-Up and Next Steps
I need/do not need a repeat-back. If I do, I will say this: ____________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I will follow up on this area in the future in this way: _____________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
TOOL 7.2
SAMPLE 2 × 2 FEEDBACK FORM
The 2 × 2 system ensures that managers and staff members talk about how things are going in their work. The manager and the staff member each fill out two things she is doing well and two things she could do better, as well as two things the other person is doing well and two things that could be better. For the staff member, the focus is on her performance overall; for the manager, the focus is on her work with this staff member. You might build a monthly meeting around the 2 x 2 form, or you might incorporate it occasionally in your check-ins.
Issue Example
Two things I’m doing well a
Two things I could do even better
Two things you’re doing well
Two things you could do even better
Example for a staff member Persistence You followed up the generic rejection from funder X and got us an in-person meeting.
Example for a manager Giving clear guidance I should have been much clearer about the time constraints around getting board materials out. We had a last-minute crunch that I could have helped prevent.
a If you’re a staff member, list two things you’re doing well in your work overall; if you’re a manager, list two things you’re doing well in your work with this staff member.
TOOL 7.3
SAMPLE COMPLETED EVALUATION FORM FOR A CORRECTIVE ASSESSMENT
STAFF EVALUATION FORM
Rating Scale
Exceeds expectations—Consistently delivers exceptional results; is a model for others to follow; rare.
Meets expectations—Consistently meets expectations in all areas.
Partially meets expectations—Meets expectations in some areas but needs improvement in others.
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Does not meet expectations—Needs significant improvement quickly.
Employee name, position Eric Bardwell, Technology Director
Manager name, position Julia Torres, Managing Director
Review period January–December 2011
Date of Review December 5, 2011
Reviewed by Self Manager
SECTION I: GETTING RESULTS
Mark important objectives and/or measures of success in bold
Measurable Goal Result(s) Rating
E: exceeds expectations
M: meets expectations
P: partially meets expectations
D: does not meet expectations
Achieve high level of internal customer satisfaction, with 75 percent “highly satisfied” on year-end survey 62 percent highly satisfied D
Complete Web site build-out and redesign on time and bug free by July 1 Site launched three weeks late and there were four bugs reported over the first month P/D
Complete online application system on time and bug free with full functionality by October 1 Launched on October 3; three bugs reported and fixed in first week P
Comments: To what extent did the staff member achieve objectives for the position this past period? Did the staff member complete the key steps necessary to reach objectives?
Use a clear initial sentence to present the overall picture; then focus on specifics within that context.
While you had some positive accomplishments this year, overall you fell short of our aims. Positive highlights include completing a number of the priority items we identified through the quarterly plans: getting the online application system up and running well and missing an aggressive deadline by just two days; and meeting a large number of recruitment and admissions needs (including enhanced reporting and helping trainings function at a higher level).
