Best Practices_ Managing People_ Secrets to Leading for New Managers - Barry Silverstein [10]
Second, make the review motivational. Always emphasize employees’ strengths and praise their accomplishments. Address areas that need improvement as well, but do so constructively. Including coworkers’ anonymous input—both positive and negative—is a good way to broaden the review so that it reflects more than your opinion alone.
The quarterly performance review should follow the same outline as annual reviews. This will make the annual review much easier for both you and the employee.
At the end of any performance review, employees should understand clearly what they are doing right—and what they can do better. The focus should be positive. After a review, employees should feel motivated to overcome their weaknesses rather than feel inadequate.
No Surprises
When an employee is surprised by your appraisal of his or her performance, it could be because you have not provided daily or quarterly feedback, or you have not been clear and direct in the feedback you did provide. If you have been conveying honest constructive criticism all along, then there should be no surprises.
Upward Assessments
Do you have the guts to let employees review you? Some organizations use employee surveys to rate a manager’s performance. For instance, at sales meetings of Pitney Bowes, the world’s largest mail specialist, the company’s top managers hold forums where the salespeople—who are in the field with the customers day in and day out—rip into management strategies and policies with hard-hitting questions and confrontations. Although initially disconcerting, such “upward assessments” can have a positive impact. Managers see themselves through employees’ eyes and gain new respect for the review process. Ask each employee to tell you honestly how you can do better.
CASE FILE
THE MORE FEEDBACK THE BETTER
Fannie Mae vice-president LeRoy Pingho realized that he wasn’t getting the feedback he needed to get over what he called his “flat spots.”
To rate his performance, he set up an annual review for himself—by a boss, a customer, and a subordinate. Then he wrote a report on the information he had been given, gave it to 50 people—everyone from his wife to his boss—and asked a few of them to be his “spotters.” These people, with whom he worked every day, agreed to help him deal with his weaknesses. “If you see something, say something,” he told them.
Having immediate feedback in an area you’ve targeted for improvement makes all the difference.
SOURCE: “How to Give Good Feedback” by Gina Imperato, Fast Company (September 1998).
Outside the Box
THE MIDDLE 70 PERCENT
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch believes that most managers informally divide their staffs into three groups—a top-performing 20 percent who are continually rewarded for their work, the bottom 10, and the middle 70. “This middle 70 percent is enormously valuable to any company,” he notes. “You simply cannot function without their skills, energy, and commitment.” Keeping them motivated calls for training, positive feedback, and thoughtful goal-setting. People with promise should be cross-trained in other areas to broaden their experience and knowledge and should be given opportunity for leadership. It’s not about keeping them out of the bottom 10 percent, he notes. It’s about giving them the opportunity to join the top 20.
SOURCE: Winning by Jack Welch (Collins, 2005).
HANDLING DIFFICULT TASKS
You know about square pegs and round holes. Well, both show up in the workplace just as often as in the rest of life. Sometimes a person just can’t do the job, and as a manager you are faced with the difficult task of reprimanding or even terminating him or her. Simply because most of us do not like confrontation, many managers avoid stern conversations with employees, even those who need