At my company, CHS, we are currently in our performance review cycle. This is a staple procedure in every large corporation I’ve worked. I’ve received performance reviews for 20 years and have been giving them for 13 years. Most people I talk to look at this process as an unpleasant chore. Most understand that it’s necessary, but painful nonetheless.

Every Human Resources organization in every company gives plenty of guidance on how to give a performance review. That advice is good and helpful. In this article I don’t plan on contradicting or replacing anything you receive from HR, but instead, I’ll provide my own insights I’ve gathered over the years. Hopefully my advice will complement the direction you already receive.

The prerequisites

In farming, you cannot have a good harvest unless you plant in the spring and cultivate during the summer. Similarly, you cannot have a good performance review experience if you don’t follow these prerequisites.

Goals

It’s hard to measure performance unless you have good goals. For 20 years, I’ve been told that I need to make SMART goals. This is fairly common knowledge, but just in case this is new to you, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. This is a fine place to start.

I like to add a little bit of my own criteria to this. I like goals to be strategic and aligned. Here’s what I mean: In large organizations it takes a lot of effort to contextualize the larger strategies and purpose of your company down into something that is relevant and actionable for you and your team. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I find it very energizing and motivating to establish goals that I can fulfill along-side my co-workers to help my company win.

That’ll get you strategic goals. Aligned goals are even harder. Teams need to share goals to make sure they support each other. It makes no sense for one person to drive their goals at the expense of someone else’s goals, but I’ve seen it happen. Make sure all goals on a team work together. That provides additional incentive for individuals and teams to work together to achieve the big wins.

Frequent check-ins

It’s important to have real conversations about progress on goals on a regular basis. Last week, I shared that I meet with my direct reports every week. One of those reasons is to keep the conversation going about goals and give continuous feedback.

I also take the liberty to reset goals and expectations mid-year. Our world changes constantly. The plans we made at goal setting time six month prior, very well may be rubbish now. We need to make adjustments and see what it takes to land the year well.

A fantastic performance review

If you’ve put in the work to make great goals and check in frequently throughout the year, congratulations, you are well on your way to having a great performance review experience. If you didn’t do that, then do yourself a favor and think of your future self on the next go around and make some improvements there.

I spend a lot of time carefully evaluating the performance of my team members. Even though this is a time-consuming task, I make the time because it’s worth doing well.

Here’s my recipe for an excellent performance review experience:

No surprises

I look at performance reviews as a retrospective look at performance over a period of time. It’s a formality and culmination of perspectives. This should be a summation of the review period and should not contain any surprises or new information.

Ratings = Perspectives

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about feedback. To summarize, there is some good scientific evidence that suggests that one person cannot objectively rate another person. There are always biases involved. People can accurately rate their own experiences, but that’s about it.

When I’m rating the performance of a team member, I try to keep this in mind. I listen closely to my team member’s perspective. I offer my own perspective. Each of us has a valuable point of view. Each of us has a unique set of experiences to bring to the conversation.

It can also be helpful to incorporate other perspectives. For instance, when I discuss my performance with my manager, I often suggest that it’s good to evaluate me through the eyes of my customers.

Through the exchange, I aim to arrive at a shared point of view. I always get there, not just because of this approach, but also because of the well-written goals and frequent check-ins.

Fair

Performance reviews aren’t a perfect science, but they should be fair. I conduct myself in a way that this should be a given, but just to make sure, at the end of each review, I always check with my team member to make sure they agree that the review we just completed is fair and accurately represents their performance.

For some of my readers, that’s not always possible and certainly the manager is the final authority on the review, but I aim for shared understanding every time and usually get there. Gaining alignment with your team member is much easier when you provide ongoing feedback throughout the year.

I raise the bar

Our organization is changing, growing, and improving. That means that great performance last year could very well be average performance this year. With the no surprises requirement, this expectation is explicit, not implicit. Team members know that working for me includes continuous improvement and escalation of performance.

Encouraging

Every aspect of a performance review points towards positive intent. I want my positive feedback to feel like recognition. I want my corrective feedback to be received as helpful and insightful. I want to support my team member’s career objectives and help them succeed.

Those are my pointers. I hope all of my readers have a great performance review experience. If you are dreading it, then perhaps I’ve given you some ideas on how you can make some improvements.

Do you have any suggestions of your own? Please share in the comments below.

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