Is it June already? Is it really time for mid-year performance reviews? Why is no one ever ready (including me)? Why does everyone find performance review writing an onerous task, even if we intellectually recogize there is merit in the process? Good thing that as Career Muse I can merely muse without feeling an obligation to respond to all these pesky questions. Instead, I have a little performance review story for you... with a very happy ending.
Some years ago in another phase of my career, I was head of marketing research for a team of quite talented individuals. We had a fairly extensive process for evaluating performance and, one particularly busy year, after scurrying around to be certain all the appropriate forms were completed and all the appropriate discussions took place by the appointed deadline, I rebelled.
I proposed to my manager that we dispense with the traditional agonizing process, cut to the heart of what really matters (in my opinion) and ask our teams to respond to only two questions, on which we would base our on-going discussions throughout the year and on which we would all be evaluated at year-end. He humored me, and I asked my team these two questions:
- Why is your job important?
- Why are you the best person to be doing it?
Deceptively simple questions to ask, yielding wonderfully complex responses and gratifying, productive discussions. Despite the fact that the official process was not abandoned, we used these questions and ensuing discussions as the foundation of our performance review philosophy, with extremely positive results.
Today, as I am in the midst of reviews at a different firm, with a different team, I still think about those questions when I talk with my team (by the way, the mid year and final reviews are two of many continuing discussions) about performance.
And the happy ending? Each member of our team knows why his or her job exists, and I am so pleased to say they are the best people to do what they do. Are we perfect? Ummm - no, but we are excellent! And the upside to performance reviews? As a manager, if you know in your heart what matters, if you are open and communicative with your team on an on-going basis, and if you keep these two core questions in mind, the upside will be there every time. And the forms? Well, they are still onerous, but now they are electronic.
