Speaker 1: Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership on today's
Speaker 1: discussion on employee engagement. I want to go over something
Speaker 1: that was brought to my attention by one of our
Speaker 1: listeners after our Monday episode that we just published three
Speaker 1: days ago. We talked a lot about performance reviews and
Speaker 1: about the tendency for some leaders to use a lot
Speaker 1: of personality traits in performance reviews as opposed to talking
Speaker 1: about actual observable behaviors and outcomes that are more objective,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just based on the feeling the leader
Speaker 1: has about a person. And I had a listener reach
Speaker 1: out and say that they felt like they owned it.
Speaker 1: They felt like they were pretty bad at doing this,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to get better, but they didn't really
Speaker 1: where to start, and they felt like this was impacting
Speaker 1: the engagement of their team. That they've been given feedback
Speaker 1: from their team after delivering a performance review that they
Speaker 1: didn't like that review, or they didn't understand it, or
Speaker 1: they just felt lost after receiving the review and didn't
Speaker 1: know how to move how to move forward, or how
Speaker 1: to make sure that it was better next time. And
Speaker 1: I like this because I think you know when you're
Speaker 1: talking about what to put in place or what to
Speaker 1: do to get better at this if you're not good,
Speaker 1: or even if you are good, the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to level check and kind of verify that you
Speaker 1: are still good at this, because it can it can
Speaker 1: get very easy to start writing reviews incorrectly based on
Speaker 1: personality traits, especially if you're writing a lot of good reviews.
Speaker 1: I think some leaders really you know, dive into the
Speaker 1: evidence based reviews when it comes to writing performance reviews
Speaker 1: that require a change in behavior from from employees because
Speaker 1: they need to have kind of their their their t's
Speaker 1: crossed and their eyes dotted. But when you're writing a
Speaker 1: very positive review, it can be assumed sometimes that employees
Speaker 1: won't have a problem with that review that they're getting
Speaker 1: because it's positive anyway, and so the leader is less
Speaker 1: likely to have a lot of evidence based reasons of
Speaker 1: why the review is positive, and again that short change
Speaker 1: the employee. And so I want to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to this individual and anybody else might be feeling
Speaker 1: the same questions around, you know, the things they can
Speaker 1: do right now to get better at this and to
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that they're you know, doing right
Speaker 1: by their employees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's great, and I think it's awesome
Speaker 2: that people are kind of thinking about this and talking
Speaker 2: about it. And again, the realization is that almost all
Speaker 2: of us need some help here to get better at
Speaker 2: this over time. And the reason why I think it's
Speaker 2: also so important is because this is a practice that
Speaker 2: as you continue to do it will help you to
Speaker 2: observe things differently and even in the informal conversations like
Speaker 2: I know, right now we're talking about the formality of
Speaker 2: like a performance review and why this is important as
Speaker 2: you write it on paper and it stays with the person.
Speaker 2: But I also think about, you know, the informal times
Speaker 2: of conversations that you're having when you're when you're actually
Speaker 2: observing the behavior in the moments, right, are you saying
Speaker 2: something like oh, Chris, like hey man, I really appreciate
Speaker 2: it your positive ata to today in the meeting and
Speaker 2: just you know, the way that you you know, allowed
Speaker 2: everybody to have a voice. Sure, I mean that sounds good,
Speaker 2: right like, oh, yeah, you got no problem anytime? Absolutely,
Speaker 2: or right am I going to say, hey, Chris, you
Speaker 2: know one of the things that I appreciated about your
Speaker 2: impact to the meeting this morning and the fact that
Speaker 2: we were able to really align on the strategy was
Speaker 2: that you created a space where you allowed everyone to
Speaker 2: share their ideas, and you even took a step back
Speaker 2: at one point as you saw that somebody was sharing
Speaker 2: and then we jumped into something else and you paused
Speaker 2: the whole team and you went back said, well, hold on,
Speaker 2: let me let me make sure that you get to
Speaker 2: finish your thought here, because because I want to, I
Speaker 2: want to be sure that we've all had the opportunity
Speaker 2: to talk through this and share what we're thinking as
Speaker 2: we get to this point. And that type of leadership
Speaker 2: in the moment and the op like observing where people
Speaker 2: are at, body language and conversations that are happening, that
Speaker 2: really allowed this to be a space wherever one was
Speaker 2: very attuned to everyone else and everyone had a chance
Speaker 2: to talk through their ideas, and that really was extremely
Speaker 2: helpful in that process. Yeah, big, big difference between there's
Speaker 2: a lot more, write a lot more, but very specific
Speaker 2: based on the behavior and and and doing my best
Speaker 2: right in the moment, even to avoid the personality things
Speaker 2: because like it's just kind of what we do. But
Speaker 2: I but I think that's why this is such an
Speaker 2: important topic, and I think that you know, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you'll share a couple things. I'll share a couple of
Speaker 2: things around ways that we can go about sharpening this
Speaker 2: skill and in ways that we have gone personally around
Speaker 2: sharpening the skill for ourselves.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that segue was intentional, but uh,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great one to say. We're going
Speaker 1: to go over that. I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: things that people can do to actually sharpen this skill,
Speaker 1: or to if you're if you're starting from a blunt
Speaker 1: stick on the ground and you and you and you
Speaker 1: have some a lot of sharpening to do then, or
Speaker 1: or if you just want to kind of fine tune
Speaker 1: some things. I want to go over some of those
Speaker 1: things that you can do right now with your coworkers
Speaker 1: to get better at this do and do right by
Speaker 1: your people. But first I want to get upward from
Speaker 1: one of our sponsors. All right, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I like to do when it comes to honing
Speaker 1: this skill and making sure that it's in the right space,
Speaker 1: especially as I'm approaching you know, performance review season, and
Speaker 1: you know some organizations you write them year round because
Speaker 1: it's based on the anniversary of the employee. Other organizations
Speaker 1: have a time of year that you write them for
Speaker 1: all employees. If this is something you do throughout the year,
Speaker 1: because it's based on an employee anniversary, you might argue
Speaker 1: be better at this skill because you it's in the
Speaker 1: front of your mind all the time. If you're in
Speaker 1: an organization that does this, you know, once a year
Speaker 1: for every employee, then it sometimes it might be harder
Speaker 1: to get back in the mindset of it and you
Speaker 1: have kind of like relearned this a little bit each time.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I love doing is
Speaker 1: I'll pull old performance reviews out that I've written for
Speaker 1: people or that were written for me, and I will
Speaker 1: partner with a coworker that doesn't know the names of
Speaker 1: these people or doesn't know who they are, pull the
Speaker 1: names out, and have that person read a review back
Speaker 1: to me that I wrote. And am I left with
Speaker 1: the feeling that I know a what behaviors I should
Speaker 1: start doing right away that I'm not doing, and what
Speaker 1: behaviors I should stop doing that I am doing. And lastly,
Speaker 1: am I clear on why those behaviors led to the
Speaker 1: outcomes being measured on the performance review? So the company
Speaker 1: has the goals. These are the goals we're getting towards.
Speaker 1: This is how I met this goal or didn't meet
Speaker 1: this goal. And these are the behaviors that I exhibited
Speaker 1: throughout the year that led to meeting or not meeting
Speaker 1: this goal. If I'm clear on those things, then it's
Speaker 1: a good performance review. If I'm not clear on what
Speaker 1: I need to do going forward and I just know
Speaker 1: how that person feels about me, it's not a good
Speaker 1: performance review.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's great. I would almost do something
Speaker 2: of like when you're in the practice for writing a
Speaker 2: self review. I think we get pretty good at this
Speaker 2: over time. But also sometimes and I'll be guilty as well.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you write a self review and it's just like
Speaker 2: here's the data, here's the thing, here's what went well.
Speaker 2: You know, basically, just here's some information, right and then
Speaker 2: and then I'm just waiting to get my review from
Speaker 2: my direct leader. Like that's kind of a lot of
Speaker 2: times what we can do here. But this is a
Speaker 2: great space to say, Okay, you know, what are two
Speaker 2: or three things, and just let's keep it. Let's keep
Speaker 2: it like timely in the last maybe you know, three
Speaker 2: months or six months, what are two or three things
Speaker 2: that were outcomes that you felt really good about. They
Speaker 2: maybe got recognized for they were you know, they exceeded
Speaker 2: the expectation. Maybe they were done you know, on time
Speaker 2: or early. But like two or three things that you
Speaker 2: feel really good about from a body of work. Write
Speaker 2: those three things down and then take the time to say, Okay, specifically,
Speaker 2: what behaviors did you do that had the impact on
Speaker 2: that outcome? What did you do and just even if
Speaker 2: you have to list them, you don't have to make
Speaker 2: it all pretty, but then list those behaviors down. Now
Speaker 2: write the review for yourself as if you were your boss. Right,
Speaker 2: use that information and write yourself a review as if
Speaker 2: you were the boss. And what does that look like?
Speaker 2: How does that feel? What's different? Now that you have that,
Speaker 2: go back and review both review your own self reviews
Speaker 2: and review previous reviews that maybe you've received and look
Speaker 2: to see what the differences are.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And I think if you go about doing it that way,
Speaker 2: you're going to build in some practice with some things,
Speaker 2: some behaviors that are really easy for you to remember,
Speaker 2: things that are personal, things that are you know that
Speaker 2: you clearly know that you did. But I think just
Speaker 2: the act of writing them out this way will be
Speaker 2: helpful as you start to think about others, and it's
Speaker 2: probably going to have you think about when you write reviews,
Speaker 2: how you get information from people in that review, because
Speaker 2: that's the first thing I'm thinking of, is, like, what
Speaker 2: questions am I asking my leaders to get the specific
Speaker 2: details of behaviors that maybe they did or that were
Speaker 2: a part of this that maybe I didn't even observe
Speaker 2: or that I wasn't aware of, but are definitely a
Speaker 2: part of you know, why they either had success or
Speaker 2: maybe they struggled.
Speaker 1: Right, I like this a lot. There's there's there's something
Speaker 1: that someone said to me once, almost like an exercise,
Speaker 1: and it had nothing to do with leadership, but I
Speaker 1: thought it was I thought it was kind of a
Speaker 1: fun exercise. They asked me to describe the color blue
Speaker 1: without giving examples of things that are blue. And I
Speaker 1: thought that's interesting, and it's interesting how some things are
Speaker 1: really hard, if not impossible, to describe without just giving
Speaker 1: examples of it. And if you're thinking about the things
Speaker 1: you're writing about people on a performance review specifically, you
Speaker 1: need to go into it with that mindset of if
Speaker 1: you can't describe it, then you shouldn't write it. It's
Speaker 1: the difference between telling somebody that they're nice versus telling
Speaker 1: them that they made their team feel appreciated by giving
Speaker 1: them credit publicly on the hard work that they did
Speaker 1: and complimenting them in that way. One leaves a person
Speaker 1: feeling complimented, but the other leaves a person knowing exactly
Speaker 1: what they did so they can replicate it in the
Speaker 1: future because it had a positive outcome on what the
Speaker 1: team was looking for. And if you're doing it in
Speaker 1: this way, if you if you think about it from
Speaker 1: a standpoint of can a person actually replicate the behaviors
Speaker 1: because they know what they were, or can they stop
Speaker 1: the behaviors because they know what they were they didn't
Speaker 1: get them the outcomes, then that is a good performance review.
Speaker 1: And if they can't do those things, then you need
Speaker 1: to rewrite the performance review until they are able to
Speaker 1: do those things very clearly. They can look back on
Speaker 1: the review throughout the year to kind of level set
Speaker 1: themselves on the things they should be focusing on and
Speaker 1: working on when the review is not clear in their
Speaker 1: mind because you just gave it to them. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us in this episode about employee engagement. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next Thursday. For the next one, you have
Speaker 1: a great day.