Receiving Feedback: The Annual Review
By: Diane Daum, Ph.D., Vice President, Research and Analytics, ddaum@valtera.com
Receiving feedback is an annual reality for managers as well as their direct reports. There is no need to be a passive recipient in this review process; you will get greater benefit if you are prepared for a two-way conversation.
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Pre-Meeting:
- Sum up your performance for your manager. Whether or not your manager asks you to complete a self-evaluation, you can provide a list of key accomplishments and projects that you worked on during the year to help her recall your contributions. Also list any development activities you participated in, whether company-sponsored or not. It is wise to do this well in advance of the meeting to ensure that you give input before the review is finalized.
- Be prepared to discuss what you need in order to be able to perform better. Are you getting enough feedback throughout the year? Lacking any key resources? In need of more visibility?
- In many organizations a development discussion is held separately from the performance review, but these may be concurrent. Be prepared to talk about opportunities and assignments that you would like to have this year.
During the Meeting:
- Ask for clarification or examples of any feedback you don’t understand.
- Take notes on issues that you may want to follow up on.
- If you have an inconsistent interpretation of an event, it is OK to share your interpretation and ask how/why your manager saw it differently. Be sure to treat your version of what happened as one perspective rather than “the truth,” and avoid using exaggerating words such as always and never that force a black-and-white perspective.
- Don’t lose your cool. If you start to have an emotional reaction to the feedback, make some notes, sleep on it, and request a follow-up meeting to discuss the issue more calmly.
Post-Meeting:
- If the feedback given is inconsistent with how you view yourself, consider asking others you trust whether they have observed it. It may be a blind spot for you.
- If you feel that your review is unfair and want to take action to address this, talk to your manager about the points of disagreement before going through an official grievance process. This may help you to preserve your relationship with your manager and allow her to share her point of view.
- Create a plan to act on the feedback by leveraging your strengths and addressing any development needs, and enlist your manager’s support to carry it out.
Being prepared and actively engaging in a dialogue about your performance will help to set you up for a successful 2012! And remember, the conversation doesn’t have to stop there: Once you start a two-way dialogue about your performance, meet regularly with your manager and continue the conversation throughout the year.
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