A great performance review gives someone something genuinely useful: a clearer understanding of what they’re doing well, where they could be even more effective and what that might look like in practice.
When difficult performance conversations happen throughout the year, rather than being saved up for the performance review, people have the opportunity to actually do something with the feedback.
That, surely, is the point.
Most organisations already have plenty of process around performance. There are objectives, rating scales, review forms, guidance for managers and increasingly sophisticated software to keep everything moving.
The real measure of a successful performance management process is the quality of the conversations it creates.
This is one place where we really want to keep humans and not replace them with technology. Yes, great software can prompt the conversation, capture it and remind everyone that it needs to happen. And managers still need to have conversations with other human beings to help them understand what they do brilliantly and how they can be even more effective.
How difficult performance conversations make development possible
The best performance conversations give people clarity while there is still time to use it.
If I’m doing something brilliantly, tell me so I understand what’s working and can do more of it. If there’s something I could do differently that would make me more effective, tell me that too, and be specific enough that I know what to try.
By the time the formal performance review arrives, there shouldn’t be a plot twist.
The review is an opportunity to celebrate success, recognise the strengths and unique talents someone brings, reflect on how they’ve grown and agree where they want to go next. We can be so focused on development that we forget how valuable it is to help people understand what they are already really good at.
And because the useful conversations have been happening throughout the year, the review isn’t the moment someone discovers that their manager has been quietly wishing they would “be more proactive” since March.
The CIPD’s 2023 Good Work Index found that only 55% of UK employees agreed that their line manager provides useful feedback on their work so there’s room for improvement here.
Kindness is clarity
In my experience, managers usually want their people to succeed, which is important because it changes how we think about difficult feedback conversations. The intention is to give them information that helps them become more effective rather than to catch somebody doing something wrong.
Yet sometimes, in trying to be kind, that useful information gets softened.
“You could be more strategic.”
“I’d like you to show more leadership.”
“Perhaps try to speak up a bit more.”
“Be more creative.”
The manager may know exactly what they mean but it lands differently with the person receiving the feedback. And feedback of “be more creative” is about as useful as a chocolate teapot unless I understand what creativity looks like in my role.
Kindness is clarity. Being clear doesn’t mean being harsh or marching into a meeting armed with “I’m just being honest”. It means respecting someone enough to give them information they can actually use.
If the person receiving your feedback has to go away and work out what you meant, you haven’t finished giving the feedback yet.
What does useful developmental feedback sound like?
Imagine you’re managing someone who has strong technical expertise and plenty to contribute, yet in project meetings they tend to wait for you to answer questions and make recommendations on behalf of the team.
They are already capable and you want to help them demonstrate it. You could say: “I’d like you to show more leadership in meetings.” They may nod enthusiastically and then continue to do exactly what they have always done.
Instead, try:
“You have strong technical expertise and I’d like other people in the project team to hear more of it directly from you. I’ve noticed that when questions come up in meetings, you wait for me to respond even when the question relates to your area. Going forward, I want you to answer those questions directly and, where you have a view, give your recommendation rather than waiting for me to ask. Let’s see how that feels and we can talk about what you notice.”
Now they know what they’re already doing well, what you’ve observed and what doing something differently might look like.
That is feedback they can use.
Knowing how to give feedback is only part of the story
Most managers can recognise good feedback when they see it. Give them “be more proactive” in a workshop and they can usually tell you exactly what’s missing. With a little practice, they can turn it into something specific, observable and useful.
Then they have to say it, out loud, to someone else.
That someone could be somebody they like and they’re worried about upsetting them. Perhaps they expect disagreement or they’re concerned that being clearer will sound harsh. The more important it feels to get the conversation right, the harder it can become to say the thing that actually needs saying.
Feeling under pressure can affect working memory and cognitive performance, helping to explain why somebody can understand a skill perfectly well and still find it harder to access when the pressure rises. I’ve written before about how this can show up when we’re dealing with conflict at work. Performance conversations can create some of the same internal responses.
If managers already know what good feedback looks like, the next question isn’t “What else do we need to teach them?” it’s “What gets in the way of them using what they already know?”
Give managers somewhere safe to practise
Managers can get better at difficult conversations before the difficult conversation arrives.
Give them realistic, slightly messy examples and let them work out what they actually mean. Take “be more creative”. What have you noticed? What would you like to see more of? What would that look like in this role? What could the person actually try?
Then say it out loud. Because a beautifully constructed sentence written on a flipchart feels different when the other person is eyeballing them then responds:
“I don’t agree, give me an example?”
Or even: “Why haven’t you told me this before?”
Practising in a lower-stakes environment gives managers the chance to experiment with the words, notice their own reactions and stay clear and kind even when the conversation doesn’t follow the script they imagined.
We’re helping capable managers access more of what they already know when the conversation matters.
Better conversations make performance management work
When managers have clear, useful conversations throughout the year, people have the opportunity to understand expectations, recognise and use their strengths and change something that could make them even more effective. Which means difficult performance conversations become part of how people develop rather than something saved for the formal review.
And the formal review can then do what it should do: celebrate contribution, recognise talent, reflect on development and look forward.
Consistency throughout organisations matters. What are we saying to employees if one person receives regular coaching and useful developmental feedback while somebody in the next team receives a completed form and a rating they weren’t expecting.
The performance management process may be exactly the same.
The experience of being managed is not.
Completing the performance management process is a good start. The bigger opportunity for HR and L&D is making sure the conversations are strong enough to lift performance.
Completion rates tell you whether people have used the system. They don’t tell you whether anybody had a useful conversation. And better performance management starts with the people in the room having better conversations.
If you want your managers to have more quality conversations, get in touch. Let’s talk about what you need them to be able to do differently.