Feeling Unseen or Unheard? Write Your Own Review

For those feeling unseen, unheard, or living in a feedback desert, this is the third leg on the stool in a series called “Write Your Own Review.” It’s all about turning the tables on the process and stopping the waiting game by writing your own performance review.

The first blog addressed performance reviews by ambush. The second covered leaders who treat feedback like the plague. This blog is about bosses who never ask where you want to be in one to three years. . . or even tomorrow.

The remedy for all three is to take the bull by the horns and to Write Your Own Review.

Bosses Who Never Ask Where You Want to Be in Three to Five Years

Sadly, performance management is often reduced to an annual, dreaded event. The vast majority of aspiring leaders want to know where they stand, including areas they need to improve. Yet, they forget that those who report to them want the same – feedback on where they stand. (The story found in the second blog in this series says it all. You can find it here.)

Today’s Stories

While leaving a local restaurant with my three children in tow, a woman jogged out after us, asking that I come back inside to meet her mother. “Jenna” looked familiar, so my children and I walked back in. As we approached the table, Jenna said to her mother, “I want you to meet the woman who changed my life.”

This caused my children, who were skeptical about my leaving the corporate world to start a leadership development company, to look at me with surprise, and maybe a little pride.

Jenna explained, “Diana facilitated a team retreat and asked all of us, ‘Where do you want to be a year from now? Three years from now? Five years from now?’” Jenna went on to explain, “I thought about what Diana asked us, which is why I left xyz company, and decided I needed to get a new job, and to go back to school so I can become what I always wanted to be – a leader.”

This story is not very different from my own. While working at a largely male company that was dominated by engineers, I was “the female” employee identified to move up. As a result, I was sent to various external training programs, one of which was called MAP (Management Action Program). It was a three-day retreat with 12 participants, all from different companies.

At one point, the facilitator asked the group a question, then went around the loop taping us one-by-one for our immediate response. He then replayed the video for all of us to see. We watched and then were asked to vote on “the best one.”

The group decided there was a tie between John and me. The facilitator said, “No, there can be no tie; you must pick the best.” After a period of silence, Scott raised his hand and said, “They were both articulate and gave good answers, but warmth came through with Diana, so she was the best.”

I was stunned, and thought, “I have to be a tough cookie at home and at work, and would like to be in an environment where I can be warm, too.” I decided in that moment that I needed to find a new workplace environment, and to leave my marriage. Neither happened right away, but both did – eventually.

Sometimes, it’s those seemingly throwaway questions or comments that can be life-changing.

Lessons Learned – Where Do You Want to Be in Three to Five Years?

If no one else is asking us that question, then it’s time we ask ourselves.

Get Started: The How-Tos

It All Starts with “Write Your Own Review:”

• Sit down and document your three greatest workplace strengths:
  • What do you do well?
  • Give specific, concrete examples.
• Document your three areas of improvement – what you believe you need to improve upon to achieve your workplace goals:
  • What are the three areas?
  • Give specific, concrete examples.
• List where you would like to be in your career in one, three, and five years.

Next Steps

• Send the document to your boss.
  • Ask for 15 minutes of their time for a face-to-face meeting.
• Once you have the meeting, find out if there is agreement, or whether you are out of sync.
  • If in sync, congratulations!
  • If out of sync, what does your boss want you to do?
  • Regardless, schedule quarterly 15-minute check-in meetings.
• Ask for your boss’s support in achieving your workplace goals.
  • Be specific: what do you want your boss to do?
• If your boss does not respond to your initial meeting request – after you’ve tried three times to schedule one – and there is no meeting, or you have a meeting, and the boss does not agree to assist you in achieving your workplace goals, the ball is in your court.
• The good news is that you now know where you stand, and it’s up to you to act.
  • Will you stay?
  • Will you put a plan in place to leave – as did Jenna, who more or less left immediately, or me with a much longer runway.

These are the lessons I learned in my role as an Employee:

• When my boss was not asking me about my future, it was up to me to start the dialogue.
  • I wrote my own review.
  • I met with my boss.
  • I had quarterly feedback meetings with him.
    • Each time, he told me I had met the goals to his satisfaction.
  • At the end of the year, and despite his commitment, he failed to assist me in moving into the job in the Company that I wanted.
  • At the same time, a new officer was hired to start a new department – our company had a self-funded and self-administered health care plan – and he asked me to join his new venture and to negotiate a PPO.
  • I knew nothing about it; however, I took the job.
    • My new boss recognized my capabilities and gave me a chance to learn something new that would assist me in achieving my goals.

These are the lessons I learned in my role as a Boss

• Create a Culture of Transparency: Set the tone, lead by example, manage by walking around, and develop workplace relationships with team members.
• Give Immediate Feedback: Provide feedback as soon as possible, always taking a pause should the need arise to allow for emotions to cool down.
• Hold Quarterly 15-Minute Meetings with direct reports.
• Ask Team Members to Write Their Own Review: Before providing the annual document.
• Ask Team Members Where They Want to Be in one, three, and five years.

For more information, read the first two blogs in this series at dianapetersonmore.com, or the July and August Leadership Development Digest. And remember, it all starts with “Write Your Own Review.”