I’ve always disliked getting performance reviews. Not because they were necessarily bad…I just didn’t really get the point of them. They always seemed to be very carefully worded and somewhat arbitrary. They told me what I already knew, and seemed to hint at what I needed to work on….but lightly. Plus, it seemed like everything got stored up for the big reveal: first hint at midyear, then the big discussion at year end…when it seemed too late to really do anything.

As a manager, you need to give feedback quickly and frequently, good and bad. You want people to make mid-course corrections and to learn. Similar to advice on disciplining children, you should focus on the behavior, not the person. I think this applies as well here. Feedback should be about every day performance. And eventually, all that feedback helps someone answer the bigger questions such as promotion and potential. But first, the day to day.

So when your people or someone does something really well,

• Acknowledge it publicly: “Sue, that was a really clear testing plan. It’s what we needed to make sure our end dates were still good.”
• Tell them privately: “Joe, I thought you handled that situation with Tom well.”
• Tell them via email, “Mary, nice job. Well done”.
• Copy your boss on the email, so he or she knows.
• Circulate examples of best practice “Hi everyone, attached is a presentation that Kelly recently made on Project X. It was very well received and might be helpful for the rest of the team”

When it’s not good behavior, I find the private conversation is best. It’s important not only to talk about it, but also to suggest how to rectify it. Things I’ve used are:

• If the person has lost their temper or been inappropriate publicly, they need to apologize. Now. In person.
• If the presentation didn’t go well, spend time reworking it. See #8.
• If the project blew a milestone, review the plan and over communicate/over manage until you feel it’s back on track.
• And when you give the feedback privately, it needs to be from a place of caring. I’ve been exasperated, impatient, and plain mad in these situations because I want them to understand that it’s serious to me. And no, it won’t just blow over. And it’s been ok.

The key is, if you do it frequently and quickly, it feels more natural, and becomes a normal way of life instead of seeming like you’re taking stock of a person and thereby making it seem more important than it needs to be. It won’t feel like a condemnation or criticism of the person, it will feel like feedback. And when you do have the midyear and the year end, there should be no surprises.