Jeff Russell - Fearless Performance Reviews: Coaching Conversations That Turn Every Employee Into a Star Player

Copyright 2014 by Jeffrey Russell and Linda Russell. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Lets be honest, performance reviews have a bad reputationfor a good reason. They often arent structured in ways that bring out the best conversation between managers and employees. Instead, managers and employees often approach the annual review with uncertainty, anxiety, and dread. Without a good framework for the review and without the right mindset, tools, or training in how to navigate this sometimes difficult terrain, managers tend to put off reviews until the last minute and employees tend to assume a defensive posture as they steel themselves for their managers summary judgment of an entire years worth of effort. Because of these factors, the traditional review as too many of us experience it can be intimidating and fear inducing. It doesnt have to be this way.

We think that its time to approach performance reviews in a fresh way. Instead of the often one-way managerially driven process of the classical approach, wed like to propose a more transformational performance coaching conversation. In this approach, the employee actually takes the lead in the process, and the manager, acting as a coach, provides a more facilitative role in guiding the conversation toward insight and learning by both parties. We think that such a coaching conversation is capable of strengthening the performance partnership between the supervisor and employee and moving every employee to star-performer status. When used with the right mindset and a complementary suite of tools and strategies within the larger context of the great performance management cycle, the traditional performance review can be reframed into a powerful process that changes the very nature of the performance partnership and builds greater employee ownership of performance results.

There are dozens of books available to you on performance reviews. You can find books that present performance review forms, step-by-step strategies for giving feedback, and tools for diagnosing performance problems. There are phrase books that suggest helpful words and phrases to use when setting goals and giving an employee constructive feedback. Many of these books should be on your bookshelf and within reach as you prepare for an employees performance review. Each of these books holds a part of the solution needed to build your performance management skill set, but these resources will be most helpful to you when they are used within an overarching, comprehensive, and integrated approach to performance management. Using specific performance review tools, skills, and techniques or conducting performance coaching conversations without fully understanding this larger performance management framework and mindset is like filling your cars gas tank, changing its oil, checking the air pressure in its tires, and driving down the highway without a clear destination or map to guide you. And during your aimless journey you neglect to check the speedometer, oil temperature, and gas gauges as you wander about, hoping that youll arrive at the right placewherever that is! It is no wonder why the performance review process can be frustrating!

We think that youll find that Fearless Performance Reviews is quite different from other books on performance management and performance reviews. It presents an innovative approach to performance reviewswhich we have renamed performance coaching conversationsthat anchors the conversation within the framework of the great performance management cycle. In addition, we offer a powerful new way of thinking about performance management and the performance partnership between managers and their direct reports. Our approach is framed by what we call the collaborative mindsetan idea that has the power to profoundly transform how you interact with others, how you manage performance, and how you conduct the performance review. We are confident that this mindset is the strongest possible foundation for conducting coaching conversations, significantly reducing anxiety and fear in both the employee and the manager that often accompanies a more traditional review. We wrote this book to help reduce this fear and to enable managers, through the great performance management cycle and the coaching conversation, to bring out the best performance in everyone. It may be that not every member of your team is capable of becoming a star performer. We believe, however, that as a result of using our approach, which involves embracing the collaborative mindset, the performance coaching conversation, and the related tools that we introduce in