How do you deliver the message, so your Next Year Performance Discussion (and Last Year Retrospective) is an ennobling, uplifting motivating call to action?
The 5 PowerUP Steps give you a formula that will keep the dialogue positive even if there are though messages to take to heart. Here’s how:
1. AIM high. Define success in the coming year. Show your employee the 5-6 S-M-A-R-T goals that s/he absolutely positively has to achieve for the business to stay on track, for programs to achieve their milestones and deliver superior value to collaboration partners – users – payers – investors.
2. ASK for questions. Start positive and ask, “What excites you about these goals?” Listen to the employee’s interests and aspirations. Take notes so you can remind them and rekindle excitement, after the die is cast and when the going gets rough. Then ask about concerns. Listen, don’t debate. Keep a list, to show your employee that you heard them and took their issues seriously.
3. ACTIFY passion and confidence. If your employee is excited about the new S-M-A-R-T goals, stay upbeat and build on the energy. If you hear defensive traps, show your employee that you understand his/her fear or reluctance. Then get permission to shift the dialogue from soft eyes and sympathy to ennobling with a question like, “Can we look at this from another perspective?” Telegraph your confidence in the employee to rise to the challenge, step up and achieve what needs to be done. Affirm the strengths you have seen this employee exhibit over the past year. Acknowledge his/her personal highlights and accomplishments. Show that you (and others) have noticed his/her star potential.
4. ALIGN interests. Suggest the risks, the leaps of faith, the stretches, the improvements that will equip the employee to do more – better – faster – smarter and achieve next year’s more aggressive S-M-A-R-T objectives. Instead of dwelling on weaknesses, mistakes, setbacks, problems — look forward and define success. If you get agreement, shift from Idea Mode into Action Mode. If you get defensiveness, doubt, reluctance, fear — repeat steps 2 and 3 (ASK and ACTIFY) to lift your employee from Level 0-1-2 to Level 3-4-5.
5. ANALYZE next steps. Agree a plan. Commit to the support – resources – training that your employee needs to do his/her best work, upgrade or enlarge his/her contributions, PowerUP new scientific or leadership skills. Break S-M-A-R-T AIMs down into bite-size pieces with shorter timelines and set touch-points to check on progress.
Before you get started with any of this — do your homework:
- Define the “S-M-A-R-T” goals that your employee needs to achieve, to contribute to enterprise success in the next 4 Quarters, and align those “S-M-A-R-T” goals with program management, operations and other functions who depend on your group
- Take stock of the things that your employee did well in the year that is ending now — that will equip him/her to be a high performer next year;
- Look ahead and define what your employee could do even better next year — to develop his/her potential, seize more opportunities and avoid the traps that distract or delay his/her success
- Imagine what difficulties your employee will face and what support s/he will need to step up and expand his/her contributions
- Set a private time to talk with your employee, get your head and heart into an uplifting and ennobling mind-set and be open for whatever may come as you open the dialogue.
- If there are serious performance gaps and you need to do a Performance Improvement Plan rather than performance management, talk to HR.
- Remember — there’s no law that says you have to complete the cycle and AIM, ASK, ACTIFY, ALIGN and ANALYZE in a single conversation. If you get stuck, you can always take a “time out!” and reschedule for a day or two later.
- Most of all — have fun with the performance management conversation. This is the time to look forward and celebrate your employee’s potential — even if there are important performance gaps that you need to close.
