Mentor tools V: Performance Review

Are you in charge of a colleague's Performance Review? Is it your first time doing it?

If so, I can give you a hand with that. From my experience, I know that sometimes the Performance Review process is not easy, especially the first times you do it. You may feel lost, you may not know where to start, or you may even feel a little nervous about the process. Since I've been through that, I want to give you some tips that have helped me.

But first it would be good to understand what the purpose of the Performance Review process is, right? Let's get to it!

1. What is the Performance Review process?

The Performance Review process is nothing more than the evaluation of a person's performance at work.

If you are reading this now, you are probably in the final phase of this process, that is, preparing the document and the final meeting in which you are going to communicate to your mentee your evaluation of the whole year.

But really the Performance Review is an ongoing, year-long process with some milestones that are probably familiar to you:

• Goal Setting meeting
• Goals follow-up meetings
• Gap analysis meeting

As you will see, you probably have actually been doing performance review throughout the year if you have been working with your mentee for some time and you’ve had several one on ones where you’ve been:

• Giving continuous feedback to your mentee on their progress.
• Managing their expectations
• Periodically aligning their progress with the company's objectives.

If so, this last part of the process (i.e. filling out the annual Performance Review document and the communication meeting), will be a mere formality. So don't panic, you're doing fine!

If you haven't done all this exactly, I encourage you to reflect on your areas of improvement as a mentor in this process - we all have something to improve!

2. My Tips

Here you’ve got some tips to face this last part of the Performance Review process.

I’ll divide the tips in two steps:

• Filling-in the Performance Review document
• Communication of the Performance Review

Step 1: Fill in the Performance Review document

To fill out the Performance Review document I recommend that you follow these steps:

• Collect information & documentation:

  • Get feedback from all the people who can provide feedback on your mentee (peer feedback, client feedback, self assessment, etc.).
  • Take the documents describing the skills you have to assess for my mentee according to their role and seniority (called Skills dictionaries at our company).
  • Review their Performance Review document from last year.
  • Take a look at the Job description, i.e. the document where it is specified which skills are attributed to their role and seniority.
  • If you still don't have a 360º view of their performance, you can set up a meeting with whomever you need to get a better perspective of their performance, for more objectivity.

• Fill-in the Performance Review document, keeping in mind that the idea is to:

  • highlight achievements
  • point out areas for improvement, justifying them with evidence and focusing on proposing solutions.

Throughout this process, try to be as objective as possible.

And if you need help with anything, don't hesitate to ping to a fellow mentor with more experience, who will surely give you a hand.

Step 2: Communication of the Performance Review

This is a particularly important moment.

Yes, it may only be a formality if there has been continuous feedback throughout the year, but it reminds me a bit of getting my end-of-year grades in high school. So, in some ways, it can be a difficult conversation to deal with.

However, I prefer to see it as a conversation where you can:

• Strengthen the trusting relationship you already have with your mentee.
• Celebrate achievements and identify what has made your mentee achieve those achievements in order to repeat it.
• Detect areas of improvement and decide what can be done about it.
• Continue to know better what are the expectations, motivations... of our mentee.
• Align the mentee's ambitions with the company's objectives.

Having said that, the difference I see with my teacher giving grades at school is that this is a two-way conversation. The mentor provides an input, which is the Performance Review document and its evaluations, and from there, a dialogue is created with the mentee in which they can also contribute their point of view.

The value of the Performance Review lies not so much in the mentor's notes and comments, but above all in the dialogue that is generated from them.

To make this meeting as fruitful as possible, here are some tips:

• Write to your mentee to arrange a date and time that suits you both and you have enough time to talk. This communication only happens once a year, so make it a priority!
• Consider sending the Performance Review document in advance to your mentee so that they can look at it calmly and come to the meeting with questions, doubts...
• Along with the Performance Review document, this year I have sent a message like this to convey my mindset regarding this meeting, and thus also generate safe space, as I think that sometimes this moment can be a bit imposing and I want my mentee to feel comfortable to give their point of view:

Hello [mentee’s name] ! Here is your PR. I hope, above all, that it will be useful to you. Read it calmly and if you have doubts, at the meeting ask me anything you need, feel free.

I have tried to write a feedback with what I have seen from you this year and with all the information I have received from colleagues, clients and your own self assessment. If you see something that doesn't fit you, feel free to discuss it. For me, the enriching part of the Performance Review meeting is not that I give you the numbers and comments and you read them, but that a fruitful conversation about your professional progress arises from what I have written with more or less success.

Take from the feedback what you can use to improve. In the end, feedback is opinions and there can always be a margin of subjectivity. See you at the meeting!

• Block notifications during meeting time. This is the time to activate your active listening at 1000% (and yes, that extra zero is not a typo).
• When the meeting starts, remind them that this is a safe space for them to discuss what they need to.
• If you have sent them the Performance Review document in advance, ask them what they thought, if they have questions or if they have seen something they want to comment on or disagree with. That's where the discussion can begin. Then, you can ask them if they want to read the document with you again or if it is not necessary.
• If you haven't sent the Performance Review before the meeting, ask if they prefer to read it aloud or quietly, or if they prefer you to read it. Also make sure that, if you read it, they feel comfortable interrupting you by saying explicitly, "Feel free to stop me if you want to comment something”.
• THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT TIP: During the meeting, talk to your mentee as if they were someone you love and want to help, for example, your best friend or a younger sibling. Someone you want to care and also help make progress. This will prevent you from falling into criticism and settling into caring, which is crucial when giving feedback to avoid the other person becoming defensive (which is, after all, a normal human reaction to feedback). And when installed in this mood:
  • Celebrate their accomplishments: "I'm very proud of your progress in..."
  • Point out their areas of improvement with firmness and empathy: "I think you could improve in this area by…, as I have seen that… what do you think?". Remember to argue with evidence and put the focus on possible solutions.
• Apply this caring mindset to everything you communicate. It will help you connect with them and strengthen your mentorship relationship.
• Encourage them to express their point of view frequently by asking “what do you think about…?” or “How do you see it?”. This will fuel the discussion and, again, make the meeting a safe space from which great insights can emerge.
• If there is a point on which your mentee disagrees, discuss it without fear. Keep an open mind, there may be something you have missed in their performance.
• If at some point in the discussion the conversation gets complicated, in one of my next articles I will give you tips on how to manage difficult conversations. This is unlikely to happen if you have been giving regular feedback, but it is always a possibility.
• Close the conversation by thanking your mentee for their work during the year and their openness in contributing ideas to this meeting.
• You can also take the opportunity to ask for feedback on the meeting or even on the whole Performance Review process.
• Finally, you can also let them know the next steps in the Performance Review process of your company.

And that's all the advice I can give you! I hope these personal tips will help you face these last steps in the Performance Review process. Good luck and see you in the next one!