At the beginning and middle of the calendar or fiscal year, may organisations have performance ‘check-ins’ or full blown performance reviews and can form a key part of the annual talent life cycle. Productive and positive discussions are the most important element of any performance review process, with a critical element being about development.
Whilst it is a key element for the agenda, good performance discussions are ongoing, throughout the year. Here are some of our thoughts which might help.
Ongoing Discussions
As we have said, the most important thing is to keep development discussions continuous. If they wait until twice (or worse, once) a year they risk being built up into something neither party wants to approach. There’s also a lot to remember and some of the good stuff gets missed!
Critical to supporting someone’s development is to ensure there are never surprises in performance discussions. Feedback should be timely, always. We believe the same should be the case for development. If opportunities present themselves, recognition is deserved or failures need to be analysed, they should be done at the time. There is a lot we can learn when things go wrong (arguably more than when things go to plan) and the right support and attitude towards failure is critical.
Time for reflection is important and creating a safe space for dialogue enables a productive ‘post match analysis’. If people feel safe to fail, they will feel save to innovate. Innovation is a key business differentiator.
Share Your Story
There’s a lot of talk about authentic leadership and we see it as remembering that you are a human being. Share your story with your people, talk about your own successes and failings, and help to see that learning is an ongoing journey. This will help build on the trust you’ve achieved in the relationship and allow for honest dialogue. Once you have this, the relationship can only grow in a positive way.
Encourage Your People
We all need different levels of encouragement, depending on the situation and our aspirations. Perhaps for some it’s worth asking what the end game is (ie ‘start with the end in mind?’) or for others, it might be able building capability towards a future promotion or job move.
Consider that some may have a fundamental issue with self-belief. This can manifest itself in many ways a few examples are: withdrawing from opportunities; dealing with deep rooted assumptions about themselves that are inaccurate; hearing a constant ‘inner voice’ telling them that they cannot do it. Although not true in all cases, it has been proven that women are more likely to undervalue their capabilities than men. This is an important point when leading both men and women. Encouragement should be positioned correctly for the individual being supported. Sometimes, a little help recognising their value can go a long way.
As leaders we need to think about how people learn. As mentioned in a previous blog, it is 70% experiential, 20% from others and only 10% in the classroom (or books, etc). This opens up a wide varietly of different development options, such as mentorships, cross-functional exchange programmes, visitors, shadowing, etc.
Leadership Development
Life can feel quite lonely at the senior leadership level which is why coaching often provide great value in this space. The use of a leadership psychometric tests, such as the Hogan Leadership Series, is a great tool to identify a leader’s strengths, potential for derailing behaviours and their values. These results go on to spark bespoke discussions about self-awareness, future aspirations and development options to support this.
If you are keen for support in discussing development with your people, or would like to discuss how the Hogan Assessment package can assist, feel free to get in touch for a ‘no-obligation’ discussion on how we can help.
