It’s a pretty safe bet that your managers aren’t fans of the traditional, annual performance review process — whether they’re on the giving or the receiving end. 

Unfortunately, as a result of their contempt for it, the review process isn’t as effective as it could be. 

So a better approach may be the shorter, more frequent “Tough Love Review” created by the team at Motivate Design, a user experience and design agency. This review process is championed by Motivate’s CEO/founder Mona Patel.

Benefits achieved

In a column for Harvard Business Review, Patel said her firm’s approach to reviews has resulted in:

  • praise from clients on team performance
  • more employees acting on feedback, and
  • a turnaround in team dynamics.

Here’s how it works:

First, create a spreadsheet with two sides: “Tough” and “Love.”

Under “Tough,” list two or three performance issues in need of improvement (i.e., goals missed, general quality of work, etc.).

Under “Love,” list two or three “highlights” (i.e., goals achieved, recent accomplishments, etc.).

Next, open the conversation by explaining to the employee that your goal is to identify his/her positive contributions and areas for improvement.

Then, ask how the employee would like to receive feedback on a 1-to-10-scale – with 1 being kind and nurturing and 10 being direct. Use the answer as a guide for which side to start on and how gentle to be.

Finally, give the employee a few minutes to provide a response.

The entire conversation should take about 10 minutes.

For a minute-by-minute breakdown of how this conversation should go, see Patel’s blueprint.

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