To unlock performance and motivation in employees, use a personalized, continuous performance feedback-process.
The magic is not in the process itself; it’s the systematically planned and executed approach.
Let’s start by reviewing the differences between performance feedback and coaching conversations.
The main difference is that performance-feedback sessions are specifically held to dive deeper into skills, behaviors, and attitudes that are performance-related. They provide the employee with tactical recommendations to develop specific skills or shift behaviors to succeed in their roles. Employees learn to hone in on actions that will make them more effective moving forward. In these manager employee-led sessions, the manager offers specific feedback and listens to the employee’s accomplishments and goals for future growth. They often require the manager, however, to use powerful open-ended questions (similar to coaching conversations). But now the focus is on driving on-the-job performance (vs. career or personal development goals).
Coaching conversations, on the other hand, are broader and include supportive discussions about challenges in one’s current role or career aspirations. Typically employee-led, the employee comes to the session with a goal in mind. The manager coaches the employee to establish specific action steps and hold themselves accountable. Managers can offer employee coaching on a particular topic (could be performance-related), but the decision is the employee’s. You can’t coach effectively if the person isn’t open to coaching in that moment (or by you).
To review the keys to holding powerful performance-feedback conversations:
- Employee-focused and tailored: Each person requires a unique type of feedback and coaching. Expert managers and leaders know how to tailor their processes to meet each person’s needs.
- Ongoing and frequent (No surprises): It used to be customary to give feedback once or twice a year. That is no longer acceptable. Employees need and want ongoing feedback to know where they stand. They want to know what’s working and how they’re contributing. You must communicate clear expectations for future contributions.
- Connected to career aspirations and professional goals: If you don’t know what your employees’ career aspirations are, you won’t know how to tailor your process. Set aside specific time to uncover their career aspirations and goals before diving into performance feedback or coaching.
- Structured (yet informal): A common mistake is making performance feedback and coaching sessions overly informal. This can leave employees confused about what is expected or needed for their growth. Expert managers create a structured process with clear expectations, and they follow up in writing for added clarity.
If you’re new to giving performance feedback, these steps may feel overwhelming at first. (Or you may realize that your current process needs some fine-tuning.) Let’s break down each step necessary to quickly and easily create a process that helps you and your employees have powerful performance conversations.
Step 1. Employee-focused and tailored:
- Set aside time to uncover the employee’s preferences. (This is also the recommended first step in onboarding.)
- What are the feedback needs of each of my team members?
- What types of feedback do they need or want? Do they want direct “no-nonsense” feedback or softer, clearer messages?
- How often do they want feedback?
- Are there situations or circumstances when they don’t want critical feedback?
- Am I adapting my communication style to meet the needs/wants of my team members? How?
- Does my personal feedback need positively or negatively affect how well the feedback process works for my team members?
- What situations/conversations/discussions do I tend to avoid because I’m uncomfortable?
- What do I need to do differently (or develop) to be a great manager/leader/coach for my team?
- What changes do I need to make to my feedback process to ensure I give more frequent and continuous feedback?
- How can I improve my process to make it more tailored to the individual styles and preferences of my team and self?
- How can I ensure each team member has the opportunity to provide feedback about the effectiveness of my support?
- Schedule a session with each employee to discuss their feedback needs and desires. Once you have their input, agree on how often you’ll meet. Set upfront agreements on how to give and receive challenging feedback. Doing so will make the process easier. By consistently offering positive and challenging feedback, you’ll help employees grow, reaching their career aspirations faster.
Step 2. Ongoing and frequent:
- Agree on how often you’ll meet. Shortly, we’ll review how performance feedback and coaching/career-aspiration conversations differ. For this exercise, consider how often you and your employees want to meet for performance feedback. Our minimum recommendation is to meet quarterly. (Avoid making any process feel like a mid-year or annual review.) Remember, feedback should be given frequently, and when appropriate in the moment (positive and challenging). The purpose of quarterly (or more frequent) performance-feedback conversations is to provide a formal and structured way to capture what the employee is doing well and what needs improving. Doing so verbally or “on-the-fly” isn’t enough.
Step 3. Connected to career aspirations and performance goals:
- Schedule a separate session to learn about their career aspirations and goals. People move into action and make changes based on what motivates and feels important to them. By uncovering career aspirations and performance goals, you can more easily tailor to them. If you know an employee desires a promotion, for example, you may set up a session to explore required skills, behaviors, and attitudes, identifying performance gaps. The employee will be more motivated to develop skills that are clearly connected to reaching key personal goals. It’s also important to include your performance goals for the employee. For example, if you’ve noticed a skills gap that is holding them back, discuss how the employee can fill this gap. Then you and the employee can tailor performance-feedback sessions accordingly. You might also schedule individual coaching sessions to tackle each skill.
Step 4. Structured (yet informal):
- Use a consistent process and agree on actions items in writing. When people know what is expected of them, they can more easily succeed. Use a written format that is easy and conversational. Avoid making the person feel you’re creating a paper trail or documentation. The written follow-up should be encouraging and motivating. Without making performance conversations feel “heavy” or overly formal, you want to provide structure that helps both of you stay focused and on-track. For example, start each conversation with a review of what went well and what still needs improvement since your last meeting. We call this the “What’s working and where are you stuck” system. You may also want to use the 3+1 Formula. The key to a successful performance-feedback session is to keep the conversation flowing and agree on action items and deliverables to ensure follow-through and clarity. The ideal session ends with the employee feeling assured and motivated to leverage what’s working. They’ll also leave with expectations about future contributions (translated into action items and supported by coaching, mentoring, training, and timely feedback).
Following these four steps will help you create a performance-conversation process both you and the employee will love. You’ll find giving feedback in this manner inspires and motivates performance and growth. If you feel unsure or aren’t confident about giving critical feedback, the posts Tough Love: How to Give Critical Performance Feedback and Give It to Me Straight: How to Give Challenging In-the-Moment Feedback offer immediate relief!
