I had my yearly performance review the other day. In truth, I have been here almost 4 years and this was only my second review. So it's not at all yearly. While I've never actually had a bad one (knock on wood), it's still not my favorite thing. You schedule this meeting at which you know the potential exists for you to receive criticism and then you have to spend the next few days anticipating what's going to be said. It's that anticipation I don't like. It'd be a heck of a lot easier if I could just be blind sided by the review so I don't have to spend time worrying about it. Just call me down to an office out of the blue and lay it on me. I can take it. But, like I said, I've never had a bad one. I subscribe to the notion that if there was a problem with my performance they wouldn't (and shouldn't) wait for my review to tell me about it.
Since nothing remarkable happened this year I thought I would tell you about an interesting review I had several years ago. One of my previous bosses travelled a lot. When I say a lot, I mean A LOT. He would go away for two weeks, come back for 2 days and then leave for another week. He would even take a red eye back to the office, work for the day and then head to the airport after work that same day for another multi-day trip. I was his executive assistant. In fact, I was one of his two assistants. So what work there was to do, and there was a lot, was split between two people. Needless to say, when he wasn't around there wasn't much to do. There were very few, if any, self sustaining parts of the job description that didn't require his presence. No boss meant no letter writing, no phone calling, no emails, no calendar maintenance, no meetings to schedule and prepare. He'd call in once a day but that was about it when he was away.
During one of my yearly reviews he told me that he knows he isn't around a lot but I "need to do a better job finding things to do" to keep me busy. Really? OOOOO...K?
This was by far the most head scratching comment I've ever gotten in a review. I understand this as a piece of useful feedback on face value. If you are a server in a restaurant on a slow night you might clean the coffee machine, wipe out cabinets and sort silverware. But this was an office and I was there to work for this man in any and every way he needed. When he would leave town for 10-12 days I would be left at work for several days in a row without even speaking to him. I could go an entire month of work and only see him for 3-5 work days stretched out over that entire period. I would even go into his office before a long trip and ask him for work to do while he was gone. When you are an executive assistant and you haven't seen your boss in 5 days and aren't going to see him for another three, there are heaps of time when there's nothing to do. I wasn't upset with the comment, it made me laugh more than anything because it was so absurd. Mostly, I couldn't believe he said that.
After some consideration, I realized that this comment came as one piece of criticism in a review that was extremely positive. He felt the need to at least offer up some level criticism as my boss and that's what he came up with. I mean, I know I am perfect and all, but he probably didn't want me to know that I knew he knew I was perfect!!!!
I learned that in our reviews we need to be prepared for whatever comes our way no matter how insane it may sound. How we react to it, in what context it was delivered, and what we do with it is what make all the difference. It is important to not react emotionally during your review as hard as that may be.
There are a lot of great resources available to help us survive our reviews. Boston.com has a great guide so try starting here: http://www.boston.com/jobs/galleries/performance_reviews/.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
So What Should Scott Do?
I thought I'd start with things that Scott shouldn't do before I talk about what he should do:
Set up a meeting to speak with the Regional Director to confront him about all of the Friday presentations that are then asked about on Monday to prove that his Friday presentations are thorough and well prepared.
In general, it's never a good idea to confront your manager no matter how right or wrong you think you are. Think about it this way, the people that are above you on the career ladder, while perhaps not because they are smarter, more talented or even a better person, got there by doing their jobs well in a way that works for them. Could they learn to do things better? Probably! But for the most part, they are usually there because they are good at what they do. It will help you a great deal if you understand that you probably aren't going to get them to change and it could be a problem for you if you try. It's a classic case of the risk far outweighing the reward. Instead, think about trying to understand who they are, how they work, and what you need to do in order to compliment their style rather than pointing out what is wrong with it.
Complain to his coworkers about how frustrating it is to work with the Regional Director but don't really change the way he's handling the Friday presentations.
Let's face it, it helps to vent. And if you have a trusted colleague (and I mean TRUSTED), then by all means go ahead and vent. But do not go spouting off to anyone who will listen about all of your supervisor's flaws. And certainly, venting to a colleague isn't the only thing you should do because it is a passive response that won't yield anything but trouble no matter how good you feel afterwards.
So this leaves us with what Scott should do:
Try creating a PowerPoint slide and then handing out a one page synopsis of his Friday presentation that people could take away from the meetings and refer to later.
Now there is no guarantee that this will work. Perhaps Scott's boss isn't someone who responds well to hand outs or slides. But what this does show is that Scott is being proactive in trying to find effective solutions. What he has done here is create new a presentation style that he thinks might positively affect the most amount of people. The PowerPoint is designed for those who respond well to taking in information visually. The handout is designed to help those that understand and absorb information by reading. Those two, combined with his verbal presentation, now gives Scott a fair chance to reach everyone in the room and makes sure the information is going to be retained by almost everyone. After all, if you don't absorb information by visual aids, reading or listening than chance are you don't retain much now do you?
A more formal name for what Scott is doing is Managing Up, which means going above and beyond your actual job description to enhance the work of you manager. Making his/her life easier by providing what he or she needs, anticipating those needs and often satisfying those needs before you are asked. It's a method of assessing the working styles of those around you are figuring out ways to compliment them for the benefit of efficiency and progress.
Set up a meeting to speak with the Regional Director to confront him about all of the Friday presentations that are then asked about on Monday to prove that his Friday presentations are thorough and well prepared.
In general, it's never a good idea to confront your manager no matter how right or wrong you think you are. Think about it this way, the people that are above you on the career ladder, while perhaps not because they are smarter, more talented or even a better person, got there by doing their jobs well in a way that works for them. Could they learn to do things better? Probably! But for the most part, they are usually there because they are good at what they do. It will help you a great deal if you understand that you probably aren't going to get them to change and it could be a problem for you if you try. It's a classic case of the risk far outweighing the reward. Instead, think about trying to understand who they are, how they work, and what you need to do in order to compliment their style rather than pointing out what is wrong with it.
Complain to his coworkers about how frustrating it is to work with the Regional Director but don't really change the way he's handling the Friday presentations.
Let's face it, it helps to vent. And if you have a trusted colleague (and I mean TRUSTED), then by all means go ahead and vent. But do not go spouting off to anyone who will listen about all of your supervisor's flaws. And certainly, venting to a colleague isn't the only thing you should do because it is a passive response that won't yield anything but trouble no matter how good you feel afterwards.
So this leaves us with what Scott should do:
Try creating a PowerPoint slide and then handing out a one page synopsis of his Friday presentation that people could take away from the meetings and refer to later.
Now there is no guarantee that this will work. Perhaps Scott's boss isn't someone who responds well to hand outs or slides. But what this does show is that Scott is being proactive in trying to find effective solutions. What he has done here is create new a presentation style that he thinks might positively affect the most amount of people. The PowerPoint is designed for those who respond well to taking in information visually. The handout is designed to help those that understand and absorb information by reading. Those two, combined with his verbal presentation, now gives Scott a fair chance to reach everyone in the room and makes sure the information is going to be retained by almost everyone. After all, if you don't absorb information by visual aids, reading or listening than chance are you don't retain much now do you?
A more formal name for what Scott is doing is Managing Up, which means going above and beyond your actual job description to enhance the work of you manager. Making his/her life easier by providing what he or she needs, anticipating those needs and often satisfying those needs before you are asked. It's a method of assessing the working styles of those around you are figuring out ways to compliment them for the benefit of efficiency and progress.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Importance of Determining Working Styles
When I was a student in college picking my classes I payed almost as much attention to who was teaching a class as I did to what the actual class was about. I wanted to know before enrolling what my chances were of getting a good grade. And even then, after enrolling and starting the class the first few weeks were all about figuring out what I needed to do to survive the course and (hopefully) bring home the A. What are the professor's expectations? How hard does he/she grade? How many tests and papers will there be? How strict or lenient are they regarding deadlines and punctuality?
Believe it or not, many people forget about these survival techniques after they enter the work force. But when you think about it, a big part of managing your career should be about figuring out how to work with those around you, especially your boss, in order to reach your desired level of success. In this respect, you are learning how to do that in college just as much as you are learning the subject matter of your courses yet many people don't realize this part of their education and how important it is. Everyone around us has a particular working style and learning what those are can be crucial to our success.
Considering the following example:
There is a 10:00am meeting every Friday at which department heads meet to report to the Regional Director. They are required to summarize their department's progress during the week that has just past and look ahead to their goals for the week ahead. Each department head gets 10 minutes and must present a clear and concise picture to the Regional Director.
Scott has been with the company for 18 month and has realized that the Regional Director routinely forgets what he said on Friday and often has to call on Monday and ask Scott about things he had just presented the Friday before. Not only does this frustrate Scott because it takes time away from the things he needed to accomplish Monday morning but it also makes him feel that his Friday presentations are inadequate no matter how well he prepared them. At the same time, the Regional Director is frustrated at having to call Scott every Monday to ask questions about the things he felt Scott should be telling him. This became such an issue that it was brought up in Scott's yearly performance review and he became very discouraged.
Scott decided to spend some time thinking about ways to solve this problem and came up with three ideas:
Believe it or not, many people forget about these survival techniques after they enter the work force. But when you think about it, a big part of managing your career should be about figuring out how to work with those around you, especially your boss, in order to reach your desired level of success. In this respect, you are learning how to do that in college just as much as you are learning the subject matter of your courses yet many people don't realize this part of their education and how important it is. Everyone around us has a particular working style and learning what those are can be crucial to our success.
Considering the following example:
There is a 10:00am meeting every Friday at which department heads meet to report to the Regional Director. They are required to summarize their department's progress during the week that has just past and look ahead to their goals for the week ahead. Each department head gets 10 minutes and must present a clear and concise picture to the Regional Director.
Scott has been with the company for 18 month and has realized that the Regional Director routinely forgets what he said on Friday and often has to call on Monday and ask Scott about things he had just presented the Friday before. Not only does this frustrate Scott because it takes time away from the things he needed to accomplish Monday morning but it also makes him feel that his Friday presentations are inadequate no matter how well he prepared them. At the same time, the Regional Director is frustrated at having to call Scott every Monday to ask questions about the things he felt Scott should be telling him. This became such an issue that it was brought up in Scott's yearly performance review and he became very discouraged.
Scott decided to spend some time thinking about ways to solve this problem and came up with three ideas:
- Set up a meeting to speak with the Regional Director to confront him about all of the Friday presentations that are then asked about on Monday to prove that his Friday presentations are thorough and well prepared.
- Try creating a PowerPoint slide and then handing out a one page synopsis of his Friday presentation that people could take away from the meetings and refer to later.
- Complain to his coworkers about how frustrating it is to work with the Regional Director but don't really change the way he's handling the Friday presentations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)