Review Season

Aahhh. It’s that time of year again. I’m not referring to the joyous holiday season, but the dreaded Annual (or semi-annual) Review. It’s the one meeting that most people believe is not worth the effort. We’ve all experienced them, both on the delivery side and the recipient side. We come away feeling like they should be important but hardly ever live up to their billing.

Why? Because the time is misdirected. They don’t accomplish what we expect. Take a look at Marcus Buckingham’s 3-minute video. He makes a very valid point.

Review Problem

Too often, Annual Reviews are too much about performance and metrics. Or it’s focused on appraisal or evaluation. These conversations are important and helpful, but they should be conducted consistently throughout the year, not held for this one meeting.

Manager: [after small talk] John, last year at this time, we discussed your goals. You agreed to working 1650 charge hours. I see on this report that you are likely to be about 100 hours short by year end. What happened?

Recipient: [Explanations offered].

Manager: In addition, you were going to focus on improving your realization by 5%. It looks like it’s about the same as last year. I guess you didn’t do too well on that goal.

Recipient: [Explanations offered].

Manager: Let’s talk about this coming year. What should your goals be?

Recipient: [Silence].

What is interesting to me is that the Deliverers and recipients often have a similar opinion about the meeting’s usefulness. While not intended, recipients often leave their Review meeting feeling defensive and discouraged, having heard all of their failings, missteps and should-have-dones from the past year. Why do you suppose the words beatdowns and critiques are used to describe the experience?

Review Solution

An Annual Review meeting is too valuable to be misspent on these discussions. Instead, to make an Annual Review motivating, it has to be about what the recipient wants, not what you want. In case you haven’t noticed, people are more passionate about what they value than what you think is important. If their goals are “have-to” instead of “want-to,” they will be unable to sustain their energy and commitment to achieve them.

That’s why the focus should be about what is important to them. Ask a lot of questions about what they want and why it matters to them. Find out what they really enjoy or dislike. Inquire about how satisfied they are with their current level of progress and their optimism for opportunities in the firm going forward.

Once you have a good understanding of what is important to them, state your commitment to making it happen. Talk about how they can position themselves to realize their dreams by clarifying the achievements, results and demonstrations that will showcase their progress. Don’t forget to be an advocate for their success by asking how you can help them.

If you follow this course of action, you will find that recipients have a renewed appreciation for these meetings. Because this is what a motivating Review meeting looks like.