This is the time of year in many corporations when the annual performance review is held. These sessions are a great opportunity to get the feedback we need to advance in the direction of our goals. But getting actionable feedback and processing it appropriately is not always as easy as it might seem.
The first challenge is getting information that is specific enough to take action on AND is consistent with your goals. The most important aspect of this annual discussion to your manager is likely to be his/her/their perception of your performance over the past year. I find that it is best to just listen first to everything they have to say. Then you can ask more specific questions to make sure you are clear about the feedback. Make sure you can voice back a clear specific example of what you would need to do to demonstrate any needed improvement. Assume your manager says you need to demonstrate more initiative. You want to keep questioning until you can share with your manager a specific example of what demonstrating more initiative might look like. For example, you might say, “If I were to suggest to you a specific process improvement we could implement, would that be an example of what you mean by taking more initiative?”
To take the current job performance one step further, you could ask, “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate my performance? And what exactly would make it a 10?”
Then there is the feedback on what you need to demonstrate to achieve the next move toward your career goals. The key here is not to assume your manager really knows what your career goals are. Tell him/her/them and then ask, “What would you need to see to be confident I was ready for the next step?”
Those are some questions to make sure you are soliciting the information you need. You need to be in the right frame of mind to ask them. Prepare yourself to go on a great information gathering experiment so you do NOT react when you hear anything back. You just need to take it all in and ask questions for clarification only. Being defensive at this stage of the game is very counterproductive. Just thank your manager for the feedback, say you are going to process it, and ask for an opportunity to come back and dialog more after you have processed what was shared with you.
Share what you learned with your coach–someone who knows and cares about you. As you talk about this with a neutral party you trust, you can filter out what is not relevant to your goals and only focus on what is relevant to your goals. First process the positive feedback. Does it confirm or add a strength to your list. Acknowledge it and own it.
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