In my experience, performance reviews have fallen into something that it’s more of a tick-box exercise for the organisation and more often than not, they are too corporate-oriented. Even the phrase “performance review”  has for me, and I’m sure for other people, a negative connotation, which can create a cultural hangover within organisations and teams around the use of them. 

Is there a better way for performance reviews?

That said, I think there is a better way to carry out performance reviews and as Simon Sinek would say, it starts with WHY. Why do we do performance reviews and what are we trying to achieve? 

For me, performance reviews should be aligned with Individual Development Plans within organisations. They should be colleague-oriented. 

A great example would be sports where the performance reviews focus on individual development and the daily, weekly, and monthly, “process” of getting better, rather than the outcome of competition (winning/losing a game) and there is a lot that corporate organisations could learn from it. 

How can we make performance reviews more effective?

Start with company culture

Many of the challenges of performance reviews could be solved with a positive company culture. A culture that puts people at the centre of the organisation. 

Do we really understand what the person on the receiving end of the performance review wants or needs out of it? Do we know what the best way would be for them to do it? Even more important, are we falling into the trap of creating a process that only serves certain people? 

As a senior leader, I have experienced first-hand how ineffective processes are when they aren’t designed with you in mind. So, for me, it’s critical to reinvent performance reviews in a more inclusive and diverse way. Create processes with diversity in mind and for that, you need to include everyone in the creation process. 

Keep your company values in mind

When we talk about culture, we can’t forget about company values. What are the values that we want to live by and how are we living them day in and day out? 

I’ve seen many performance reviews where values were nowhere to be found. Keeping your company values in mind would ensure that the demonstration of these values is assessed in performance reviews, considering we’re looking at them as part of IDPs. 

Making them the norm, not the exception

Assuming that we can cover a person’s performance for the last 12 months in an hour session is unrealistic and it creates more problems than it solves. 

However, they can be a time for reflection and celebration (what has gone well, where can we keep growing).

The fundamental part in my opinion is to make performance reviews an ongoing organic process across the year. Create an environment where people feel safe to speak up, receive and give feedback and have challenging conversations more often, instead of holding up until the end of the year, where more often than not, it’s already too late. 

This is also linked to values, if you see someone whose behaviours don’t align with the company values, waiting till the end of the year is not doing that person or the organisation any favours. Creating an environment where you can give feedback on these things when they happen, allows the person to reflect and think back and hopefully, act differently in the future. 

Develop leadership skills

There are probably only a small number of people who were born great leaders. But this doesn’t mean we cannot learn to become one. Providing training that helps people develop their leadership skills is a crucial aspect of more effective performance reviews. 

Using a coaching leadership style for example can be a great way to make the most of performance reviews. Knowing what the right questions to ask are, being more empathetic, and improving your listening skills, are just some of the few things that great leaders should continuously work on. 

Use a holistic approach

Gathering authentic and objective feedback is always a challenge for executives and larger organisations. However, as leaders, we should always strive for the most real overview possible. 

To gain this understanding, I think it’s necessary to make performance reviews a 360 process where not only managers get to review their teams, but the teams get to review their managers too. 

Fortunately, there are many possibilities to do this, I have seen few options in the past that seem to work well. 

• The goldfish ball activity: where the whole team takes turns to sit in a chair in the centre of a circle and receive feedback (both positive and constructive) from every person in the team. 
• Gathering feedback from different avenues: as part of someone’s review, that person is tasked with gathering 5-10 feedbacks or reviews from different people they work with. This can even include clients or people in different teams that they have worked closely with. 

Using methods like these, allows leaders to gain a more realistic view of someone’s performance, and helps to avoid someone’s biases or opinions of the person being reviewed.

Create accountability for everyone

Performance reviews have a focus on accountability for the employee, but what about the organisation? 

Going back to my previous point about making them part of the individual development plan, we could use these reviews as an opportunity for every member of the team to communicate what they need from the organisation to continue their growth. 

For example, let’s say someone needs to improve their sales skills, how can the organisation contribute to it? Is it more training, or is it more help or support from a manager or a colleague? Whatever that is, the review process should be a two-way conversation where both the employee and the organisation are held accountable for the employee growth and therefore, the outcomes. 

Take action

I previously mentioned that performance reviews have been in my experience a tick-box exercise, and following up from the accountability point above, I think action is a must if we want to make performance reviews more effective within our organisations. 

Continuing with the previous example, what is the organisation doing after hearing what the employee needs? Taking action proves that you are a people-centred organisation and will impact your employees’ engagement and satisfaction, with in turn, will help retention. 

On the contrary, not taking action, will communicate to everyone in your organisation that what they say doesn’t matter, and disempower them to speak up in the future. And this is a really dangerous place to be. 

Be agile and adapt

Creating new processes is not easy, which is why being able to adapt is crucial to success. I believe there is a better way but I’m also aware of the challenges when creating something new. 

So, when thinking about how to change and make performance reviews more effective, we need to plan for reviewing the process and making changes until we get it right. And even then, times changes and we need to continuously adapt to new realities, so making sure we have an internal review process of the process is an important element towards success. 

File for divorce

It’s not uncommon to link performance reviews to promotions and pay rises, which first, re-directs the objective of the process and secondly, it creates a great deal of stress both for the team members and the leaders. 

But we can divorce the two. Having conversations about promotions and pay rises is essential, but we can find a more appropriate time for them. This will allow us to keep our reviews focused on individual development and growth. 

Be aware of feelings

Any situation or experience will generate an emotional response and it will be different for each of us. While it is impossible to prevent these emotional reactions, we can make sure we do our best to ensure they are positive ones. 

All my points above will hopefully make people see their performance reviews as something that is good for them, a way to grow and learn. In addition, another thing to consider is thinking beforehand about how are people feeling after the review. You want them to feel enthusiastic and engaged instead of drained and disengaged.

Download our guide to prepare for challenging conversations here. 

There is no one-size-fits-all to do this, but starting with the end in mind (what is it we want to achieve? How do we want people to feel?) is a good starting point. 

The Optimist View…

I think optimising performance reviews is possible, there is a better way, and there are many companies already trying to do better. For me, the fundamental part is to see a cultural shift in organisations where we put people at the centre and reinvent the wheel to create working environments that are inclusive of the real diversity of the world. 

This is a passion for me and one of the reasons I am passionate about my job at Optimist Performance. Our leadership programmes work with teams to develop their leadership skills to help them thrive in their organisations. Get in touch with us to learn more. 

The post 10 Ways to optimise performance reviews – By Charlotte Wathan appeared first on Optimist Performance.

The need to have a company culture is well known, and most of us understand its value and benefits. Unfortunately, while most companies are doing their job to create a culture, many fail to live up to these cultures.

In a nutshell, we have beautiful slogans on our walls that don’t impact employees’ day to day behaviours in any way. For the most part, they are considered nice-to-haves that ultimately don’t have any real impact on the organisation. 

In addition, many companies are failing to keep their organisational cultures alive in a remote working environment. Nonetheless, it is now more important than ever to maintain our company cultures and do whatever we can to keep them alive and progressive. 

What is a company culture: A company culture is defined as a shared set of values, goals, attitudes, and practices that make up an organisation.

While it can seem quite challenging to maintain our company cultures while WFH, we need to remember that culture is about values, beliefs, and behaviours. It’s not about ping pong tables or nice offices with free drinks (even though they help to keep things fun!). 

Keeping in mind what company culture really is can help us find ways to keep it alive while working remotely. 

Are we living up to our organisational cultures?

According to an analysis done by MITSlogan, there is no correlation between the cultural values a company emphasises in its published statements and how well the company lives up to those values in employees’ eyes. 

Even more, while most company leaders accept the importance of having a company culture, statistics show that they are not walking the talk. 

According to the Achievers Engagement and Retention Report, 45 per cent of employees say that their leadership is “minimally” or “not at all” committed to improving company culture.

And according to various LinkedIn polls by Massimo Brebbia about vision, missions and values, the results weren’t any better. 

37% of the voters have never seen the Mission Statement

25% believe it is not in line with the vision

38% believe it’s in line with the Company Vision

42% of the voters claim the Company Values do not reflect the company behaviours

43% confirm they walk the talk

7% is not aware

56% of the voters said Company Vision had been presented and discussed with them

44% have not seen it or discussed it

So, if we all know how important having an organisational culture is for success, how can we make sure we succeed in living up to it?

9 tips to help you succeed

Involve everyone

According to a behavioural experiment, when we choose something for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome (almost by a factor of five to one).

So, instead of creating or even changing your culture behind closed doors to later communicate it to everyone else, why don’t you include people in the process?

This can be a challenge for big companies, but there are ways we can still involve as many people as possible. For example, using forms, questionnaires, … The crucial thing is that people feel included in the process. 

Make sure everyone believes in the culture

As we mentioned above, including everyone is not always possible. For small businesses, it can be easier, but this can be a challenge for big companies. So, if not everybody can be involved in the creation process, at least make sure everyone agrees and buys into it. 

You can have a beautifully written culture, but if people don’t really believe in it, it will only be that; beautifully written words. 

This is even more important with younger generations because they are looking not only for a paycheck but for a company that aligns with their personal values. 

When we create a culture based on a mission, vision and values that people can relate to, we will be on the right track to creating an organisational culture that people believe in. 

Creating a story or narrative can be a good idea to communicate the company culture effectively. An excellent example of this is the CEO of a retail bank who, in order to implement an organisational change, created a compelling story that would make sense to all the bank’s employees, top to bottom.

The main idea was that everyone could relate, understand and believe in the story, making them work together towards success. 

Focus on a sense of belonging

This is strictly related to the two points above. If we involve people in the process and make sure that everyone believes in the culture, we will be closer to achieving a sense of belonging. 

A culture should focus on creating an environment where people feel like they belong. Concentrating on creating a culture that promotes inclusion, collaboration, and authenticity is a good starting point to build a working environment where people feel safe and feel a sense of belonging. 

Hire accordingly

When we talk about hiring people who align with the values, it doesn’t mean they all need to be and think alike. It’s essential to find people who share the same values but who can also challenge us to evolve and grow. 

Finding people who align with our values should never be an excuse to forget about the importance of diversity. This is also why many companies are moving away from hiring cultural fits and hiring cultural add. 

Keeping our company culture in mind will also impact people who are already part of the company. Sometimes, redefining a company culture can lead to having to let people go. 

This happened to Gail Kelly, former CEO of St. George Bank in Sydney, who had to let some people from the team go in order to implement a cultural change that could improve performance. 

This situation is not ideal; there should always be an opportunity for people and organisations to adapt and change, but also knowing when something or someone doesn’t fit can save us time, energy and resources. 

Accompany your company culture with behavioural guidelines

Sometimes, when we create a culture, we can fall into the trap of believing that everyone thinks and understands it the same way we do. 

So, in addition to communicating and explaining the culture, it’s helpful to include what the culture means in terms of behaviours. For example, if we say that collaboration is one of our values, what does it mean to our day to day lives? 

Setting clear expectations of what the culture means for everyone can be helpful to live up to it successfully. 

Be authentic

When we create a company culture, we must be genuine about it. Creating something that sounds perfect on paper but doesn’t replicate the company’s day to day behaviours will have little to no effect. In fact, it is likely to have negative consequences for the business. 

The idea of having a company culture is to effectively communicate what the company stands for, its values, and its mission and vision. So, everything we do has to align with it. 

For example, if a company states that they care about people’s wellbeing or are “people-first”, their actions must demonstrate the same thing. No one can fool people for an extended period of time.

If we use over time as an example, imagine that a company clearly says they care about their employees’ work-life balance but then promotes people who overwork all the time. Even though the message is excellent, their actions are talking louder than their words.

We are not saying authenticity is a must-have; instead, it’s a must-demonstrate value. This means that whatever your values are, they have to be authentic and champion everything that the company does and represents. 

Walk the talk

This is probably the most critical point of all, and it includes a bit of everything we have already talked about. We need to walk the talk. From top to bottom, everyone in the company should act according to the values, mission and vision stated in the company culture. 

For leaders, this is extremely important because most of the time, leaders are the ones who need to implement the culture. Also, people will behave according to the behaviours of the people around them. 

To use the overtime example again, in this case, leaders should show with their behaviours that they care about work-life balance. Taking time off, disconnecting after work hours, or even being vulnerable when they feel overwhelmed will help everyone feel safe doing the same. 

Make sure there is a reward system in place

Using a reward system to establish the company’s behaviours can be a great way to implement a company culture successfully. 

Rewards can be shown in many different ways. The easiest of all would be a monetary reward or even link it to promotions. But we can also implement a reward system to show appreciation and value to the people committed to living up to their company culture. 

For example, John McFarlane, the former CEO of ANZ Bank, sent a bottle of champagne to every employee for Christmas with a card thanking them for their work on the company’s “Perform, Grow, and Break-out” change program. While this can seem like a small gesture, employees consistently report that the rewards have a disproportionately positive impact on changing motivation that lasts for months, if not years.

As we mentioned before, people not only care about money, they want to feel valued and sometimes asking people’s opinions, caring for them, even small tokens of appreciation can have more of an impact than a salary increase in a toxic culture. 

Don’t be afraid of change

Last but not least, it’s essential to be aware that company cultures will continually evolve and change. 

It’s important to consider that company cultures are living entities that will evolve over time. So being open to its evolution is essential to succeed. 

The crucial thing to remember is what our core values are, and keep them in mind even during times of change.

The Optimist View…

At Optimist Performance, we believe that every company has a culture, even if it wasn’t thought or designed. Once a group of people start working together, you will soon see a culture of shared values and principles emerge. This is why we should never underestimate the importance of creating and implementing the culture you want for your company. 

We also believe that company cultures are much more than nice words on a piece of paper. It is the set of values and principles that determine the whole identity of the organisation, and as such, it should be a guide for everyone in the company. 

Unfortunately, this is not an easy task, which is why so many companies fail to live up to their cultures, even more so in big organisations where there is constant staff turnover. The positive side is that there are many ways out there to help you succeed. 

At Optimist Performance, we help organisations build a culture to succeed, and we do it in different ways depending on your organisation’s needs. 

If you want to know more about our services, get in touch with us today and find out how we can help. 

You can also learn more about our leadership programmes, experiential events, or executive coaching here.

The post 9 things we must do to ensure we live up to our company cultures appeared first on Optimist Performance.