A Convert’s Perspective on Writing Your Own Performance Review
Updated: August 17, 2011
By: Kristine Schoonmaker
I remember the first time I heard a senior executive say that if you really care about your performance you’ll write your own review. I was nearly through my first year with a large consulting firm and was attending a quarterly meeting at my office. I left the meeting feeling shocked, disappointed and quite frankly a little angry. If I was going to work hard all year, was it really so unreasonable to expect my manager to take the time to put in writing how well I performed?
Then, a few months later when I got my first review from my Senior Manager, I finally got it and realized I was thinking about it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t about actually doing the work for them, but rather participating in the process alongside them. Whether or not it is part of your manager’s job duties to write your review, if you have strong expectations about the outcome, why would you leave the process entirely in the hands of someone else? You should be playing a big role. Here are three big reasons why I changed my tune about writing your own performance review.
- It’s not just about you. To you, your performance rating may be THE most important thing, but it’s only one of many things your manager has on their plate. As a consultant, my career counselor had five or six counselees, was typically leading two or more projects at once, and changed clients somewhere between two and three times per year. Even with some pretty conservative math, that is easily upwards of 12-14 people she was responsible to provide feedback on in a given performance cycle, all in addition to her “day job.” That’s a lot of detail to track. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure she probably had her own performance rating on the brain as well.
- Managers can’t know everything. You are the only one that is involved in everything you do in a day, week, month or year. Any good manager will be well-aware of the work you are doing, but helping them write your review is a great way to also educate them on the things they didn’t see that made a difference – the support you gave a team member to build their skills, amazing kudos you received from a client, or even a side project you took on because you saw a need. These are the types of details that can help set you apart from your peers. If they are going to make a difference in your performance rating, however, your manager needs to know about them.
- It’s a chance to influence your destiny. Consulting, in particular, can give you a lot of flexibility to steer the direction of your career. Rather than consider writing your review a chore, perhaps it’s a great opportunity. If you know where you want to go and if you’ve done the homework to understand what it takes to get there, this offers a way to provide the evidence to support your goals. If you want to get promoted, if you want to change the type of work you do, or if you just want more accountability, actively participating in writing your review by providing input and feedback to your manager can give you a platform to highlight all the reasons you’re ready.
So, whether you’re jumping on the bandwagon to write your review, or even just a little more open to participating in the process, hopefully you see the opportunity in front of you to take greater control over the grade you get at the end of the year. But of course, no review should ever be a surprise – to you or your boss. The best way to start to write your own review is to have a productive dialogue with your boss all year long.
Here’s what you can do to help your boss write you a great performance review.
I am totally for someone writing their own review under certain conditions.
The most important condition is that they are senior enough to understand how important a review is, and how it is done.
To me, a review can be a motivating tool as well as a critical one. I had a great boss for several years, and she treated the review as a motivating tool and as a reward for a job well done. She let me write my own review during ourt last year together. I wrote one that was good but was self critical where it was necessary and obvious. She said during our meeting that she could not disagree with anything I said.
Could I have written that review as a junior staff member? Probably not.
I wrote reviews for 15 years at a Big 4 firm when I was a staff supervisor and manager. Most of my staff was very junior. I did
not let them write their own reviews, but as they gained experience, I
set up the review process beforehand so that they knew what to expect and the criteria that was being used to write the review.
Many on my staff were perified when review time came around. I tried to allay those fears by telling them two things. The first was that if they failed, I failed, and I was determined not to let that happen. The second was that they were given comments on their work all during the year, so the review should come as no surprise.
Letting someone write their own review can be a great self appraisal process if they have the experience to do it.
Great comments Henry, thanks so much for sharing your perspective. You bring up some great points.
I completely agree with you that reviews should come as no surprise and that feedback should be an ongoing conversation throughout the year. You also make a very good point about having sufficient experience to write a performance review. One approach I like to use is to have individuals on my team prepare a summary of their contributions for the year, as well as areas they are focused on developing further and the strides they have made. I then use that information as input and typically highlight additional areas as well (since we all are often our worst critics). It can be a great way to provide an avenue for the individual to take a greater role in the process and provide their input, as well as give them an opportunity to reflect on their own accomplishments, without the pressure of actually writing the review.
Thoughts?
I think I learned the same lessons you’re talking about in my first project as a consultant, right out of college. I was tasked to a role where I was 90% – 95% client focused with very little contact with teammates from my company. I love the work and the client loved the work too – they even documented it in a performance evaluation generally reserved for their own people. I thought that I was golden…
Until I read the evaluation from my supervisor…
It was not an accurate reflection of my efforts and outcomes in the role. I failed the golden rule of consulting, no one cares about your career but you. I did not give my supervisor the knowledge or insight into my day to day activities that they would have needed to just “know” what I’m doing all the time. How could I expect them to know? I did, and I failed to take advantage of what could have been a great career review for me.
Instead, I found myself behind the power-curve in a very competitive market… not a good place to be.
Thanks for sharing James! In one respect, though I tough lesson, it’s a great one to learn early in your career! What do you do differently in terms of your interactions with your manager as a result?
Everyday or two my lead and I talk about what I’m working on since we can get very heads down. During these we discuss current workload, dependencies, deadlines, and upcoming tasks. We also have career oriented calls periodically on Fridays to touch base with alignment with the objectives I’ve set, discuss any feedback coming from the client or team, and to do some mentoring around the soft skills of consulting (e.g. not the project management, application development, or presentation building).
This project is just what I needed – I’m getting the support that I think everyone should get and I’ve been given the room to improve on past performance.
I have typically asked each direct report to prepare a complete performance review while I also do the same, and then we schedule an hour meeting to exchange the performance reviews we each prepared, read them and discuss them to reconcile differences. I always view the review as in draft form until we both agree it accurately captures what the person’s performance was for the past year. This process does several things, even with junior staff:
1. they come into the discussion having thought about and documented what they believe was significant in their performance for the past year.
2. I get an unvarnished self assessment from each person I review, before they get any feedback from me, and similarly, they get my own unvarnished feedback without any influence from their own self assessment review
3. staff learn how to prepare a good review over the years so they do a better job on reviews for their own staff.
4. usually people are harder on themselves in a self assessment than I am, so often they are pleasantly surprised to get my review!
5. this is effective and personally satisfying for everyoen involved, assuming the following:
a. clear performance objectives are set earlier in the year
b. the supervised person gets feedback throughout the year
c. both the reviewer and person being reviewed are open to feedback and changing the drafts they respectively prepared
This process has worked pretty well for me and the people I review, and such discussions naturally also lead into further discussion of development areas and expectations for the coming year. I have had only a handful of circumstances where the draft reviews exchanged weren’t even close, but ultimately those gaps got closed with the collection of further data and feedback. I also ask all of my direct reports to review the performance review I draft on my annual performance for my supervisor’s review to get their feedback and maintain transparency of how my personal assessment lines up with performance reviews I give.
Thanks Jim for sharing your approach. It sounds like it’s working great and really represents multiple viewpoints. I especially like how you incorporate their feedback into your review – what a great way to model strong leadership!
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