Giving and Receiving Feedback Without Fear!

What if I told you that mastering both giving and receiving performance reviews could be the key to unlocking your career potential? Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch. I'm Bernadette Boas, and we are cutting through the corporate noise and getting real about the strategies that drive success. Today we're breaking down performance reviews, the good, the bad, and the game-changing. Together, we'll discover how to give constructive, honest feedback without demotivating your team and how to receive feedback without feeling defensive or discouraged. And lastly, how to turn a once a year or mid-year and end of year process into a year-round strategy. Because it's imperative that we look at critical feedback as a gift, as a way for us to tap in to our strengths, our weaknesses, and our blind spots that could be propelling us forward, but also holding us back. And at the same time, there's tremendous benefit for managers and employees in that it really increases trust and communication between the leaders and their employees. As well, clarifies career paths and opportunities for professional development. Lastly, creates a stronger, more engaged and high-performing team. So whether you're a manager, HR leader, or the employee, you'll walk away with a simple framework for delivering meaningful feedback and strategies to transform feedback, positive or negative, into action. And learn how to use performance reviews as a tool to elevate your career. Because the first thing I want you to walk away with is to embrace the fact that feedback is a gift. Now, be sure to follow, subscribe, and like the show so you and your colleagues can take part each week in becoming the powerhouse leader you're meant to be. Check us out on any one of your podcast streaming services and on YouTube.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

Performance reviews. They're dreaded by many. They are embraced by few, but they're critical and necessary for everyone. So today we're going to get into just how to master giving and receiving feedback to elevate your skills, your people skills, your career paths, and the leadership impact that you're having on those around you, no matter what level of the organization that you're in. And so why are performance reviews so critical? Well, because they provide you not only a recap of what your goals were and how you operated against those goals, but more so they provide you the insight that you need in order to see the experience you're creating for others around you, the perception they have of you as a worker, as a person, as a leader. As a contributor to the business, to their team, to the project at hand. And at the same time, it really provides you an opportunity to think through what it is that you want to be achieving in your career, what help you need, what support you need, and then laying it out so both your manager understands exactly where you feel you are in your development and your achievement of your goals, but also where you want to go as far as your career path. While at the same time, it gives your manager that opportunity to say, all right, so that's your plan and that's your assessment of how you performed this past year. Let me shed some light on that, or let me shed some reality on that because many of us don't have a really clear honest view on how are we showing up? How are we contributing to the business? How are we adding value? How are we impacting those around us? And at the same time, performance reviews gives you an opportunity to really break down the old misconception that performance reviews are just a check check off on a list, or it's just a formality in a business environment. Instead, what the performance review process should also really ensure that its messaging is that this is a career development tool. This is a leadership growth tool. This is a gift of you getting the feedback that's needed So performance reviews, or basically just critical feedback, really needs to be looked at as something that you welcome and that you seek out even proactively outside the formal beginning of year, mid-year type of performance review process. Now, as a leadership and executive coach, Before, during, and after the performance review process, my clients certainly bring me their concerns, the challenges that they're having, the opportunities that they're looking for, the construction of the communication that they want to message during their review process, whether that's as part of the written performance review or it's the post where they've received their final rating, they've received their final feedback from their, their manager, and now they want to kind of construct any type of response or any type of collaboration with their manager when they do finally sit down and have an opportunity to go through it and have a dialogue, have a collaboration, because that's what performance reviews need to be. It's not the manager telling employee how they're doing or how they're not doing. It's a collaboration to understand what they were tasked to do, what they've done, what challenges or opportunities presented themselves throughout the time period, what support and help do they need, what career change or opportunities in, in their career path are there for them, so forth and so on. It should be a two-way collaboration and not just a one-directional telling or making statements to an employee. And that's why it's so critical to understand what it really takes to give feedback. And then on the flip side, receive it because every one of us, no matter what level of an organization we're in, every one of us receives feedback from someone. And therefore it's really important that if you are a manager, you, you need to be able to receive it. And in the same vein, give it in such a way that your employees are also receiving it in a constructive, motivating, supportive way, because that's how you should be also receiving it from your own managers. And what you want to be careful of is setting an example or modeling not being open to receiving feedback inside a performance review process or outside of performance review process. As a manager, as a people manager, you need to be modeling that you are open to feedback, no matter what kind of feedback it is, and that you are going to be considerate of whatever that feedback is. And then you're going to ask a lot of questions and so forth and so on. And we'll get into that in a minute. But there are many challenges that are created in the performance review process simply because individuals even the leaders, let alone the employees, have a challenge with both giving and receiving. Let's look at giving feedback. Some of them is that they struggle to really strike that balance between being upfront, forthright, and honest while at the same time encouraging. So say you have an employee who is a high producer, a great contributor to the team, but has some kind of soft skill or personal behavior issues that you certainly need addressed. At the same time, you don't want to discourage them away from really utilizing their talents and the skills and the expertise that they bring to their job. So one of the challenges that I, I encounter with many of my leader clients is them being able to have that conversation, highlight those strengths, highlight those areas where they really bring great value to the team and to the organization, while at the same time addressing any areas that need to be course-corrected. And so one of the big areas that managers want to focus on is how do you strike a balance between being upfront and honest and transparent regarding one's performance while also being very encouraging, very motivating, very inspiring to them so they don't get discouraged. The other one would also be, and this definitely will take some internal self-assessment and self-digging, or what I call self-excavating, but that would be to really ensure that you are avoiding any type of biases or unfairness in the process. What do I mean by that? Well, if you have a bias towards someone, or if you, as a manager, you know, someone's just created issues for you, or you just don't relate to someone on your team and and that's a struggle and you just haven't figured out how to engage with this individual in a, in a very effective, productive way. And therefore, even subconsciously, you have this bias or this angst toward them, and you go into their performance review carrying that. Even in the process of you evaluating them, you brought that with you and it altered or influenced, uh, the overall performance review of your employee. So you really want to be sure to self-assess any biases, any prejudgments, any perceptions you have of a team member, and make sure that your evaluation is free from any of that coming in and influencing how you actually assess. Your employee. Of course, we're always looking for the feedback to be not only constructive and motivating and encouraging, but specific and detailed. Too often, far too often, the feedback provided is very vague, is very general, doesn't really provide great detail or specifics or examples or illustrations of the feedback being given, good or bad. So here are your strengths. Here are some examples of you leveraging those strengths. Here are areas you need to work on or areas that others have stated, you know, are working against you in your role. Here are specific examples, illustrations, scenarios, the last incident that occurred to ensure that the individual receiving it can then put context to your feedback. And yet too often I'll be looking over a performance review, whether that's post the manager writing it or prior to the employee responding to it. And I'll, I'll see that it's extremely vague. It's extremely general. It doesn't provide meaningful context for the employee to really understand and go back to that particular situation to see what worked or didn't work, and therefore what needs to be changed or not need to be changed. So you really want to ensure when giving that you are providing details, specifics, examples, the actual scenario. Occurred when it came to you evaluating them on a particular behavior or trait or quality or skill. And if you don't and can't provide it, then you might have to consider not giving it or seek out feedback from others to put some context around it. And I want you to think about how would you feel if someone said to you, you're not being a team player. Without anything beyond that, your communication is being received in a very negative way. So, you know, you're given this information, but without any context, how can you fully understand what needs to change? What's working or not working? What experience or result or impact did you have on those, those individuals? You need to ensure that you're getting specifics. Now, I'm going to diverge for just a minute because one tip I want to provide managers or those giving feedback, the one strategy I tell my clients to use is throughout the year, have a notebook. Where you can document successes and areas of misstep for your employees, where you can notate this situation happened. This was the, this was the result. This was the impact. And it happened on this date with these individuals involved, whatever the case might be. It doesn't have to be a long, you know, story. It just needs to, you know, take tidbits of information to where then you can use that immediately to talk with the employee. Or if you, if it will carry over, you know, 3 months, 6 months down the line into the performance reviews, you have specifics to provide. You don't want to leave your employees more confused and more discouraged and more uncertain about how to shift, how to take action, how to transform something if you don't provide them context. Okay. Now, as far as receiving your performance reviews, some of the challenges that I come across with clients is even before they get their performance review, they're extremely anxious. They're extremely nervous. They're extremely defensive. They're extremely discouraged about what it is that they're going to receive back. Long before they actually sit down and/or receive their review, they are already preparing for a fight. And that's certainly not what you want your team of employees to feel going into a process of getting feedback. And it, so if it is a cultural issue within the organization, if it is a cultural issue within your team, if it's a lack of communication of the value of performance reviews/feedback, then you may consider, as a leader, you may want to consider messaging and creating a communication plan that is shared with your organization throughout the year as to the value and the gift that feedback is. So to minimize that anxiety, that stress, that defensiveness. And again, I want you to always put yourself in the other shoe. I want you to be considering the fact that, you know, how do you feel when it comes to performance review time? Not just, not just writing them out so you can give them, but also as the person who's going to be receiving one, because again, everyone gets a review. So how do you even experience the process of receiving feedback and recognize that if you're a manager, team members on your team are probably feeling the same way. And therefore, if there is a need for a cultural shift, as to how performance review/feedback is perceived, then step up, be the leader, and share that with those that can influence that change, influence that transformation as far as how performance reviews are viewed throughout the organization. The last one from a challenge perspective when receiving is you receive feedback that you weren't expecting. And this could go both ways. This could go with you receive positive feedback in regards to things that you just really never thought anybody paid attention to and you weren't expecting it. But more anxiously for employees, they receive feedback that they weren't expecting that is negative, that is so-called requiring disciplinary action, requiring behavioral change. Requiring a shift in attitude. And you say to yourself, well, why would that happen? Well, that happens far too often because if someone is adverse to confrontation, is adverse to giving critical, hard feedback, then they most likely avoided having those conversations with an employee throughout the year or throughout the time period between performance reviews. And managers, all I can say to you is that is so unfair to your employees. And again, put yourself in their shoes. Would you want that to happen to you from your manager? Would you want them to avoid having a conversation with you? And then suddenly bringing it up in what is also very formal and very documented, so to speak. You just want to be sure that your employees are not surprised by anything that's going into a performance review. Because good or bad, you've had plenty of time to share with them what your perception is, what your experience is, what your feedback is. If you want to prevent any real challenges, any of that anxiety or stress or discouragement by your employees, be sure that you're educating yourself on how to give feedback. So I mentioned earlier the benefits of both receiving and giving feedback, but let's kind of get into it a little bit more so we can really ground ourselves in the real value of performance reviews, the real value of gaining feedback throughout the year consistently, regularly, let alone formally in the performance review process. So from a, for managers and leaders, when it comes to performance reviews, it really is about strengthening your team. You are, want to use your, the performance review process to really ensure that your team members individually and collectively have what they need, have the information, have the assessment, have the perceptions that others might be sharing with you. You want to be sure that they have all that information so then they can continue to grow and develop and expand into a very productive, very high-value contributing individual to then the team as a collective. And then as each of the team members are gaining this information and this support from you, then it's just creating a much more cohesive, much more productive, much more successful team. And of course, it really ensures that as you do collaborate and engage and communicate with them, that's just helping to build trust. To build loyalty, to build a desire, right, to really connect and engage and do whatever's necessary in order to achieve the goals that you've set out for them individually and them as a team. So managers and leaders, if you need to work on yourself as far as how do you give very impactful, motivating, encouraging feedback, then get the training, get the support. And don't even hesitate to reach out and, you know, even let me help you with a 30-minute discussion to share some tips and strategies you can be using against what you share with me as far as the steps you do take currently when it comes to giving feedback and when it comes to giving performance reviews. And now for the employees, the employees are gaining clarity, they're gaining Um, understanding. They're gaining the perceptions others have of them and the experience others have with them, whether that's team members, you as a manager, or those customers or support groups that they engage with. They're gaining the clarity on their strengths, on their areas for development, on their blind spots, on the skills that are needed or the skills that they should be leveraging more and more. They're gaining all of that clarity and all of that understanding. So it, it helps them to become more confident, more secure, even with the discussions on areas for improvement, that communication, that openness, that transparency, that honesty that you're having with them is greatly appreciated and then valued to where they want to go and put a plan together where they can actually shift and really have a nice trajectory in their growth and in their skill development. And then of course, it really demonstrates for them that you have a commitment to their growth. You have a commitment to and respect them to where you are going to be open and honest and forthright. And transparent in regards to their performance. There are so many benefits that we could go on and on and on, but let's get into some strategies that you could be using to both give and then also receive feedback to where you do view it as a gift and as something that's very valuable, constructive, and critical to the business growth. As well as your career growth and your team members' career growth. The first one is definitely going to be preparation. Now, the situations I see in a great many of my clients and organizations that I work with is that the performance review timeline pops up and now it's a race to get it all done. And there's often kind of two categories of individuals, managers who are going to be giving feedback. There are those who are going to plan it out, timeline it out, make sure that they put the time and the effort into doing it and getting it done in a productive way before the deadline. And then there's others who wait till the last minute and then find themselves rushing to get it done, and therefore they're extremely vague in general, and they're creating the type of challenges that we've already discussed. And so one critical takeaway I would love for you to understand and to support is to ensure that you are preparing each individual's performance review in a very proactive, very productive, very intentional way. Because again, they deserve the feedback. They deserve the details, the specifics, the examples, the scenarios, and they deserve the opportunity to discuss it and collaborate on it and to ask questions and to even answer any questions. And that really, for many, many of my clients, really requires planning, planning for the time that it's gonna take to actually craft a very productive performance review, or even if it's gonna be a sudden last-minute type of critical feedback session, the preparation, the planning, the scheduling, the just overall documenting of the of the performance review, it's really important to really have that all laid out and planned out so you can do it effectively. So to break that down a little bit further, we all know that the performance review period is always coming at the beginning of the year and mid-year. Knowing that you can right now, weeks, months ahead of time, you can lay it out on your calendar, block the time that it's going to be necessary based on the number of employees you have and make sure that you're, you know, proactively scheduling/planning for the performance review process. At the same time, when it comes to being thoughtful, the time you're going to devote to each of your employees, you can also very early on get those blocked out and those planned. Whether it's on your calendar itself, or it's even with your employee. Now, another challenge I should have mentioned earlier that just came up as I was sharing that is the worst thing you could do as a manager that will turn off and really discourage your employee is to rush their performance review. Not rushed just in the documenting of it, but too, too often I find managers, or it's typically the employees come to me and share with me what happened with their performance review. And what they'll share is, well, we only got to talk about it for 15 or 20 minutes because they had to go, or because we didn't, it wasn't planned for a sufficient amount of time. That is. Inexcusable, and it should be perceived as that. As a manager, as a leader, you need to ensure that you're giving the time to your employee, both to share your input, but also to understand any feedback that they may have, any questions that they may have, any disagreements or clarifications that are needed, whatever the case might be. It's your job to ensure that they have the time from you to have a very thorough and very productive and effective performance review. So get that preparation laid out, get that preparation done. And while you're at it, just make note too that you wanna be documenting, you wanna be capturing actual scenarios and examples and illustrations as the year goes. That then you will have that you can pull out and use for someone's performance review when you do formally sit down to write it up. All right. The next one would be then really focusing on how you're going to deliver the message, whatever that message might be. It could be a fabulous review and everything's going to be glowing, but yet I can guarantee you, your employee is still going to have questions for you. They're still going to come up with things that you may not have captured and highlighted as part of their review. And therefore, even, even though it looks like it's going to be wrapped up in a very pretty bow, you want to be prepared to, and give the time to ensure that they have what they need by the time that that conversation is over and they sign that document. And that they're left with all the answers to the questions that they have and/or they're clear on any of the ambiguity or confusion they might have had coming into it. Prepare as to how you're going to give the feedback, no matter what it is. Now, think about the SBI framework, which is, is a simple 3-step model that you can use when it comes to giving feedback of any kind. SBI, or Situation Behavior Impact, really just means you want to approach a conversation, good or bad, easy or hard, you want to provide the framework of, here's the situation. As a result of the behavior that was created by you or others as a result of this situation, and here's the impact that it had. On you and others around. So you want to break down and prepare that conversation of any kind with stating the situation that you want to talk about, the behavior that was attributed to that situation or took away from that situation, and then the impact that that situation and behavior created. At any point you want to use this model, it's that simple to really think about What is the situation that I want to have a conversation about? What is the behavior that was created by the individual or those around? And what was the impact of it? And you can break down an overall performance review in categories of that performance review using that same 3-step model. Each one, situation, behavior, impact, or the performance review as a whole. And as a result of having that model to kind of frame your conversation on, you can also structure it to where you give praise to open it up, to let everyone's guard down. So you want to balance the praise with the, any type of area for improvement that needs to be shared. And I would kick off with the praise. Here are all the great things you're doing while you then get into, but we need to really talk about these other behaviors, um, that need to change and come up with a plan together as far as how you can shift them. Okay. And then of course, in giving, you want to ensure that if there are anything that needs to be changed, needs to be shifted, needs to transform. Needs to be developed, that you don't leave that discussion without an action plan. Because again, you want your employee to walk away very clear, very certain, feeling confident that regardless of the feedback that you gave them, there's support, there's a plan, and even follow-through as far as helping them get where you need them to go. Now, the, a third strategy would be that you really want to ensure that you are creating a two-way dialogue. As I mentioned earlier, performance reviews or constructive feedback is not a one-way street. I don't care how tumultuous or how critical the feedback is. It still has to be a two-way conversation. You still have to go in free of biases. Free of prejudgments, and this is a learning opportunity for you as giving feedback, but it's a learning opportunity for you to also receive feedback as far as what the, the real situation is, what the real behavior is, what the real impact is. And therefore, you really want to be asking open-ended questions to them. Do not make statements. I say that a lot. Ask questions, don't make statements, because you want to learn what is going on inside someone's head. Why are they doing what they're doing, or why, you know, are they not leveraging what they should be leveraging because of their strengths? You want to really get under the covers of an employee in order to best understand how to support them, how to motivate them, how to encourage them, how to even help them to be developed, how to course correct them, how to shift them. So open-ended questions that they then can share what's going on, uh, for them. And then, of course, this is going to require you to create a safe space. You need to create an environment where they actually are willing to let their guards down, get rid of the defensiveness and the anxiety and the stress. And be completely open and transparent and collaborative with you no matter what the situation is. So you need to ensure that not only during a performance review process, because creating a safe space is all about trust. And so throughout the year, throughout the life cycle of your relationship with an employee, you need to be building that trust and that level of engagement and collaboration with them. So then when there does come the time for both of you to be very open, very transparent, very candid, they feel safe to do that. That they don't, you know, question being retaliated against or being disciplined or in some way it coming back and hurting them in any way, shape, or form. And then of course, because as we mentioned earlier, you want to set those clear action plans by the time the conversation is over. Then make that commitment to them that there will be follow-up. There will be kind of a pull-through of conversations to ensure that they are getting the support, the training, the development, the attention that they need in order to make the changes that you're asking them to make, or even to be able to pursue and achieve the goals that you're giving them. And they feel very confident and supported in that. Okay, now let's look at it as if we're the ones receiving feedback. And again, we want to make sure that we're not, you know, defensive and anxious and stressed out. Instead, it's up to us as individuals to put our mindset into a place that is open, that is willing to receive, that is willing to listen, to learn, to ask questions, to consider. What's being told to us, and then even willingness to make the changes necessary. So as you walk into a performance review or a situation of feedback of any kind, you want to ensure that you're in a good space mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, to where you're open to a dialogue of conversation. Because if not, then it immediately becomes a one-way street. If you walk in all defensive and all stressed out and angst up, then that's just going to shut down the other person that you're talking with. And so you want to, no matter if you're the, the reason for this conversation or you're the one impacted by the situation, you want to ensure that you're open to really hearing and considering and viewing the feedback as something that is going to be constructive, productive, and a gift to ensure that you are growing and developing and advancing in skills and in your overall leadership. Then the other one would be to— receivers of feedback always need to be prepared with questions to ask. Not only questions to ask about the actual performance review itself, which is a, is a look backwards. What I really like about performance review is it gives you the opportunity to look forward. Okay, this is what happened, good, bad, or ugly, but yet I want to focus on what is needed as we go forward. And so be sure that you are preparing open-ended questions. Questions that will give you that clarity and that confidence and that energy and that support that you're looking for. Anytime you have an opportunity to sit down with your manager, what you need to do is look at these opportunities as clarifying discussions. So this is the situation. This is the behavior. This is the impact. And anything that you're confused about, or you're not clear on, or there's disagreement, or there's misunderstanding, you want to get those cleared up. And that's the only approach that you need to be taking with it. Okay. And then of course, if need be, and in a lot of cases it's necessary, I also recommend is if you need to sit there and take notes and, you know, kind of identify, you know, things that you need to do next or an action plan that you're, you know, wanting support on from your manager. Make sure that you're taking those notes and you're documenting that. If they're giving you any type of specific feedback, areas for improvement, next steps, make sure that you're capturing those. I would even suggest that once you capture them, you actually send it back to them after the session and confirm with them your understanding and the, and what you captured in your notes. Just so again, you can be signed off and very clear As to not only what that discussion was about, but also what were those next steps that were discussed. And from those next steps or those key takeaways or action plans, formalize it into new goals for yourself as you move forward. So if you were given things to do from a personal development, leadership development, skill development, communication development. Then finalize that into a new set of goals for yourself that will ensure that you not only pursue it, but you achieve it and you complete it by the time the next performance review comes around. That way, both you and your manager are both on board with what was discussed, what was the plan put into place, and what was the goals or the measurements that they then are going to use to assess your success in achieving or making the changes that were discussed. Performance reviews do not have to be a struggle. I wanna leave you with a challenge. I want you to really think about your last performance review, even the, just the process as a whole. What worked? What didn't work? What would you change? How can you improve it? Not only in the process itself, yourself, but more so how you approached it, how you prepared for it, how you handled it, and both as a receiver and as a giver. And remember, put yourself in their shoes when it does come to being a receiver. What, how is it you want feedback to be given to you? How is it you want, um, the support to be provided? How do you want the two of you coming together? To make it a very effective and productive process and work toward implementing that the next time around. And you will find that you are making it a gift to not only the receiver, but also to yourself as the giver. All right. Performance reviews are critical and so necessary for all of us. To really grow and develop in our roles and in our persons. And so do what you can to eliminate any of the challenges or any of the, uh, negative perceptions of feedback and turn it into a real valuable tool that will help you be the powerhouse leader you're meant to be. And if you are challenged in any way when it comes to giving or receiving, then Be sure to reach out to me and let's have a 30-minute conversation. Let me understand where you're at right now and provide you some tips and strategies you can start implementing, not only in the formal performance review process, but all year round when you do have to give critical feedback. Uh, let me help you craft and structure the feedback in such a way that it is received very openly and very graciously. Until next time, thank you for tuning in. If you found this to be valuable, please share it with your colleagues or even your employees and help them to understand how they can master giving and receiving feedback for great success in their work and in their life. I'll see you soon.

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Wanna dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.