The Journal's recent piece about managing employees with misperceptions about their employment self-worth reminds us once again why honest and timely performance feedback makes good business sense. I have written before about the benefit of candid performance reviews, even at the risk of hurt feelings. I have also defended performance evaluations as an important tool to mitigate potential liability for employment claims. The Journal's piece states that nearly four in 10 employees who received the lowest grades from their managers last year rated themselves as highly valued by the organization based on almost two million assessments. If true, that represents an astounding disconnect between performance-related perception and reality.
Theory is one thing. Managers who are adept at giving feedback is another. While businesses are rightly focused on running the organization's business, training managers how to deliver quality feedback is often assigned a low priority. Adding to that deficiency is the often unmet need for managers with the right EQ to deliver feedback. But despite those challenges, which exist even for employees who relish feedback, there are some important guidelines for managing employees with an inflated sense of employment worth. Here are a few suggestions for delivering feedback for performance-deniers, who clearly require a more exacting approach.
First, performance discussions (especially about the areas in which the employee is falling short) must be done regularly and ongoing, and especially promptly after an error or mistake is committed. Performance deniers will use a one-time annual review (even if negative) to point out the obvious: if they are falling so short, the manager would not have waited so long to deliver that message (and which, in their view, adds to the review's inherent unreliability).
Second, managers should not shy away from a denier's tendency to fight the feedback (they disagree with it, it is wrong, it is fake). Rather, managers should use the denier's dispute to double down on feedback: the employee's inability to accept criticism, consider it, and even hear it, are all key parts of an employee's commitment to the organization to grow and do better. Growth requires introspection. The refusal to engage in that process is itself a performance deficiency.
Third, managers should not permit performance conversations to become a discussion about victimization, unfair treatment or perceived persecution (all of which may end up becoming a legal claim). Performance deniers are adept at deflecting: one key deflection is to blame others and make the discussion about things entirely outside performance parameters. Managers need to be empowered to insist on returning the feedback conversation back to the key and only focus: what is the employee doing well and how can (and must) the employee improve?
Finally, organizations need to assess the impact performance deniers have on employee morale. While not all employees will share the same perception, most people are aware when others aren't pulling their weight – especially when they are tasked to pick up the pieces. Those on the downhill slope of these assignments – often the best performers because of the natural inclination to step up – may not stick around. The slippery slope here is clear and cluelessness at work is not a great look for the business or the employee.
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