Pawel Brodzinski on Leadership in Technology

Whatever it takes to lead a team, build a product, and run a business

Tag: performance appraisal

  • Instant Feedback Culture

    There is said a lot about feedback. We continuously learn how important it is and how to deliver it in constructive way. Yet still, for many of us, me included, delivering feedback is difficult.

    I already hear you nodding your heads and saying “yes, especially critical feedback is a hard part.”

    Well, no. Not at all.

    I mean when it comes to critical feedback we happen to fail to do it constructively, but at least we do it. Positive (supportive or however you want to call it) is a different animal though. It’s easier to do it constructively. The problem is every now and then we forget to do it at all.

    But I have a solution. Yay!

    It is totally simple. That’s a good part. Unfortunately there’s also bad news for you. Prerequisites are difficult to achieve.

    OK, the method. I call it instant feedback culture. Why culture? Well, it is the part of organizational culture. The rest is pretty self-explanatory – you deliver feedback instantly. Has someone just said or done something you want to comment on in either a positive or a negative way? Use the Nike way: just do it. Do it instantly or almost instantly. Why “almost?” Um, not all the feedback you want to deliver publicly and the situation or behavior you have feedback on might have happened in a big group.

    You don’t keep it for later, for dreadful performance appraisal or something. You don’t wait until you forget it, which is by far the most common thing to happen. In some way you just get it out of the chest.

    Simple enough, isn’t it?

    Now the hard part. Prerequisites.

    First, trust. Unless you all trust each other it won’t happen. OK, it may happen partially, between people who trust each other, even if you can’t say that virtually everyone trusts anyone else. However, bear in mind that it’s like with number communication paths: between two people, there is one, between three there are there, with four people you have 6, etc. It doesn’t scale up linearly but exponentially. And the more people you get on trust side the more value they get out of instant feedback culture.

    Second, openness. It works both ways: one has to be ready to honestly share what they think and on the other side they need to accept an incoming message. I don’t have to to agree uncritically with it, let alone doing something about it, but I should accept and appreciate someone cared enough to share it.

    Doesn’t look difficult? Believe me, it is. Actually if you asked me what is a single biggest challenge in leading teams I will point building trust as it is totally intangible, yet crucial to get this entity called “a team” working.

    Anyway, considering you’re doing great and these prerequisites aren’t an issue for you, introducing instant feedback culture should be a piece of cake. Just remember to share every little bit of feedback instantly. Don’t wait until it fades away to oblivion. Don’t wait till there is an occasion because by this time it can be totally irrelevant or meaningless. Start sharing your feedback instantly and do it consistently.

    Others will follow. After all we like to receive feedback, especially a pleasant part of it. This way we get relevant feedback and get it quickly so it actually is easy to do something about the thing which is under discussion. Either do more of it (if a feedback is supportive) or change it (it it’s not).

    Soon you will see feedback flying all around in different directions and people, armed with new knowledge, will be improving much faster.

    So go, try introducing instant feedback culture. Considering that your team is ready for it, that is.

  • One Measure to Appraise Them All

    Once your organization start talking about performance reviews you usually hear about some formal system with the same structure for everyone involved. That doesn’t really sound like a good idea, right? Why companies are using this approach then?

    If you have like a couple hundred people on board C-level exec can’t really say anything reasonable about vast majority of people in the organization. However leaders have to make some decisions basing on employees value, like firing rotten apples or promoting best candidates for managers.

    This is the point where management is tempted to build an appraisal system which makes it possible to compare people easily, so all these decision can be made basing on hard data. The system ends up as stiff and structured checklist which produces grades in the same categories for each employer.

    And this is utterly wrong.

    Actually I believe you can hardly do worse. This approach not only makes an illusion of producing comparable results but also harms relations between managers and their subordinates since performance reviews following this pattern just suck.

    Do a simple exercise: take a description of a few requirements and send them out to a bunch of managers working in software development teams. Now ask them to judge each feature in a few categories in a scale from 1 to 5. Let them judge difficulty, work consumption, innovativeness and business value. Grab these numbers from managers and compare them.

    You will see that someone hit average of 3,5 and another barely 2,5. You will see how differently people look as specific categories. You will see how vague one-word category definitions are. Basically, you will learn what subjectivity means.

    Now, I have a message for you: people are hell lot more complex than software requirements.

    If you used the same system for people what you would get is a set of top marks for a handful of organization’s gurus, handful of worst grades for a bunch of incompetent slackers and like 90% of random results for the rest of people.

    In uniform appraisal system this is taken as reasonable data which decides on a number of things, starting with promotions and money and ending with general respect. These numbers make or break careers. And yes, I’ve just called this data random.

    But that’s not the worst thing which is introduced by uniform appraisal system. Yes, it can be worse.

    Formalized, homogenous appraisal system degrades performance review to simple mark trade instead of making it an occasion to exchange feedback.

    You get what you measure. If you measure few criteria, and these criteria are uniformed among the organization, you create incentive to fight about better marks, so people would get more money, have better chances for promotion and would be able to boast in front of their colleagues how cool their marks were on the last review.

    There is a side-effect too. This approach creates an incentive for managers to run crappy reviews. Instead of focusing on two-way communication, learning what motivates their people, they just go through a simple script: programming three, communicativeness two, quality four, team work two, creativity five, next please. Hey, this is what the system expects from us, doesn’t it?

    Running performance reviews is pretty damn hard job. I always feel stressed when I’m going to talk about one’s performance, no matter how official or unofficial it is. Yes, it is easier to just go through a number of marks and call it a day, but that’s not the option which works for reviewed people. Unfortunately not everyone understands that, so we should build systems which create incentives for positive behaviors, not the negative ones.

    So while I don’t agree that performance reviews are evil in general, we can hardly think about worse approach in this area than a formalized, homogenous appraisal system which unifies measures among all employees. That’s just not going to work.

  • Performance Reviews Are Dead, Long Live Performance Reviews

    Recent NPR story about (lack of) value in performance reviews caused a stir. Esther Derby reminded her long-time hate relationship with performance appraisals pointing that not only employees but also a lot of managers hate them. What more reviews are tied to merit pay which is also evil.

    Well, I think it is oversimplification. We think performance review and we see corporate environment with multiple levels of management, constant fight for budgets, tough negotiations about rises and likely yearly appraisals which are so outdated that hardly bear any value for employers. If we discuss this kind of reviews, then agreed, they suck. They should be banned and people enforcing them should be forbidden to manage teams for at least 5 years.

    Now, tell me I’m lucky but I had probably just a couple of these crappy appraisals. And hopefully I have performed none of those by myself. By the way if I did it to you, feel free to kick my butt if spot me somewhere.

    Actually I tend to agree more with Scott Berkun who says that it is better not to do performance reviews at all if, and only if, they are done badly. It basically means most of the time we shouldn’t run performance appraisals but I boldly state I can to do better.

    So this is the time I should answer simple question: “How the hell do you do this damned thing?”

    Don’t make it all about money

    To some point I agree with Esther. If performance appraisal is reduced to a discussion about merit bonus or raise it is fruitless at best. Money-related negotiations always suck and this isn’t an exception. If you follow some formalized process you likely have to talk about money too, but then make it as short as possible. It is no fun for both of you so make it quick and move on to more pleasant parts of the ceremony.

    It is your goddamn duty to listen

    I am a chatty guy so this one I should tattoo this on my forehead to remind it to myself every morning when I look into the mirror. Performance review is one of the best occasions to listen what your team mate has to say. Let me guess, you, as a manager, don’t have a lot of one-on-ones with folks from your team. And even if you have, there are people down there who are always omitted. By accident of course. When you run performance reviews you suddenly have to meet every single one of them, so don’t miss this chance. Learn what they want to tell you. Let them talk. Listen. Not everyone will be open but at least give them opportunity to talk.

    Make it more a chit chat than a formal meeting

    One thing I learned during my early years as a manager is that when people are stressed they won’t tell you much. Yeah, that’s an epiphany, isn’t it? The most valuable things I learned about people, about teams and about me as a leader I heard during informal chit chat which I often turn my performance appraisals into. When we have the hard part (money-related) done we can talk more openly. Actually we may discuss your last holidays for an hour if you like. If nothing else I will know that you love hiking next time we meet in the kitchen. But we may also discuss situations when I screwed up as a boss or new technologies you’d like to learn.

    Let them set the rules

    You have different people in the team. There are those who don’t really care. Performance review is something you both have to get through but they don’t give a damn. The money doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. A discussion doesn’t matter either. What then? Don’t waste time of both of you. Say what you have to say and get back to work. But there are also people who want to talk. Let them talk. Listen. Learn. There are people who need a discussion about different things. Be a partner in this discussion. There are people who look for information. Share it. Besides the small part you have to go through, it’s not you who should write the agenda.

    Be open, be transparent

    If you are about to say a bit more than on weekly team meeting would there be a better chance than during one-on-one? If you are about to show your human face would there a better time? If you are about to discuss your motives standing behind tough decisions would you wait for another occasion? Yes, we managers are scared to shit when we share our secrets (or things we think are our secrets). But believe me; we should do it more often. As one of the best game strategies of all time says, if you play fair you will get the same in return. Be honest, be open and you will get exactly the same from your team. Isn’t that a fair deal?

    With these few simple rules I believe I’m able to run performance reviews which people don’t hate. Actually the last performance appraisal I’ve run I’ve started saying “As you already know no bonus money this time, so we can skip the formal part. Now, let’s talk.”

    I think it was pretty good appraisal. And yes, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot despite I know the guy pretty long time already.

  • Great Performances in Failed Projects

    It’s always a difficult situation. The last project was late and I don’t mean a few days late. People did a very good job trying to rescue as much as they could but by the time you were in the half you knew they won’t make it on time. Then it comes to these difficult discussions.

    – The project was late.
    – But we couldn’t make it on time even though we were fully engaged. You know it.
    – You didn’t tell me that at the beginning. Then I suppose you thought we’d make it.
    – But it appeared to be different. We did everything by the book and it didn’t work.
    – The result is late. I can’t judge the effort with complete disconnection from the result.

    How to judge a project manager? Final effect was below expectations. Commitment on the other hand went way above expected level. Reasons for failure can be objectively justified. Or can’t they?

    Something went completely wrong. Maybe initial estimates were totally screwed, maybe it was unexpected issue which couldn’t be predicted, or maybe we didn’t have enough information about the way customer would act during implementation. Who should take responsibility?

    It is said that while success has many fathers failure is an orphan. There’s no easy answer, yet manager has to come with one.

    I tend to weigh more how people acted (their commitment and effort) than result (late delivery) but I treat them as interconnected measures. In other words great performer from failed project will get better feedback than underperformer from stunning-success-project. Here’s why:

    • I prefer to have committed team even when they don’t know yet how to deal well with the task. They’ll learn and outgrow average teams which already know how to do the job.

    • I wouldn’t like to encourage hyena-approach, when below-average performers try to join (already) successful projects. It harms team chemistry.

    • If there’s a failure I (as a manager) am responsible for it in the first place. If I did my job well me team would probably be closer to success.

    • Punishing for failure makes people play safe. Team will care more about keeping status quo than trying to improve things around.

    • Lack of appreciation for extraordinary commitment kills any future engagement. If I tried hard and no one saw it I won’t do that another time.