Performance reviews are more difficult today, as some employees work entirely from home, others come to the office, and still others work a hybrid of the two. Employers and employees may face three challenges:<ul><li>Familiarity gap</li><li>Fewer observations</li><li>One review to rule them all</li></ul> While performance reviews will be a drag for many workers, they should be fair and not put anyone at a disadvantage.

Performance reviews

Creating a connection with your boss is one of the biggest challenges. Research shows the more familiar we are with people, the more we tend to like them. Employees who share the same physical space as their managers will have more opportunities to interact with them, giving them an advantage over a peer who works remotely. To even the playing field, employers can schedule short check-ins with remote workers throughout the day or create always-on chatrooms that all workers can use to communicate with supervisors.

Familiarity gap

The most accurate performance ratings are based on observable behaviours rather than subjective evaluations of traits. For example, the trait "creativity" cannot be defined. Shifting the focus of performance appraisal from behaviours to results ensures that managers do not have to worry about being unable to observe their direct reports on the job. In turn, employees can decide how they will complete their assigned tasks by being accountable only for the end result.

Fewer observations

Performance reviews based on results may not work for every job. For example, evaluating a teacher based solely on student test scores, since environmental factors such as poverty or lack of support may also play a part. It is vital to use only one type of review system to create fairness for all. If judging on results doesn’t work, an organization could try a behaviour-based system but revise it so that it doesn’t favour employees working in the office.

One review to rule them all

A professor of industrial-organizational psychology explains three challenges employers and their employees will face and ways to overcome them.


corporateculture

Corporate Culture

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

3 ways to make annual reviews suck less (especially for remote employees)

Most product teams review goals in hindsight to see whether they have succeeded. But what if you could not just assess what you’ve already done but prioritize your actions along the way?A few takeaways from an extensive workshop:<ul><li>There are no right or wrong key results.</li><li>Adding the dimension of leading / lagging indicators.</li><li>Most common (underestimated) mistakes.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Using output-driven key results to establish a product discovery practice within the company.</li></ul>

Measuring Progress For Product Teams

“Outcome over output” is a well-known claim in product management. Output OKRs(Objectives and Key Results) are said to be rather shallow, not inspirational and are likely to block learning opportunities. The key results should give a holistic picture of the objective, capturing the objective from as many perspectives and levels as possible. This will give more space to come up with the best solution(s), but also requires more confidence and skill from the team.

There Are No Right or Wrong Key Results

Based on the consequences of the key results, OKRs can be separated into three different types:<ul><li>Impact-ish OKRs: a high-level expression of the company’s strategic priority expressed through a result/metric.</li><li>Outcome-ish OKRs: a change in human behaviour that creates an impact on a department level. It can be validated through the “how might we” test.</li><li>Output-ish OKRs: a completed activity that aims to create a change in behaviour and has an impact on a team level.</li></ul>

The Three Types Of OKRs

Categorising your OKRs like this will likely not be enough for actually working with them on a day-to-day basis. A second layer should be pointing out the likelihood of the aimed change. This can be measured by a concept that has been around for a while:<ul><li>Leading indicators are more difficult to spot since they require insights from actual user behaviour.</li><li>Lagging indicators: are easier to spot (e.g. user growth, revenue) but are often unresponsive and hard to change from a company perspective.</li></ul>

Adding the Dimension of Leading/lagging Indicators

The most common and risky mistake when using these techniques is to ignore a lack of clarity:Lack of clarity on the inputs for your OKR definition: You need to have your vision, strategy, customer insights, and roadmap in place to be able to estimate your next contribution to your success.Lack of clarity on the goals of your OKRs: Do you want to measure performance, enable more focus, and get the team more autonomy?

Most Common (underestimated) Mistakes

Output key results for Product Discovery are a bit controversial since they are easy to misuse, but can be helpful for teams that struggle with prioritizing discovery work and/or discussing its progress. Metrics like “number of winning prototypes” or “number of opt-ins to user testing” can help make Discovery become a more sustainable practice.

Using Output-Driven Key Results to Establish a Product Discovery Practice Within the Company

<ul><li>Mind that there are no right or wrong OKRs, just different dimensions (with relating consequences) that you as a team should be aware of.</li><li>Be aware of unclear aspects of your OKR inputs as well as the goals you want to achieve.</li><li>Consider using output-driven OKRs as a helpful tool to establish a product discovery practice.</li><li>Set up regular check-ins – on the team and company level.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

Product Management coach and author Tim Herbig took ProductTank Amsterdam through a hands-on workshop to provide insights on how teams can measure progress through outcome OKRs.

product

Product & Design

How product teams can measure progress through outcome OKRs

"In helping humans perform, psychology is the software, but biology is the hardware."

"To really make the most of the final moments before you perform, reducing anxiety isn’t enough. You also want to build positive emotions, such as confidence, self-efficacy, and power."

The rush of fear and anxiety we feel before a big presentation or interview is caused by adrenaline being dumped into our system. Originally quite helpful when confronted by a dangerous animal, in modern days we are stuck with the racing heart, sweaty palms, and frozen brain of the “fight or flight” response. How we speak to ourselves in the moment can make a difference.

Leverage biology

As a leader, you can help your teams achieve better results by introducing them to pre-performance routines.<ul><li>Research shows that getting together to perform seemingly-silly ritual actions such as handclaps, foot stomps, and huddle-style “Let’s go!” before embarking on a task can improve a team’s performance.</li><li> Is there a ritual you can invent to accompany your customers’ experience? Think of Walmart greeters or the actions a good salesperson takes when they prepare your dressing room with the clothes you’ve selected. These enhance the experience, build loyalty, and boost sales.</li></ul>

Pre-performance routines

<ul><li>Try one of these: have your team, colleagues, or worker-bees journal about their past successes before attempting today’s challenge. </li><li>Frame reminders of past work on the walls. Take and share a photo of the team flush from a past success before they climb the next (metaphoric) mountain. </li></ul>In experiment after experiment psychologists documented enhanced performance when workers were exposed to reminders of positive performance like these.

Priming

Before an important event:<ul><li>Remind them why it’s important.</li><li>Tell them why you know they can do it.</li><li>Have them pause and think about what they have accomplished together.</li><li>Exhort them to go and do it.</li><li>Just don’t tell them to “calm down.” That’s not realistic and that emotion is too different from their agitation.</li><li>And while it seems helpful to describe what might go wrong and why the world will keep spinning if it does, now is not the time to introduce negative thoughts to their consciousness.</li></ul>

Tell your team what they are being asked to do

For example, one study compared the performances of people who said, “I’m so excited” vs. those who said “I’m so nervous” and those who said nothing before going on stage. The people who said they were excited, and thus reappraised anxiety to excitement, performed the best.Why does this help more than not saying anything at all? Because transitioning from anxiety to calm is very difficult, as the two emotions are very different. Transitioning from worried to excited, however, does not take much effort at all.

Deal with performance anxiety by reappraising it 

This is another essential technique in calming performance anxiety. You can center yourself by breathing deeply and concentrating on your breath while releasing all muscle tension. Imagine all the energy in your body moving into one point, the belly button. Once it’s all there, visualize releasing it. Using this technique before an important event will help you regain focus and kick anxiety to the curb.

Centering yourself

Regardless of what you choose to do before your performance, however, there is one thing that should always happen: consistency.Studies back up the effectiveness of athletes’ routines before a game, for example. Athletes are aware of this and do what they can to prepare.

Rituals can improve your performance

When it comes to performance, competition and rivalries are a great thing. Studies show that competition dramatically enhances performance.The feeling we get when we are racing against others and someone is right on our tail drives us to do better, to prove ourselves. Cyclists do better when competing rather than beating the clock, and the same goes for other sports as well. Furthermore, fighting against a rival, or someone you know, rather than a stranger, boosts your abilities even more.The motivating effects of competition help not only in sports but in the business world as well.

Competition will improve your performance

Closing the sale. Asking for a raise. Nailing the big presentation. Of the 2,000 hours you work every year, your success or failure is determined in the couple of dozen crucial hours when you need to bring your absolute best. Will you? The last few minutes before a major challenge can be terrifying. Ever wished you knew how to make sure you ace the make-or-break test, audition, or interview? We often feel the most powerless just before we’re expected to act powerful. As you’ll learn in this life-changing book, practice might make perfect, but perfection is useless if you can’t summon it when it counts. Pulling off a great speech or the pivotal at bat also requires the right kind of mental preparation. In Psyched Up, journalist Daniel McGinn dives into the latest psychological research and interviews athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and others who, despite years of practice and enviable track records, will ultimately be judged on their ability to delivera solid performance when it’s their turn to shine. For instance, he reveals... • How Jerry Seinfeld’s jacket and Stephen Colbert’s pen help them get laughs. • What General Stanley McChrystal said to Special Forces before they entered the battlefield. • Why the New England Patriots hired the DJ from the Red Sox to help them win. Among other counterintuitive insights, McGinn reveals why trying to calm your backstage jitters can be worse for your performance than channeling it into excitement; how meaningless rituals can do more to prepare you in the final moments than last-minute rehearsal; and how a prescription from your doctor could help you unleash your best skills. Whether you’re a sportsperson or a salesperson, an actor or an entrepreneur, one bad hour can throw away months of hard work. There’s so much conflicting popular advice that we often end up doing the wrong things. McGinn separates the facts from the old wives’ tales and shares new, research driven strategies for activating your talent, optimizing your emotions, and getting psyched up to take the spotlight.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

books

Books

Closing the sale. Asking for a raise. Nailing the big presentation. Of the 2,000 hours you work every year, your success or failure is determined in the couple of dozen crucial hours when you need to bring your absolute best. Will you? The last few minutes before a major challenge can be terrifying. Ever wished you knew how to make sure you ace the make-or-break test, audition, or interview? We often feel the most powerless just before we’re expected to act powerful. As you’ll learn in this life-changing book, practice might make perfect, but perfection is useless if you can’t summon it when it counts. Pulling off a great speech or the pivotal at bat also requires the right kind of mental preparation. In Psyched Up, journalist Daniel McGinn dives into the latest psychological research and interviews athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and others who, despite years of practice and enviable track records, will ultimately be judged on their ability to delivera solid performance when it’s their turn to shine. For instance, he reveals... • How Jerry Seinfeld’s jacket and Stephen Colbert’s pen help them get laughs. • What General Stanley McChrystal said to Special Forces before they entered the battlefield. • Why the New England Patriots hired the DJ from the Red Sox to help them win. Among other counterintuitive insights, McGinn reveals why trying to calm your backstage jitters can be worse for your performance than channeling it into excitement; how meaningless rituals can do more to prepare you in the final moments than last-minute rehearsal; and how a prescription from your doctor could help you unleash your best skills. Whether you’re a sportsperson or a salesperson, an actor or an entrepreneur, one bad hour can throw away months of hard work. There’s so much conflicting popular advice that we often end up doing the wrong things. McGinn separates the facts from the old wives’ tales and shares new, research driven strategies for activating your talent, optimizing your emotions, and getting psyched up to take the spotlight.

Daniel McGinn

Psyched Up

Many C-suite executives, supervisors, and managers are fixated on metrics to evaluate overall company performance and effectiveness. Employees are reminded that "What gets measured gets done." Yet, there is another truth that is equally true. Jerry Muller, author of The Tyranny of Metrics: “Not everything that is important is measurable, and much that is measurable is unimportant.”  While metrics can help us stay focused on goals, they can also be dangerous.

Leaning on metrics can be dangerous

It's tempting to only rely on metrics that are easy to measure, but they often give us only half the story. An obsession with performance indicators can make organizations rigid, shortsighted, and dismissive of innovation. Data around reputation, loyalty, trust, satisfaction and more are also not easy to capture and may be misleading. For example, consider an employee who performs well in front of a demanding client but gets a lower feedback rating.

Metrics can't give us a complete picture

The best way to build a culture where your team buys into the goals and feel intrinsically motivated starts with trust. Most companies measure trust by tacit approval and execution of plans or a lack of discussion on the goals. But that is not trust; it's obedience. Trust is about safety. A better measure of safety is a willingness to speak the truth and be prepared to disagree with an idea, and have a willingness to let ideas win over authority. There must be room for failure, experimentation, innovation, and questions.

Build a sense of trust

Metrics can create a false sense of security. For example, Peloton held on to a near-rabid fandom as evidence of their success. When regulators started to question the safety of the company's treadmills, they focused harder on the strength of their brand and attacked the agency and the accuracy of the reports. By February, the stock fell almost 70%, the CEO was replaced by the board, and nearly 2,800 employees were being laid off. However, the marketing and manufacturing employees knew of the company issues but were not empowered to make the right decisions.

Prioritise feedback and flexibility

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

business

Business

startup

Startups

How to lead without focus on metrics

For years human-resource leaders were tasked with optimizing labour costs, reinforcing compliance using standardised measures, and supporting the adoption of technology. The emphasis has been on productivity and how to measure it but the growing question is whether the processes have replaced the creativity and innovation needed to attract and develop talent, manage and reward performance, and optimize workforce strategy.Many human-resource leaders are eager to shift to the "back to human" model.

Processes have replaced creativity

The opportunity to build personal relationships has been disrupted by strategies that HR teams have been promoting, including remote performance management and encouraging employees toward self-service. 90% of CHROs find it important to take steps to foster a sense of recognition of individual capabilities and contributions across the workforce, but it is challenging if they do not know their people. Management lever: ﻿HR should use survey methodology to assess organisational health and then segment responses of employees with particular needs.

Engage more directly and deeply with employees

Agile principles are crucial. CHROs are now identifying hidden stars more boldly and equipping them with the resources and working environment to increase their success. In the coming years, it will be vital to empower line managers. CHROs focus on the mindsets and skills required to help people throughout the organisation operate in new ways.Management levers:Faster, better decisions: HR leaders can help create a dynamic and collaborative structure that can quickly address an organisation's most pressing problems.The right people: Identifying leaders with the right temperament and character.

Paving the way to the “new possible"

CHROs are thinking about how HR can shift from mechanistic management to addressing the employee experience more dynamically. This means taking a broader view of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and an employees' sense of purpose to increase job satisfaction and performance. Management levers:Inclusion: HR leaders can develop programs focused on purpose and inclusion.Purpose: A McKinsey survey found that a company that spends time reflecting on the impact it makes in the world significantly increase employees sense of purpose.

Let them bring their whole person to work

The focus of talent acquisition should spread across the entire organisation. Some CHROs talk about creating talent ecosystems ready for changes in the demand and nature of work. This cause executives to look more at independent workers and their skills. Management levers:Activist-investor approach: Companies seek to link talent to value by striving to reskill and upskill talent.Team-based learning causes more successful transformations.

Acting as a 'human capitalists'

To lead organisational change, HR teams should transform themselves from a service function to a leadership role, with the responsibility to help influence culture, operating performance, and staffing. HR leaders should focus on internal culture and be ready for change yet remain aware of the broader human ecosystem and the markets from which they draw talent. They should spend time observing, listening, proposing, explaining and convincing.

Organising for the future

Easy to implement strategies to revamp work practices in ways that benefit employees’ health

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

timemanagement

Time Management

Wellbeing at Work

humanresources

Human Resources

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

‘Back to human’: Why HR leaders want to focus on people again

Here's what NOT to do if you get some feedback from your manager that you disagree with:<ol><li>First, don’t completely dismiss or discount the feedback, saying something like, “that’s just wrong” or “absolutely not.”</li><li>Second, don’t become combative, saying something like, “Where did you come up with that?” or “are you kidding me?”</li><li>Third, don’t just give in or give up, saying something like, “fine, whatever, you’re right” or “why should I even bother to make my case?”</li></ol>

When you disagree with the feedback from your manager 

If you get nonspecific, not clear feedback like, “you’re not being proactive enough” you’re going to need to dig a bit. <ul><li>Make a request such as, “can you share with me a specific example of when you think I could have been more proactive?” </li><li>Or you can even say, “I want to make sure we’re using the same language. What behaviors do you associate with being proactive?”</li></ul> Remember – tone matters a lot. Speak calmly, carefully, and with curiosity.

Ask for specific examples and clarification

If you’re finding yourself experiencing some challenging emotions that feel hard to manage, or if you notice that you’re having a tough time processing and responding, slow the process down. <ul><li>One way to do that is by looping—repeating back what you hear the other person say. It also serves to help the other person feel like you understand them. </li><li>Another way to do that is to write things down, which (especially if you do it by hand) will give you time to reflect on the conversation as you slow it down to take notes. </li></ul>

Take your time

As much as you may find little merit in your manager’s feedback, look for any areas of agreement—no matter how small. For example, if your boss gives you the feedback that you’re not following up with prospects quickly enough, and you think you’re doing it as fast as you possibly can, you can still agree that both of you want to convert prospects into paying clients. See if you can agree on the what and why even if you see the “how” differently.

Find common ground

Ask yourself this: “If I had to admit that 2% of the feedback were true, what 2% would it be?”. This gives you the opportunity to reflect on the overall feedback, and look for parts of it where maybe (just maybe) you can see yourself in there. For example, if your boss says, “You rushed through the client pitch” and you think you spoke at a reasonable pace, perhaps you could admit that you were a little nervous. Once you do that, be willing to share that with your boss and start from there.

Apply a "2%true" mindset

If, after your conversation, your manager backs down because you helped them see it your way, congratulations. And, in the likely event that this doesn’t happen, make a plan with your manager for you to try the new or different approach—but to check back in soon about how it’s going. That way, you won’t spend months engaged in a new way of working without knowing whether or not it’s making a positive difference.

Commit to a course of action

career

Career

communication

Communication

What to do when your performance review makes no sense

From GitHub to Google, companies are increasingly adopting policies that allow teams substantial autonomy over both who they work with and what they work on. This can help employees to feel greater levels of ownership over their work, thus boosting creativity and innovation.
It’s easy to take autonomy too far. In a new study, the authors found that teams that were allowed to choose both the composition of their groups and the ideas they worked on actually performed substantially worse than those who were only allowed to choose either teammates or ideas (but not both).

Autonomy And Team Performance: An Overview

The question managers should ask themselves is not whether they should give teams autonomy, but what kind of autonomy they should give them. 
Instead of becoming obsessed with autonomy above all else, managers should take a more nuanced approach and think critically about which areas will benefit from autonomy — and which will not.

What Managers Need To Do

Two strategies to help managers leverage autonomy on their teams more effectively:<ol><li>The question to ask is not whether you should give teams autonomy, but what kind of autonomy you should give them. Autonomy is neither all-good nor all-bad.</li><li> Introducing an element of randomness into how teams are assigned may improve performance in some contexts.</li></ol>

The Two Strategies

New research suggests that giving teams more autonomy doesn’t always pay off.

When Autonomy Helps Team Performance — and When It Doesn’t

Managers are responsible for setting performance expectations, providing feedback and coaching, and recognizing excellent work.
Therefore, managers who involve themselves and support their subordinates will reap rewards that benefit both the individual and the company.

Management Involvement

Organizational cultures should place an emphasis on smaller goals that aligns with employee performance. These goals can be collaboration goals or professional development goals.
Creating a goal with the employees creates engagement and thus make it easier for them to see how their work helps the company.

Big Audacious Goal

Companies that want high-performing employees and retain them should allow themselves to invest in learning and development programs. This allows the employees to accomplish their goals - both now and in the future. 
Remember: A company is the sum total of what employees achieve individually, thus, organizations should do everything that they can to ensure that their employees perform at their peak.

Learning and Development Activities

Employees want to do a good job and a way to ensure that they are is to give constructive feedback form time to time. Constructive feedback is necessary for an employee's ongoing development.
Moreover, feedback clarifies expectations on what they've done well, what they could improve, and this helps them learn from their mistakes and build confidence.

Feedback and Coaching Sessions

Performance management is where management involvement, setting goals, investing in learning and development, and coaching sessions are brought together.
When managers and employees collaborate well together it leads to improved productivity. Performance management allows us to identify possible areas for development and where we can encourage people to grow in their roles.

Performance Management

Performance management is a business requirement. But it is more than an annual review. Here are 5 drivers of performance management success.

Performance Management: 5 Drivers for Success

Consider using a customer relationship management (CRM) system.<ul><li>Ask readers to submit an expertise title.&nbsp;</li><li>Verify their credentials.&nbsp;</li><li>Categorize members into expert groups.&nbsp;</li><li>Reach out to members to proof articles and invite them to join relevant conversations.&nbsp;</li></ul>

A CRM for journalists

Share some ideas before you get started to you give readers the chance to be involved in your reporting. This can help you figure out where to look, what to ask, and what to make of what you find. A reader can respond and share what they know. But whenever they do, they can change the expertise title - for example, a PhD student when a reader shares about health care, or a Parent when the person shares about children.

Ask readers to submit an expertise title

We love the expertise title, for these 5 reasons:&nbsp;<ul><li>It instantly puts readers in the mindset that it’s all about sharing knowledge, and that we see them as potential experts.&nbsp;</li><li>Readers no longer have to awkwardly explain why they’re an authority. It’s right there next to their name.&nbsp;</li><li>The titles show other readers that their peers are taking part, which can motivate them to join in the discussion, too.&nbsp;</li><li>Journalists and readers alike can easily scan the comments by expertise title.&nbsp;</li><li>We can use these expertise titles to build our CRM, which brings us to point two.&nbsp;</li></ul>

When journalists want to quote a member’s contribution in their reporting or interview them more extensively, they verify the title with the member or the members can request verification. The benefit is that it's visible in the discussion on the platform so the readers know what type of person is contributing.

We verify their credentials

Editors could create categories for expertise titles, such as:&nbsp;<ul><li>Anthropology&nbsp;</li><li>Architecture&nbsp;</li><li>Armed forces&nbsp;</li><li>Medical professionals&nbsp;</li><li>Natural sciences&nbsp;</li><li>Linguistics&nbsp;</li><li>Psychology&nbsp;</li><li>History&nbsp;</li></ul>

Categorize members in expert groups

The position of the Conversation Editor entails five goals:&nbsp;<ul><li>Invite members to take part in discussions they’re knowledgeable about.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Help correspondents enrich their reporting with the knowledge and experience of members.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>The conversation editor can reach out to people from underrepresented groups.</li><li>The conversation editor wants to steer away from group think by organizing dissent.&nbsp;</li><li>Transform all the lessons into new features.</li></ul>

The role of the Conversation Editor

The experience and expertise of readers is a great untapped resource in journalism. However, it is available right now. All you have to do is ask.&nbsp; It wasn't easy to reach out to readers in the print era. However, in the digital age, readers can be resources if you give them the opportunity to share what they know.&nbsp;

Readers can be resources

Dutch journalism site De Correspondent is building a CRM for journalists - a new and improved version of the good old Rolodex. In this article, their cofounder describes what they’ve learned so far.

3 ways to make annual reviews suck less (especially for remote employees)

How product teams can measure progress through outcome OKRs

Psyched Up

How to lead without focus on metrics

‘Back to human’: Why HR leaders want to focus on people again

Timothy Moore