Communicating a negative performance evaluation
One of the most difficult things we must do as leaders is to deliver a poor performance evaluation.
While you should get guidance from your own manager and human resources team, there are things you can do to make it easier on yourself and your employee or team member.
First, this isn’t something that should wait for an annual review. No annual performance evaluation should be a surprise. Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor says that formal performance evaluations should be separated from developmental feedback. They have different purposes, and when we mix rewarding employees with helping them improve, emotions run high because negative feedback becomes a threat to livelihood. (Also, nobody likes to be rated).
Keys to communicating negative performance include doing it as close to the event as possible, followed by ongoing, non-judgmental coaching to help the person course correct. Keep the focus on behavior and consequences (performance, not reward).
Here’s an observational feedback process you can follow:
Check in with yourself. Should you provide yourself some self-empathy around your need for belonging or safety before you engage with this other person? Set your intention for yourself, the other person, and the relationship.
Prepare your feedback so you can address behavior and consequences, not your judgements of their behavior.
Confirm their willingness with a sentence like: “I’m going to describe a problem I see. I may be wrong about it, and if I am, I hope you’ll tell me. If I’m not, I hope my bringing it up will help you fix it.”
Speak about their conduct and its impact (using observation language).
Make a clear request, tied to mutual purpose.
As a leader, it’s then up to you to ensure the employee has the support and environment they need to make the change.
