Performance Reviews: It's about 'How,' Not 'Why'

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When you understand others' experiences deeply, you have a sense of what lies at their core. If done poorly, a review can feel like a chronological list of accomplishments and failures. But by exploring the stories, challenges, and key turning points in someone's career, you will uncover a richer tapestry of experiences, which can help you get the absolute best from your employees.

• Temperament brings you to the deepest part of the employee and is probably the most rarely talked about in reviews. Temperament—the consistent set of traits and aptitudes that make up the core of personality— is such a sensitive area that directly asking someone to describe his temperament is not likely to yield much. But more subtle questions can open up a real window on the intersection of temperament and work: How do you learn new things? How would I know if you were stressed? How do you normally plan or organize your work? What sort of people do you get along with best? What do you do for fun?

Through such conversations, the manager gets an understanding of what lies behind the employee's performance, what energizes the employee, and how the employee can be best used. For example, a manager who learns that someone is temperamentally unsuited to doing business development can find another area in which the employee might succeed instead of penalizing him year after year for falling short. And with the richer data from the conversation, the manager can make a far more informed decision about rewards.

Employees who feel they have been genuinely engaged are much more likely to be able to own the outcome of the review. The shared contexts developed in the conversation, the deeper probing to find out what really drives the data, and the intention of the manager to understand rather than to judge enable the employee to embrace the fuller story and, where necessary, change it in the future.

Remember the last time you felt that someone really tried to understand you? That's the level of engagement and rapport that using these kinds of questions can enable. Such an approach requires courage on the part of the participants and company leadership. But the rewards in improved performance—and improved performance management—are certainly worth it.

Andy Houghton is managing director for the Americas at YSC, a global business psychology consultancy specializing in executive assessment, development, coaching, and organizational change.

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