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I still remember the first performance review I ever got, even though it'due south been almost 50 years since Ray Moeller, my showtime boss at GE, chosen me into his office and handed me a document that he chosen a "functioning appraisement."

I read it. Information technology hurt.

On GE'due south then 4-level rating scale, he rated me in the adjacent-to-lesser category. Ray didn't hesitate to signal out all the areas in which I, a newbie trainee on GE'due south Manufacturing Training Program, had failed to run across his tough expectations. The review ended with Ray stating that, if he had to practice it over, he wouldn't hire Dick Grote.

Equally negative as Ray's appraisal of my functioning was, it certainly was accurate. I wasn't doing a proficient task. I was a recent college grad who hadn't yet made the emotional transition from the soft earth of school to the hard globe of work. Ray laid it on the line. My response was to immediately shape upwardly and start earning my pay.

I might have reacted differently if I'd felt the review was inaccurate or unfair. The appraisal would've been far more painful and frustrating if it was off base. How should you respond if your manager gives y'all a review that seems off the mark — that leaves out a significant accomplishment, or is strongly at variance with your own evaluation of the quality of your work?

What Is a Performance Appraisal?

Offset by recognizing that a performance appraisement is not a testable, provable, verifiable document that can exist empirically analyzed and confirmed. It's not the end production of a negotiation between assessor and assessee. A operation appraisal is a formal record of a supervisor's opinion of the quality of an employee'south piece of work.

The important give-and-take hither is opinion. As long as that opinion is based on your managing director's honest assessment of how well y'all have done the job and is uncolored by personal biases and prejudices, the manager has done the job that is expected of them, and the matter is settled. If the managing director and the employee disagree about the opinion, the managing director wins.

A main source of contention betwixt managers and employees over operation appraisals results from the infinite human chapters for self-delusion: Nosotros all think we're better than we really are. Research has consistently demonstrated that individuals are notoriously inaccurate in assessing the quality of their ain performance, and the poorer the performer, the higher (and more than inaccurate) the self-cess is likely to exist. And then the first step is to have (as I did most 50 years agone) that the dominate may in fact be correct, and that their opinion may indeed be more authentic than our ain.

Your Choices

With that in mind, when deciding whether to claiming a low rating, you've generally got three choices:

  1. "My boss may well be correct. I'm disappointed, but I'm going to have this and make whatever changes are necessary to justify a higher rating next year."
  2. "Damn the torpedoes! Total speed alee! This rating is wrong, and I'm ready to exercise whatever it takes to get it changed."
  3. "I'k out of here."

Make the choice conspicuously and so proceed. Here's a question yous shouldn't ask: "What do I need to do then that you lot'll rate me as 'Exceeds Expectations' next year?" Your boss can't possibly answer that. You lot're asking them to predict the future. Instead, here's a question y'all should plan to raise later, during a coaching session or breezy conversation, after the dust has settled: "Exercise you run into whatever ways in which I could exist making a more valuable contribution to the team?"

But What If the Director's Opinion Is Wrong?

The easiest operation appraisal problems to get resolved may be those where the manager's opinion is based on factually incorrect information. For example, the managing director could say "I rated yous a three considering your overall customer service score was a 74," when in fact your overall customer score was a 98. This may be a case where the bad information is of sufficient importance to justify challenging the final effect.

Challenging a boss'southward appraisal, even in a clear-cut instance of bad data, is always a ticklish matter. Be cautious. It'southward non easy to say to your boss, in whatsoever words you choose to use, "Y'all're incorrect." Don't lose sight of the fact that your dominate probably has a significant investment in the appraisal you've decided to challenge. For near managers, writing performance appraisals is a time-consuming and emotionally arduous activity. Your boss may take had to explain and justify the rating he gave you in a calibration session with other managers, and a conclusion to alter your rating may forcefulness alterations of other employees' ratings, if your company follows strict distribution guidelines. Your dominate may have reviewed your appraisal in accelerate with their boss, and having to go back and admit that they got it wrong the outset fourth dimension effectually is awkward at best. Be sure it's worth it.

You lot and Your Team Series

Difficult Conversations

  • 7 Things to Say When a Conversation Turns Negative

Whatever you do, don't endeavor for immediate resolution. Say something at the end of the meeting like: "This cess comes as a real surprise to me. I'd like to think about what yous've said and written, and possibly take some other conversation before this becomes official. May I get back to y'all in a twenty-four hours or ii?" That lets your boss know that y'all're concerned near the accurateness of the evaluation without having to attempt to attain instant resolution.

Then sleep on it. Hold up a figurative mirror to your by twelvemonth'due south performance to see whether your boss'due south assessment might be on target, or at least non and so far off the mark that it's worth making a major fuss over.

When yous do get back to your boss, do 1 of two things. Acknowledge the fact that getting the cess served as a significant learning feel (or wake-up call), and ask for their help in understanding how you tin make a more than valuable contribution in the adjacent 12 months. Or tell your boss that you lot have considered the appraisal carefully, and later on serious thought you believe that an adjustment of the rating is justified. Produce the bear witness and the examples that justify your position, keeping in mind that success — a inverse rating — is probably unlikely, regardless of your evidence. As one boss I know put it to a subordinate who was taken ashamed by a low appraisal rating: "The bulletin you lot've received from me is exactly what I intended to communicate."

No matter what happens, keep the conversation professional person. Your manager is not responsible for your feelings, and your boss didn't intentionally create the emotional reaction you're experiencing.

1 important note: All of this advice assumes that your boss is not incompetent, deliberately lying, or acting with malice. Of class, that's not always the case. If your poor performance appraisal results from the fact that your boss truly is incompetent, envious of your success, or dishonest, you'll need to make a different adding about your choices. But, fortunately, those cases are rare.

Information technology's understandable to be unhappy, fifty-fifty upset, when yous don't agree with your performance review, but proceeding advisedly rather than acting rashly is the best approach — and the ane most likely to earn you a more than favorable appraisal in the hereafter.