Be straight with me...

I love talking to people about their lives, ambitions, families and also about their performance at work. Performance management has theoretically evolved in recent years. HR best practices now recommend quarterly performance conversations, driven by systems, such as Workday, to ensure that employees don't wait until the end of the year to know how they're doing.

However, what I see more often than not are a couple of things that still need work:

1. Leaders may be driven by a system or process to meet with their employees quarterly, they still might technically check the box by filling out the paperwork, but still don't have the face-to-face conversation, or

2. Leaders have the conversation, but they give the employee non-specific, sugar-coated feedback that leads to absolutely no performance/behavior change at all...and it's usually accompanied by a mid-point rating such as "meets requirements" or 3/5.

Why are we so afraid of being straight with people? What do we think is going to happen if we tell people what they need to work on? In my experience, as a leader, a mentor or a coach, the more direct you are the better. People don't typically freak out or hate you for the rest of your life. They usually become inspired to do better, and are more likely to think proactively about how they can improve themselves.

If you ask me, the secret sauce is just a few small, yet important and totally do-able ingredients:

• Posture and eye contact - be confident, yet non-threatening

• Tone of voice & word choice - be calm, intentional and focus on outcomes. By the way, I don't think it has to be all objective. Sharing your feelings and opinions about a person, while connecting it back to something you have observed or learned, works just as well as: "you missed target X" or "your project was $xMM over budget". Do both!

• Intimacy - show that you care about their performance, and will help them build a plan to close gaps

• Listening - don't just talk - ask questions and listen carefully to what is being said. Look for clues that will tell you about the person's mindset as well as their skillset.

If you do these few things, and have a truly honest, straight-talk conversation with someone, you will build trust, confidence and motivation in most people!

Hope you enjoyed the read.

Cheers,

Wendy