Mastering Quarterly Performance Reviews: A Guide for All Managers

Performance reviews can feel daunting, but they’re crucial moments to check in, reflect, and set goals for growth. This guide is meant to act as your compass through the review process, helping you create meaningful dialogues and foster positive change. Although its intended for engineering managers, it is general enough to be applied in most knowledge-based work environments.

Prerequisites

Regular Manager-Employee Interactions

Regular, ongoing interactions such as weekly or at worse bi-weekly check-ins are crucial. They ensure managers have a solid understanding of the employee’s daily work and any arising challenges. This constant dialogue builds a relationship of trust and familiarity, which makes the formal review more a continuation of ongoing conversations rather than a once-a-quarter event.

Peer Feedback

Upon hiring, each person in my team (including me) designs a personalized anonymous feedback form based on areas they are keen to develop. It’s important that their survey includes specific areas they’re looking to develop, ensuring that the feedback is targeted and actionable.

For example, they may be interested in how well they communicate technical subjects, resulting in a scale-based question such as “From 1-7, rate my ability to communicate complex technology”. Help them with this process to find the right areas and questions.

These forms are made available in a public space for any co-worker to fill out at any point in time. As we get close to the quarter’s end, each employee generates a list of peers from whom they seek feedback. Before the employee sends an email to everyone on that list, the manager should review it to ensure it’s comprehensive enough to cover all dimensions of the engineer’s performance and influence within their day-to-day.

No Surprises

Performance reviews should not have any surprises for either manager or employee. Regarding the anonymous feedback form, it is critical that both parties have an opportunity to review the responses prior to the performance conversation. As a manager, it is also critical to raise issues to your employee as they occur. Do not wait till the quarterly review to “stick it to ‘em”. The review is meant to:

1. Step out of the day-to-day grind to take a bird’s eye view of successes and failures
2. Identify positive or negative patterns of behavior
3. Determine whether and how the negative patterns should be addressed

Now that we’ve covered the prerequisites, let’s get into the review process.

Review Process

Step 1: Self-Reflection

Start the session by encouraging the employee to evaluate their performance openly, prompting with “How do you feel you’ve progressed over the past few months?” This self-reflection helps employees articulate their perception of their successes and areas where they feel they could improve, setting the stage for the rest of the conversation.

A sign of good preparation from both sides is when you find your direct report preemptively raising the same concerns you have. An added benefit here is that if they’re already aware of a problem, they’re much more likely to accept feedback and suggestions on how to improve on that problem.

Give them ample time to respond and ask questions to dig deeper into their commentary. I’ve found this step commonly starts in a superficial place, but with some encouragement leads to significant self-reflection.

Step 2: Peer Feedback

Once they’ve wrapped up their self-reflection, I ask them to share their screen and walk me through their peer feedback from the anonymous form. We discuss each piece of feedback, all while searching for trends or unexpected insights. There will be occasions where the manager or the employee will miss something from these forms; use this time to ensure sufficient coverage of the feedback occurs.

Step 3: Manager Feedback

It’s important to find your own groove here. Here’s my typical format for this step — similar to any retrospective:

1. What went well,
2. what didn’t go so well,
3. and what would we like to change.

Do your best to be concise in each section — preparation is critical to achieve this. Verbosity or rambling in these parts will reduce the effectiveness of your statements.

In the first two segments, say your bit as clearly as you can and return the stage to your employee. The intention here is to share your position and allow the employee to reflect and ask questions. Do not belabor your point. Consider working it down further if you need more than 2–3 sentences to make your point.

Finally and most importantly, call out the priority focus areas for the upcoming quarter. Keep this list short — max 3 items even if this employee is a poor performer. If you overwhelm them with action items, you’re setting them up for failure. Here’s my typical process for this step:

1. Identify the focus area requiring change, e.g peer and manager feedback have indicated that you have trouble communicating technical subjects.
2. Brainstorm together action items that can improve this area. e.g. take a class, present lightning talks, or watch videos of other technical speakers
3. Settle on 1-2 actions
4. Repeat for the next focus area

Before moving on to the next step, recap your actionable takeaways to ensure you’re both on the same page.

Step 4: Soliciting Feedback for the Manager

End the review by asking for feedback on your own management style, demonstrating humility and a commitment to mutual improvement. It encourages a culture of open dialogue and continuous improvement, making it clear that performance reviews are a two-way process.

I was pleasantly surprised when I was asked this by my manager for the first time. Keep in mind that the employee may not be ready to answer you on the spot and may want time to think about this question.

Additional Tips for Success

Prepare Thoroughly

Preparation is key for both parties. Reviewing past performance assessments, project outcomes, and previous feedback helps ensure that the review is based on solid evidence rather than recency bias or general impressions. An unprepared manager conducting a review can be disastrous for both parties — your employee won’t appreciate it any more than you would!

Create a Comfortable Environment

The setting of the review can significantly impact its effectiveness. The four-step review is somewhat prescriptive. Remember to keep it natural and add your own flavor to this exercise. Some of the steps mentioned above will bleed into each other — it’s perfectly normal.

Do your best to improvise and keep the conversation flowing. Step 3, in particular, may feel slightly repetitive — this is totally acceptable and still has value! If you are repeating something as you articulate your feedback in step 3, simply call it out and reference the peer feedback or self-evaluation.

For example, one of my employees received peer feedback for being too verbose when explaining technical implementations. In fact, I had similar experiences with her when I asked questions about her engineering decisions. When this came up in the peer review section, I raised it as a concern of my own as well. We discussed it a bit and moved on.

Once we reached step 3, I brought it up again by saying “the next item on my list we’ve already talked about in the peer feedback section: its about your communication style coming off as verbose; something we can look to address in the upcoming quarter.” There were little comments on the subject and we moved on to the next item.

Maximize the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role in effective performance reviews. In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, a renowned psychologist and author, emphasizes the importance of managing emotions in oneself and others, noting that “a well-managed emotional response can help maintain constructive dialogue and avoid misunderstandings, allowing for progress rather than conflict.”

Recognizing and Acknowledging Emotions

Being empathetic means recognizing and understanding the feelings of your direct report. During the review, actively listen to their reflections and reactions, acknowledging their feelings if they respond defensively to feedback and clarify the constructive intention behind their comments.

For example, you might say, “I understand this might be challenging to hear, but if there’s an opportunity to grow then let’s explore how we can address it together.” This approach promotes dialogue, prevents tension from escalating, and reinforces the positive aspects of feedback.

Balancing Positive and Constructive Feedback

Goleman emphasizes that effective interpersonal communication hinges on managing both emotional expression and understanding. Balancing positive reinforcement and constructive criticism ensures the review serves as a stepping stone for growth.

Recognizing accomplishments while highlighting areas for improvement maintains a balanced and supportive conversation, preventing conflict and promoting constructive dialogue. Depending on the person you’re talking to, this balance will vary wildly — see next section.

Navigating Cultural Sensitivity

In today’s interconnected workplace, engineering managers are almost guaranteed to manage people from around the world. Understanding cultural differences is crucial to being an effective manager. Here are some key considerations:

Feedback Styles Across Cultures

Feedback styles vary significantly, leading to avoidable misunderstandings. Erin Meyer’s article When Diversity Meets Feedback highlights how feedback styles different across cultures. For instance, American feedback often wraps criticism in positive comments, which can be confusing for those from more direct cultures, such as the Netherlands or Germany. Here are a couple of examples she provides:

1. Having recently moved to the U.S., Olga, a Ukrainian HR executive, gave direct feedback to her colleague Cathy, which led to a reprimand for her “indelicate” approach.
2. Jethro, an American professional, faced issues when his direct feedback to Thai colleagues led to complaints of bullying.

Language Modifiers: Upgraders and Downgraders

The use of language modifiers influences how feedback is perceived. Direct cultures, such as those in Europe, often use “upgraders” like “absolutely” or “completely” to emphasize criticism. Indirect cultures, like Japan or Thailand, frequently use “downgraders,” such as “kind of” or “a little,” to soften feedback.

It’s important to note that the examples shared here might not reflect current cultural norms. Cultures evolve alongside their people, so stay curious and proactive in researching your employees’ backgrounds. Consider this an opportunity to travel abroad more often — perhaps you can find a way to make the trip tax-deductible!

Ensure Consistent Follow-Through

It’s crucial to integrate follow-ups into regular check-ins. This helps maintain goals and development plans, ensuring that feedback from the review continues to influence daily work and progress. Documenting each discussion thoroughly provides a reference point for future check-ins and reviews. This detailed record helps track progress, allows for course corrections when necessary, and ensures consistency in follow-through on development plans.

Final Thoughts

Let’s face it: reviews can be tough, and they should be. We’re responsible for people’s careers, after all. However, they also provide an opportunity to build up your team and cultivate trust.

I had originally thought this post would be a simple 4-step guide, but I realized how many relevant subjects there are to tackle. For example, I didn’t get a chance to talk about gender, but Erin Meyer’s piece explores that topic in depth and is worth a read.

I appreciate your time reading this guide, and I hope it empowers you to create positive, growth-focused performance reviews. If you’re ready to implement these strategies and want guidance or insights, feel free to reach out!