SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 170,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: As you’ve delivered year-end reviews, how are your people reacting?
- They’re not at all surprised with their ratings: 49.7%
- They received the rating they expected with one or two surprises: 37.88%
- Their rating didn’t closely match their expectations but it was close: 6.06%
- Their rating varied dramatically from what they expected to receive: 6.36%
Surprises in reviews aren’t good presents. I know it’s the holidays and you want to get the members of your team a surprise present but a surprise in their review is like a lump of coal in their stocking. Your people shouldn’t be surprised by anything in their reviews if you’ve been giving regular feedback, having ongoing development conversations and going through a rigorous self-appraisal process. I’m doubting any of the surprises they received were pleasant ones. Here’s a New Year’s resolution for you — resolve that in 2013 your people won’t have any year-end review surprises.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”