Their Performance Review. Your Problem.

What No One Tells You — #14 Their Performance Review. Your Problem. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUDVkTLI8PU —————————————————————————————————————————————————— Hello everyone and welcome back to What No One Tells You podcast. My name is Claudia and this is episode 14. And today we are talking about something that happens every single year in every single company. And every single year managers get in the wrong in exactly the same way like clockwork. Every single year, performance review season is over. And you had the conversations, you filled in the forms, you survived the uncomfortable silence. Maybe it went well. Maybe it felt like diffusing a bomb, but it's done. You close the laptop, you exhale, and you think, "Okay, that's behind me now. Let's move forward." And that right there, that is a mistake. Because of you, the review is over. But your team member, it is just the beginning. They are sitting at their desk and replaying everything you said and quietly making decisions about their future. Decisions that, I promise you, are not going to make your life easier. This is episode 14 and it's called their performance review, your problem. Now, I want to paint you two pictures because the view season doesn't produce one type of awkward situation. It produces at least two and they look completely different on the surface, but they lead to exactly the same place if you don't pay attention. Scenario one, you gave someone difficult feedback. Performance wasn't where it needed to be. The raise was minimal, but you told them they still have a long way to go. They sat across from you. They nodded. They said, "Thank you for the feedback." And now, have you ever noticed how, "Thank you for the feedback can sound like the most passive aggressive sentence in the English language." They left the room and now they showed up. They do the job. They answer emails. But the spark is gone. That's not someone processing feedback and growing. That's disengagement on a slow timer. Scenario two, you gave someone a great review, excellent performance, warm words, maybe even a promotion into a new role, and the raise 2%. They smiled. They thanked you. They seemed fine. But inside they are sitting where they're thinking. I took on more responsibility. I worked late. I delivered. And this is what's worth to the company. Some few percentage. That person is not angry at you. They're just recalibrating. And the next time a recruiter messages them on LinkedIn, they're going to read that message a lot more carefully than before. Two completely different reviews. The same quiet rot starting underneath. Fun, right? Here is what most managers do after reviews. They go back to business as usual. They avoid bringing it up because it feels awkward. And honestly, who wants to reopen that conversation? So they just don't and they tell themselves, "I said what needed to be said. The rest is up to them." But let me ask you something. If you had just been told your year of work, it's worth 2% or that you still have a long way to go and then your manager just never mentions it again, how would you feel? Would you feel supported? Would you feel motivated? or would you just feel like you had a conversation that raised a 100 questions and got zero followup? Your team member doesn't experience silence as neutrality. They experience it as an answer and that's not a good one. So, what do you do instead? Here is what I want you to take from this episode. First, follow up within one week. not to repeat the review and not to reopen the whole thing. Just a simple check-in. Hey, how are you feeling about everything that we discussed? That's it. Five words. You are not starting a debate and you are just showing that the conversation didn't end in that room and neither did your interest in them. Second, acknowledge the money reality out loud. And I know, I know this one is uncomfortable, but here's the thing. Your team member is already thinking about it. The only question is whether they're thinking about it alone or with you. If someone got a small increase, don't put a bow on it and call it great news. You can say something like, "I know this number doesn't reflect everything you put in this year, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can tell tell you is what I'm going to do to support your development going forward. You cannot fix always the salary, but you can fix the loneliness around it. Third, give them something real to work toward. The most demoralizing thing after a performance review is the feeling that nothing will change. So, give them a concrete next step. Give them a a project, a new responsibility, a skill that they will develop. Something that says there is a reason to keep investing here. And make it specific. Keep up the good work is not the next step. That's a greeting card. Fourth, for the difficult feedback situations, build a simple follow-up plan together. Not a formal improvement document and absolutely nothing that sounds like HR paperwork, just a short conversation. Here are two or three things we are going to focus on together over the next 3 months. And then, and this is important, actually check in on those things. because if you don't, the message you're sending is that the feedback wasn't actually that important. Fifth, watch the quiet ones. The team members you need to worry about most are not the ones who pushed back or asked hard questions in the review. Those ones are engaged enough to fight. It's the ones who were too calm, too agreeable, too polite. They are the ones going home and processing everything alone. Check on them specifically. Ask directly. They will not volunteer the information. So, let me leave you with this. You didn't just complete a review process. You just had a conversation that is going to live rentree in your team members's head for weeks, maybe months. And what they do with it, whether they stay motivated or quietly check out, is not just up to them. It's up to what you do next. The review was the easy part. Showing up after it, that's the real job. And now you know, because I told you. This was episode 14 of What No One Tells You. My name is Claudia. And this hits close to home, share it with a manager in your network who is right now wondering why their team feels a little flat since reviews ended. And if you want to work on your leadership one-on-one, you know where to find me. See you next week.