Turn Being Performance Managed into a Success Story

Are you being performance managed? Here are our suggestions of what to do before, during and after your performance review.

Are you being performance managed?

What! You’ve be invited to a meeting with your manager and they’ve suggested you bring a support person. Your heart is racing. My mind whirring. You break into a sweat. What the heck? The meeting time arrives, and you turn up with your support person and you are sweating bullets. You’ve heard about these kinds of meetings. It usually means your time is up and they want you out, doesn’t it? The trouble is, you aren’t too sure about what is going to happen here. What can you say, what will you say, what will they say, can the situation be rectified? Our suggestions are to tackle it like a process. There will be the before, during and after actions:

Before

Select a support person who has some experience with people leadership and management. There is little space for being emotional in these situations. They need to be calm and level-headed in order to support you well.
Brainstorm what you think it will be about and what is likely to come up. The trick here is to be really honest with yourself and categorise what you think will come up. Workshop approaches for handling them and anything else that is unexpected with your support person.
Know your rights. You can do this by visiting Fair Work Australia (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements)

During

Take pad and pen. Ask your support person to do so as well.
Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt. Take notes.
Don’t defend or justify your position. There is no use in saying well x said this and I did that.
Ask if they have any further insights they would like to add.
Replay back to them what you think you heard and as you gain agreement tick each off on your notepad. Make changes and additions where necessary.
If its all a big surprise you can acknowledge this. Say something like this, this isn’t what I was expecting. I have been taken by surprise.
Ask questions. If there is something you aren’t sure about, ask more questions for clarity. For instance, if your boss says, you’ve been saying inappropriate things at work and this contravenes our workplace policies. If you believe that not to be true, ask for clarification. Ask them to show you where to find policies and interpretation.
Be humble. If you can see why this is happening take the heat out of the situation and apologise.
Focus on the situation and what can be done to rectify it. See your boss as an ally

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