Overcoming a Negative Performance Review
Search Jobs
Search Content
Do you have a question or comment?
A performance review can be glorious or the worst nightmare, depending upon
the results of your review. The review, in theory, is designed to provide
an orderly way for your superior to meet with you, usually on an annual
basis, to tell you what the company thinks about your job performance and
to improve it by pointing out key positives and negatives about your
on-the-job performance over the past year.
Its primary mission is to give you feedback to help you strengthen your
capabilities so that you can be a more productive member of the
organization, and in the process receive additional compensation or grow in
responsibility.
The review is used to justify both satisfaction with your job performance
(leading, hopefully, to a raise) and dissatisfaction (which could be the
precursor to a demotion or even a termination).
Separate perception from reality
To grow with an organization when one has received a less-than-sterling
review, one has to learn to separate the "learning" areas ( i.e. what one
has to do to improve) from the "hurting" parts of the message ( i.e. the
personal or work related negatives that say to you, "I am not a valued
employee and don't have a future here. They don't like me.)
For you the employee, the bottom line of a performance review is often
fairly short range: "What was the size of the raise?" not "How am I doing
within the organization and have I got an opportunity to grow?" These are
important issues, often relegated to a secondary place in the discussion.
Handling a poor review requires discipline
Most people come out of a review that is critical of their performance
understandably upset or angry.
One important thing to remember is that you're still at the company ( not
applying for a job) so there's a lot you can do before resigning yourself
to being terminated or being forced to leave.
The key is whether you want to stay.
If you like your job and want to remain with the organization, your
response to a less-than-favorable review becomes that much more important,
because ( believe it or not ) many supervisors hate to deliver bad news.
Your ability to digest it and learn from it without becoming antagonistic
may be critical to your getting back into the company's and your
supervisor's good graces.
It's not an easy task. It takes the ability to stand back and get outside
of yourself , to view yourself dispassionately, at least for the duration
of the review.
The "trick" is to understand, going into the review, that there may be some
negatives and that you have to be able to separate your performance on the
job from your perceptions of yourself as a bad or unworthy person because
you were criticized.
This also allows you to determine, with a clear head, if those negatives
can be fixed.
Even if you disagree with a negative perception, it's still your
supervisor's perception and unless it's a factual issue that is in question
( i.e. sales growth or the number of new accounts added ) there will be
gray areas that are matters of personal objectivity.
Example: Supervisor: "Well, Jim, one area that we're rather disappointed in
is your handling of customer complaints. You seem to handle them in a curt,
rude manner and that's a critical part of your job."
Your reaction initially may be: "That's baloney. I'm not rude. I'm very
pleasant, 99 percent of the time. It's just that one person you heard that
gave me a difficult time. The one day, by the way, that you took the time
to listen to my customer conversations."
Certainly, if the perception is just plain incorrect, in your opinion, you
want to know how you supervisor arrived at that conclusion. It may not make
any difference, but at least you'll know how opinions were formed.
Your goal is to maintain your "cool" while conveying the sense that you
want to improve. To do this you need to understand the specifics of what
you have to do to correct this perception, in your supervisor's eyes.
Five keys to help you cope with and overcome a bad review
1. Go in with a list of accomplishments that you have accumulated over the
past year. By recording (daily) completed projects as you do them, even you
will be surprised at how much you've accomplished. You'll also
short-circuit a generalized, unthoughtful criticism of your work, if it's
not based on the facts.
2. Go into the review assuming there will be some negatives, and thinking
of your meeting as a way to learn what specific issues you have to work on
to get to that next step. It's your boss' job to let you know about areas
where you can improve, so try not to be offended.
Your goal is to convince your supervisor, in a positive manner, that you
are willing to make that commitment.
3. Before going into a review, separate a page into two columns. The first
should be headed "Specific Areas of Strength"; the second, "Specific Areas
of Improvement."
It's very important that you hear both the good and the bad comments,
because you'll never improve, to your boss' satisfaction, if you deny, in
your anger, that there were any areas needing improvement. Remember, we're
talking about your supervisor's perception, not necessarily yours.
4. Ask for clarification and specific examples if you hear generalizations
or don't understand what the problem is. But try hard not to be too
argumentative.
Offer specifics of your own to buttress your argument if you feel that
there is an incorrect perception.
5. Find out how your boss might solve these issues, and ask for another
review in thirty days to address these specific issues, to see if headway
is being made.
Remember that if you spend your time being hurt by or defensive about what
is said, and not learning about what you can do to change your boss'
perception, you're doing yourself a disservice.
What you are trying to accomplish is to leave the meeting with a good idea
of what you can do to improve your boss' perception of you before the next
review.
You're also creating an image of a thoughtful employee who is willing and
able to modify behavior.
To do this, you have to be prepared to hear what the issues are, so that
they can be addressed.
Remember, perception is often someone's reality.
Separating the "learning" from the "hurting" parts of the review is the key
The hurt over a bad review may not go away, but by taking pains to separate
the "learning" from the "hurting" part of the meeting, you stand a far
better chance of correcting perceptions and having a more positive review
the next time out.
Good jobs are hard to come by, and if you like your job this approach
should help to give you a fighting chance to assess and correct areas that
your supervisor feels may have been overlooked, without allowing your
personal feelings to dominate.
David Gordon, President of Gordon Communications, a marketing and
outplacement consulting firm in Highland Park, Illinois.
