Episode 29: How to Ace Your Performance Review

Welcome to the Women's Career Mastery Podcast, the show that's dedicated to empowering women to redefine success and break through barriers. I'm your host, Christine, and my co-host, Laura, along with our amazing guests and experts. We are here to shatter the myths that has been hindering women's career fulfillment for far too long. So, if you're ready to master your career and take your life to the next level, join us in our journey together. The Women's Career Mastery podcast starts now.

Hey listeners, this is Laura and Christine. We're doing an episode with the two of us talking about performance reviews. So, let's get started.

Yeah.

So, Laura, maybe you can kind of share with our listeners why the topic and why now? About the performance review.

Good question, Christine. Well, we're in third quarter. We're going to be, getting really close to the end of the year, and it's going to be time to start doing the performance review, the end of your performance review, and I have been hearing on coaching calls how this is a very, tough assignment like this is something that people really dread doing.

I'm talking from the employee perspective. That is, they don't know how to manage this. They don't know how to write it. They don't know what to include There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty. They’re not sure how to present themselves, how to share their achievements. There's just so many emotions and thoughts going on during the performance review.

So, I thought it was a good time to start talking about it. And at the end, you'll hear, we created an online course that you could take real easy short online course to help you really master your performance review. But let's talk about the tough stuff first, Christine.

Yeah, I mean, I remember, every time, like, I used to drag myself to write just right before the deadline and then, like, have a, like, sat down in the forum and then just had this blank, blank mind, like, what do I need to write?

How do I convey my achievement in a way that, feels authentic? Because it feels like I'm writing things that I don't really connect with it. And sometimes it's hard to see, like things that are we do very well, sometimes we, we don't pay a lot of attention, we think it's natural.

So, if I like, oh, I need to brag myself. And it feels like, I'm, Breathing or I'm eating, and I have to brag about my eating and breathing and walking. It's kind of unnatural because that's what I do every day. So, the story why we did this, because, during the Women Career Mastery program, one of our participants really asked us to, to create something like this.

Laura, do you want to tell that story?

Yeah, so we had this incredibly brilliant person in our Women's Career Mastery course, and she was really struggling with how to communicate those achievements that she made in a way that her management team could understand. And again, like incredibly smart, brilliant, like such a unique skill set that hardly anybody could really understand what she was doing, where she was coming from, what the type of goals she was setting, and the things that she was achieving.

So, we used our method, which involves storytelling, to help her and she then aced her performance review. And we'll go through the details on this, like how to use storytelling, but she aced that performance review. And not only did she ace it, but she had also gotten a bad performance review the year before.

And once the management team read the new performance review for the new year, they actually backed out of the bad performance review from the year before, because now they realized the value and the impact that this person was making based on using our method. So it was, oh my gosh, how do we help this person?

So, we put our skills together, Christine and I, to help her do that. And we're going to share more of that here with you, but you know, those types of stories and transformations and changes, and just a slight, let me try a different method here. Maybe I could make the performance review better, more impactful, less stressful for myself.

Like, why not? Like, why not try something like that? And we've proven that it really worked.

Yeah. So, let's get into the meat of it. Laura, do you want to share the four tips that kind of like the framework of, what we offering?

Yeah. So, the, first step is in the beginning of the year, right? You set the foundation of what are the goals that you want to accomplish? And that takes work. Like you have to think about what are the goals I want to achieve, for the business and for yourself, for your professional development. So, starting with a good set of goals upfront, that you understand that your management understands, maybe even your team understands that this is what you're going to work on throughout the year.

So really when it comes to storytelling, you know, sort of setting the stage. Right. How is the story going to open up, with this great, list of goals that you have? And they could be aspirational goals. They could be smart goals. Like you want to be really clear about what are the goals you're trying to achieve.

And by the way, when we get to step four on how do you, show your achievements to the goals, you might not necessarily hit the targets, but by telling a really compelling story, you can still come out with a high impact.

Mm hmm. And I want to, add something you said. So that is the first tip, set the stage with intention.

And also bring your curiosity when you set a goal. What are you curious about? What do you want to learn? Because putting together the business goals and your personal goals and how can. Those two come together in a way that make you want to learn. So, in a way that you need to own that goal, because sometimes we just do it because it seems like it's reasonable, or it seems like that makes sense, but does it connect with you?

Is that really where you want to go? So, combining both. is really important and bringing your curiosity, bringing, your personal goals, what you want to learn within the business context, that even better.

Totally, Christine. Yeah. Think about any movie that you've watched or story that you've read, like that opening of the story on the character, you're the character.

So how do you want to portray yourself? How do you want to look at this for yourself? What do you want to maybe accomplish or learn throughout the year? And that's that opening of the story. So, setting the stage with intention. Step one, right? Be real intentional about those goals that you're putting down and what you want to accomplish.

And how about that? Tip number two. Tip number two is all about creating a compelling story, right? So, you don't, keep watching the movie if it doesn't keep you compelled, like what's going to happen next to the character. So, a performance review, same thing, right? It's a story. It's about weaving together all the details about you. And in the broader perspective, all to help make you shine, right?

So, what's happening in the organization? What's your impact? How are things evolving with you and other characters that you might be working with, teams, clients, et cetera. And what's happening? Like what's drawing me into that story? Why do I want to keep reading about you and your performance review?

Like what has taken place? Or what will take place, and you start to capture that as sort of the meat or the narrative of the story. So, this can be a little tricky because you might have to, take a step back and see like what's really happening as you're doing the work and working towards your goals.

And maybe Christine, you could talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, I really want to add something more from the perspective of an author. So, I wrote a book and, I feel like this is, this is a great, advice or this great additional perspective from a writer or from author when you craft a compelling narrative for your performance review.

See, when someone write a book or, when you even write an article, like a long article, what you do, you don't really sit down and write everything at once. So, for me, my experience writing a book I do walking, I do meditation, I talk to a friend, I listen to podcasts and there's some ideas that come in and I write it down.

And that's another ideas come in, I write it down. So, between your setting a goal and then write the review at the end, in between that, make sure you keep that story going. Write down, put a note, what you've done, or, the situations, the story. The like a diary or something right doesn't have to be every day but like by writing a snippet of your stories that you know by the end of it you might forget because it's small things here and there then you can go back to your notes and write a compelling narrative because you have all the materials with you right rather than at the end oh my god what did I do I forget about because it's just so much so that's what I found would be useful as we write the compelling narrative for performance review.

Yeah, taking notes, keeping notes throughout the year of all that's happening, whether you have an app that does that, or you're writing in a journal, anything just to keep track of all that you're doing. But also, that sense of stepping back to say, you know, after you've just achieved something, maybe you closed a successful deal with a client, right?

And you brought in a new account. Just take a moment. Like what really happened there? What did you do to make that account get closed? Like write down those things to like, look at the big picture and the details, because that's what makes it compelling, all the things that happened.

Yeah, and I also want to bring something up there because, I'm not the salesperson, or I'm not the person who do the new business.

When you in that field, you know, it's easier because then when you win a deal, you know, what is worth, you know, like , a million dollar projects or, 2 million projects that the number is easy. But when you are more like a leadership behind the scenes, make sure also.

See what's kind of impact that it's beyond numbers that you can kind of write down because that's something It's about quality sometimes instead of quantities and that quantities what you need to do is really like sit down and write and What I found very useful is then you realize oh my god. I make an impact here because we don't number or, I make an impact that, my team, become more productive or they feel better in their job or things like that.

Right. By writing things down and really see the impact in a very different way, then we feel good about our job because we do something like there's something impact that we create.

Absolutely. We spent a little time here talking about it because that compelling narrative is so important in the story that you're going to tell at the end of the year for the performance review.

So, let's move on to step three, Christine, one's all about showcasing your growth. Throughout the whole process, throughout the whole year, with all the goals that you're setting, there may be stretch goals. There may be things that you didn't even expect you'd have to learn, but you're learning and you're growing.

Maybe you're taking risk and it's been paying off. You want to capture all of those moments because the development of the character, you are also part of the story, right? What did you have to do to achieve those goals? Maybe you had to take a course, maybe you had to really stretch yourself and do something you didn't expect to do.

That makes it really meaningful and makes a manager or management realize how far you're willing to go to get the job done. So, I think it's really important that you don't overlook the development of yourself in the performance review and in the story that you're going to tell.

Yeah, I really like this one because sometimes when we think about performance review, we think about all the results.

But, if you watch a movie and it's like, you go to the ending and that's it. It's not really interesting. It's not really memorable. So also include the challenges that you overcome, so, because that's a story like hero journey has that story going up and down and how you overcome things.

So, writing down those challenges and be vulnerable. And also, explaining what you do to make it better or to overcome it. It's something to remember, it's not just like, oh, this is the outcome out there. But like, I'm, I'm growing here. There's something that, I've done that go beyond, showing my resilience, showing how I overcome challenges, because that's what leader does.

leader is, is how you manage and overcome challenges and uncertainty.

And really capturing what it means to you to have gained that development or new skill. This part is where you start to evoke some feelings in the reader. So, the re whoever's reading your performance review starts to really feel you like what you went through.

And, when they feel for you, it makes them remember you. And so, it may again, it makes for a more compelling story and more impactful, performance review.

All right, so let's go to number four. Go ahead Laura.

Number four is about building a powerful conclusion. So, this is about the climax of the story, like after the goals, after the narrative, after the development and all you've had to achieve and overcome.

What was the result? What were the outcomes? And what might be coming next. So, you want to present this in a way that leaves that lasting impression. And again, if you didn't hit all the goals, that might be okay, depending how you write the performance review. At the end, you want to leave yourself feeling.

really good and amazing about what you accomplished and what you were able to capture and write in your performance review. And you want to showcase your value and your impact to your management. So, this is sort of just wrapping it all up and putting in the climax of the story, like the, the feel-good feeling that you get at the end of the movie.

Yeah, and that's what movie or the story is about there's beginning the middle and the end.

So, there's more details on this in our course and we'll share some more with you on that in just a few minutes.

Yeah, so Now, sometimes executive may have more resources or helps from coach or from their team to write a performance review. But like, all the employees, sometimes we don't have support.

So, Laura, we want to talk about that.

Yeah, so Christine and I were talking about what we wanted to talk about in the podcast, and this was really, we thought, an important point because I've been in HR for a long time, and I've not only done my own performance reviews and learned how to master them, but I've also had to do performance reviews for my executive that I was working for, in the business, like a business executive and help them set their goals, help them write their performance reviews at the end of the year, and also help review performance reviews of employees.

So, behind the scenes, there's like a lot of help going on for an executive, which is totally understandable. They're incredibly busy people. Um, but that's how I kind of mastered this, this art of doing performance reviews. But I wanted to capture some of those tips in ways that we did it to help.

Individual employees do it because they don't have all the resources, but we've captured everything that we have in the course to share with you. And we've even included the use of AI, which could really be a game changer for you and helping you to create and write that performance review.

So, yeah, there's a lot of challenges to do this.

Sometimes we don't have a lot of help, in writing our own performance review, even from our managers. So, Laura, can you speak more about that?

Yeah, so Christine and I are real passionate about in our women's career mastery, to make things easier and empower people to really, master their careers and performance reviews are just one part of it.

So, this course is going to come available. It's not just for women, actually men can use it as well. It's just created from our organization, but it will be available on September 9th. which gives about two and a half months to work on the performance review before the end of the year. You can find it on www.womenscareermastery.com/performance-review-course.

We'll put the link in the show notes. And if you join up now, we have a wait list too. So, you're notified when it first launches on September 9th. If you join up now, you'll get a 40 percent discount. And you'll also get two really cool resources. One is how to be seen and valued at work and an achievement tracker template, just in case your organization doesn't have a way for you to track all of your achievements.

We've got one for you. So, if you go to the website and join the waitlist now, you'll be the first to know, or we'll be publicizing it definitely on social media.

And I know a lot of people, and I know you all, give the best at work, working really hard, and it's sad if it's not being highlighted, or you cannot really speak about it, so we really want to support everyone, in their job just by being able to explain and create stories that is powerful about what you do.

Yeah, I can't, I can't emphasize enough the importance of writing that performance review and how it really can be a game changer in your career, in your ability to get advancement opportunities or growth opportunities.

Um, it shouldn't be daunting. It shouldn't be anxiety ridden. It can be really easy. So, I just want to, reiterate that for the audience. It's like, The course, maybe it's an investment of an hour and a half online learning. It's really worth it, to go through it and use all the resources that come with it.

Yeah. So, listeners check out the website , www.womencarrymastery.com/performance-review-course.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening today. Thank you for always supporting us. Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, join the wait list. And if you do take the course, we'd love if you'd share it with your friends as well, if you found it of value. And reach out to us if you have any questions.

Yes. And again, I just want to recap what we talked today. The four tips that we share is set the stage with intention, craft a compelling narrative, showcasing growth and development, and the last but not least, build a powerful conclusion. Until next time, everyone. Bye for now.

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