The timing for this post is intentional. You are done or almost done with your performance reviews and your goals are set. We are still in Q1 and your team has three more quarters to knock performance out of the park.
 
No matter if you are the CEO or a team leader, how you manage your own performance casts a long shadow over your team. Though you are not the sole owner of creating a culture of feedback, or a vibrant learning culture, you are one of the most important.  Learning agility – how openly and quickly you learn from experience and apply it to your leadership and work, will impact the learning agility of your team.  For me it is usually ranked number one or two for important leadership competencies.  If you score high on learning agility (taken from the wonderful Center for Creative Leadership: https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/LearningAgility.pdf), you demonstrate the ability to:
 

• Innovate – you are not afraid to challenge the status quo
• Perform – Remain calm in the face of difficulty
• Reflect – Take time to reflect on your experience
• Risk – Purposefully put yourself in challenging situations
• Don’t Defend – Open to learning and resist the temptation to become defensive in the face of adversity

 
In my experience, very few leaders do all of these well. But if they do most, they have a better chance of modeling and achieving a more agile learning culture.  However, if you say you want feedback and ask for it but get defensive when a courageous colleague gives it to you, don’t be surprised if you struggle to create a learning culture. Nothing shuts down a feedback loop faster than getting defensive and sending the message that no matter what they say, they really don’t want feedback.
 
You can’t and shouldn’t be the only person who provides feedback to your team. In fact, I would make a case that peer feedback can be even more powerful because if someone is managing up well but not laterally, or down, peers know it.  But, at every level, the leader sets the stage for a more agile learning culture, or not.
 
So back to creating the culture. There are more pieces to this but if you model learning agility for your team and colleagues, then you can move to the next step which is to normalize feedback. For me this includes actions like:
 

• Having a standard item on your team agenda, “What did we learn from this project and what will we do differently?” Then make sure there is follow through to the next project.
• Adding a half-hour to each of your team meetings every other month or so to carve out time for peer feedback. Tell your team it is their job to appreciate one meaningful action a peer took and one request or change they would like them (or their team) to make. Then check in the next meeting and see if they are making the changes to which they agreed. And encourage them to not wait for meetings to do this.
• At least a couple times a year add an agenda item to your one-on-ones asking what each of your direct reports needs from you to be more successful. Set the expectation that they appreciate one thing you do and provide one thing you could do better or change to support them, their team or their work. Let them know you are open to this at any time (not just when you set it up).

 
Of course, there is more you can do. I mentioned the above short list because it is doable and will go a long way to creating a “norm” that you expect and welcome feedback and that you expect your team to do the same. The vision is for everyone to keep honing their edge, learn to be effective with a diverse set of colleagues (and bosses) and continue to get better collectively.  It’s pretty cool because there is absolutely no downside and much to be gained by creating a more agile learning culture.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 18 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you!
 

In early March many clients are in the middle of their annual performance review process. Though much has been written about companies making dramatic changes to their performance reviews, the annual review is still a standard organizational practice for most organizations. Apropos, I am going to do a short series on performance management practices and for this post I will start with a few fundamental questions.
 
What and who are you really evaluating?
 
You are evaluating:

• The performance of an individual
• In a role
• In your organization

 
Before you say, “duh”, let me explain. Almost universally when clients discuss individual performance, they focus on the person’s strengths, weaknesses and goal achievement. They often fail to articulate the context. The context is the system (small and large) and business situation in which the role currently exists. It’s very important to understand that you are not reviewing a person’s worth as a human being but the contribution they make and value they bring to a specific role.  I want leaders to articulate this consistently in their performance conversations (preferably all year long) and to ensure that their team understands it. It matters because context, more than anything else, impacts performance. Strengths and weaknesses are almost always based upon the situation. In other words, the leader is saying, “given the business situation and the priorities, expectations and requirements for this specific role, here is how you are doing…”
 
This has become an even more important frame because as organizations change faster so do the knowledge, skill requirements and expectations of many of their positions. Leaders need to talk about this, and hopefully more often than the annual performance review.
 
When a client is describing a leader, who is underperforming and they are preparing to deliver the dreaded “below expectations” rating, I like them to frame the context first. If newer to the role did the individual demonstrate they had the right knowledge when they were hired? Did the position expectations change due to an important business change? If they have been with the organization for a while, what was their past performance? In which roles did they excel? What has changed in the role, the division or the organization that may have impacted the role?  You get the idea. 
 
Most importantly, when a manager is preparing for their performance conversations, I want them to consider each situation more holistically. This is just as important when the performance is excellent as when it is below expectations. But it is always more difficult when delivering a lower performance rating. My main point is to take the time to put the performance evaluation in the proper context and make sure you communicate that.  People are way bigger and more amazing than their deficits and   strengths. But you are evaluating their performance in a role they are being paid to accomplish. So it’s important to say, “here is where you need to learn and grow given your past experience, knowledge and where we need to take this role.” Then you can talk about what’s possible going forward given the role, the individual and the context.