The performance review is on the calendar. You have the numbers. You know what you want to say. You are not ready.
Most managers prepare what to say in a performance review. Almost none of them prepare how to show up for it.
The preparation that gets skipped.
Before a performance review, most leaders run through the data. They review the ratings. They rehearse the key points. They might even anticipate objections.
What they don't do is spend any time with the emotional weight of the conversation before it starts.
This matters more than most people realize. If you walk into a performance review carrying unresolved frustration -- about the person's attitude, about a situation that went sideways three months ago, about the fact that you've had to have this conversation twice already -- all of that comes through. Not in what you say. In how you say it.
The person on the other side of the table feels it before you've finished your first sentence.
A few years ago I was working with a leadership team at a high-tech manufacturing company in Waterloo. One of the operations managers came to me before their annual review cycle genuinely stuck. She had a team lead who was technically excellent -- the kind of person you build a department around -- but had been increasingly dismissive with colleagues. She'd documented everything. She had the examples. She knew the script.
I asked her one question before she went in: "What do you actually feel about this person right now?"
She paused for a long time. Then she said: "Honestly? I feel like I've let them down by not saying this sooner."
That was the thing she needed to deal with before the conversation. Not the data. Not the framing. Her own guilt about waiting too long. Once she named it, she could set it aside and go in clearly. The review landed differently than any she'd done before. The team lead didn't get defensive. They actually said thank you at the end.
What the prep actually looks like.
Ten minutes before a significant performance review, do this:
Name what you're carrying. Frustration, guilt, disappointment, hope -- whatever it is. Just name it honestly.
Ask yourself: is this mine to bring in, or mine to leave outside? Most of it should stay outside.
Decide what you want the person to be able to do after the conversation is over. That's your north star going in.
The technical part of a performance review -- the ratings, the examples, the development plan -- is the easier part. The harder part is showing up in a way that makes the other person actually able to hear it.
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P.S. -- What's the hardest part of giving a performance review for you? Hit reply. I read every one.
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Troy Treleaven | Hard Conversations
Dale Carnegie | Lead with Impact Program
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