How to Get Problem Employees to Change their Ways when Performance Reviews Simply Won't Work - Fast Company Article

Managers often use performance reviews to mold and shape employee behaviors and results. They trust that formally telling high performers what they’re doing wrong one to two times a year will lead to them immediately doing it right. There’s an operating assumption that formal feedback provides employees with enough information to improve performance moving forward. Our executive coaching experience confirms that this assumption is misguided, given what’s truly needed for behavior change in humans.

Tanya, a cofounder of a health-tech startup, found this to be true when she tried to get her head of engineering to address some recurring problems. In Tanya’s annual performance review with the engineer, Henry, she documented missed deadlines and lack of urgency. She  expressed concern, and outlined what he had to do.

A month later, exasperated, Tanya shared with her executive coach: “I appreciate he’s a brilliant engineer who’s the brains behind our first successful product, but why isn’t he more tuned into our timelines and their importance? I told him during his review his behavior is holding us back! Why hasn’t he changed already?”

Here are three practices we’ve found that actually grow people you’re willing to invest in, so that you, their manager, can finally see improved results…

Click here to read the complete article I co-wrote in Fast Company.