280: Transform Your Performance Review Now

Performance reviews don’t have to be dreaded formalities—they can be golden opportunities for career growth. In this episode of the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, discover how to transform these annual check-ins into powerful tools for advancement. Learn to take control, articulate your ambitions, and steer conversations toward your desired career outcomes.

Drawing on years of leadership experience, I offer practical strategies to help you navigate performance reviews effectively. From setting clear goals to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with your management, this episode will equip you with the tools to make performance reviews work for you. Whether you're aiming for a promotion, new projects, or increased visibility, I’ll guide you on prioritizing your goals and securing the support you need.

Key takeaways include:

• Planning and preparing for impactful performance reviews
• Taking responsibility for your career trajectory
• Categorizing goals into high, medium, and low priority
• Asking key questions to prevent stagnation
• Enhancing communication with supervisors
• Moving beyond easy topics to foster meaningful discussions
• Creating a focused agenda for performance conversations

Don’t let performance reviews be a missed opportunity. 

This episode challenges you to rethink traditional approaches and take proactive steps toward career growth. 

Transcript

John Neral: 0:01

Hey there, a couple of episodes ago, I shared with you that my theme for 2025 is simplicity, and what I want for you is to find ways to make this mid-career journey simpler, easier and more effective. That's why, in today's episode, I want to talk with you about those dreaded check-in or annual performance review meetings. About those dreaded check-in or annual performance review meetings. I know that transforming this entire process to make it simpler is all about taking greater command or control of those meetings. I did it when I was leading teams and managing staff, and I did it to help me manage up more effectively with my leadership. So in this episode, I'm going to share with you how to transform your next check-in meeting, make it simpler and get more stuff done. Are you intrigued? Well, let's get started. Hello, my friends, this is the Mid-Career GPS Podcast and I'm your host, John Neral. I help mid-career professionals like you find a job they love, or love the job they have, using my proven four-step formula. This year more than ever, if having career support and a community of people to support you and your career goals is one of the things you put on your bucket list for 2025, I'm here to help you with that, if you've ever wanted to be a part of such a community. I would love to have you join the wait list and be the first to hear about my brand new mid-career community when it launches. The easiest thing to do is go visit my website at https://johnneral. com. You can also check the show notes and right there on the homepage there's going to be a box for you to click a button to join the waitlist. I will add you to that email list and you will be the first to hear about updates on this community and when it launches. So all you have to do again go to my website, https://johnneral. com, or check the show notes for more details and I'll see you inside.

John Neral: 2:19

Okay, here we are. It's the middle to end of January, and if you have not started planning for your annual performance review, more than likely you're going to need to get started. And for a lot of mid-career professionals, especially in organizations where these are not highly valued or regarded, these kind of meetings can feel very much like a check the box, and I want to challenge you today to simply offer you. It doesn't have to be that way. If you truly own, you are 100% responsible for your career. These are golden opportunities for you to take advantage of FaceTime conversations and partnership around whether or not your manager, supervisor, leader whomever that may be is really invested in your career success within that organization.

John Neral: 3:18

So let's work backwards. Every organization needs to have a compliance procedure around performance reviews. These include setting goals, setting timelines and what compliance for meeting those goals look like From there. Once that's established, you and your manager should create a plan for what those regular check-in meetings should look like to support those goals from what you've agreed upon in the annual performance meeting. But you and I both know what happens.

John Neral: 3:58

People get busy, projects get overwhelming, projects get overwhelming. People fall into bad habits, meetings get canceled, one or both parties lose interest in the entire process. And now you start hearing things like oh, I know it's been a while since we checked in, I know we've really been busy, and all of a sudden you may be feeling like this process sucks and it's not important and your boss or supervisor or manager doesn't care. How do you change that? Well, the thing that I want you to keep in mind here is that you're the one that gets to change that. Not everybody is fortunate, throughout their entire career, to have a phenomenal manager. Sometimes we got to do a little bit of work on this, have a phenomenal manager. Sometimes we got to do a little bit of work on this.

John Neral: 4:52

So, if you're taking control here, what I want you to know is that it is your job or responsibility to keep your performance goals top of mind. If you want a new project, if you want to increase your visibility, you want to be in a particular meeting, you want to get promoted, those are the things that are important to you. What you need is the partnership from your management or leadership that they agree. Those are important as well. It is not the sole responsibility of your supervisor or manager to oversee your performance plan. Right, you know you are an effective employee. You're a high performer, high potential. Don't expect or don't fall into the trap that management's just going to take care of you because they are busy like everybody else. And if you're sitting there and you're saying, but John, that's their job, I'm not going to deny that. But we know, especially if you are a high-performing, high-potentialed, mid-career, professional, mid-level, looking to rise within the organization, you may be taken for granted and that's why you've got to take command of this process.

John Neral: 6:05

Your performance is your priority and when you build that partnership with your supervisor, that they're on board and in agreement with supporting you with those goals. It makes achieving those goals much simpler. So, as you think about what you've talked about in terms of your annual performance review, what I want to offer you today is to create three buckets. Bucket number one are the goals that have the highest priority. And if you're sitting here and saying, look, my highest priority is, I need to get promoted, I need to be moved to senior manager, director, whatever that is, that's not the goal. That's the outcome of the goal. What I want you to think about are what are the things you need to be doing to demonstrate those competencies that allow you to achieve that goal? So bucket number one's the highest priority. Bucket number two is medium. Bucket three is your lowest priority. Now, when you go to every check-in meeting, what I want you to do is to always focus on those items that have the highest priority.

John Neral: 7:22

Here are some questions you can ask yourself. Why are they of the utmost importance? What's the timeline? Here are some questions you can ask yourself. Why are they of the utmost importance? What's the timeline? What challenges are you facing? Who needs to support and who needs to support you, what do you need? And then, lastly, where does your supervisor need to be involved or informed? Let me say that one again when does your supervisor need to be involved or informed?

John Neral: 8:02

I've seen people overlook this particular question, especially when they're trying to increase their visibility within an organization. Especially when they're trying to increase their visibility within an organization, they will forget to say things like oh, I was attending this meeting, I went to this department, we had this conversation, I was pulled in for this. And if the supervisor may not really know all those things that are going on, because we know, communication gets lost. That's why having these three buckets aligned to your goals what's the highest priority, medium and lowest priority allows you to take command of that agenda in the check-in meeting and say look, here's the progress, here's what I'm working toward. Once you've looked at the highest priority, you can then move to the medium ones. When you think about those medium priority goals, how much attention is it getting? Where are the roadblocks? What do you need? And then, if time, during that check-in meeting, you can go and address the ones that are of the lowest priority. You can go and address the ones that are of the lowest priority, but here's the pitfall, and if you're multitasking or whatever, come back to me for a second here, because I really want you to focus in on this.

John Neral: 9:23

The pitfall is that oftentimes we as human beings do not like to be uncomfortable. We will gravitate toward the things that are most comfortable for us, and so where I see this happen in check-in meetings, especially when I was doing this with my teams was that they would talk about the things they felt most confident about, or that they did because they wanted to come into the meeting and showcase how well they were doing with something when, in all actuality, it was keeping them stagnant. And when I would push or press or inquire about hey well, what about this particular? Well, I haven't gotten to it, why not? Well, I've been really busy with stuff. What does busy mean? What's taken up your time? Do we need to allocate resources differently? How important is this to you?

John Neral: 10:09

Right, and the more I started doing this with my teams over the years, where I also saw the transformation for me, was it let me have very different conversations with my leadership that when I would sit and go for my performance review or I would go in for a check-in meeting, that I came ready and prepared, with an agenda, with action items, with talking points, so much so that it was my check-in meeting. That's the thing. This is your check-in meeting. You should be the one essentially running it. Your supervisor is there to simply facilitate the process.

John Neral: 10:53

But so oftentimes when I work with people and I talk to mid-career professionals, where they're frustrated, they're being overlooked, they're not getting promoted, they're missing out on opportunities, when I ask them this question, they don't have a great answer because they're depending too much on their supervisor to take care of them. That's why, in this entire process, you have to be mindful about what you are giving. Yeah, think about what you're avoiding. Oftentimes there's the answer to the solution to whatever challenge or problem you're facing. What do you need? What do you need right now to ensure or give you the greatest chance of success in achieving whatever goals you have set within that performance meeting, that check-in meeting? I want to be clear this is very different than a performance improvement plan. If you are put on a PIP, a performance improvement plan is something which your supervisor must oversee and maintain, because there are very strict agreements and guidelines within the PIP to determine whether you come off the PIP or you exit the organization Completely different topic in that regard.

John Neral: 12:23

All right. So to recap, the takeaways I want you to have for this episode are this Whether it be your annual performance review or your normally regularly scheduled check-in meeting honor that process. You honor that process. Even if you have a manager that doesn't is really invested or doesn't really feel like they care as much, or whatever that might be. That's a circumstance that can get taken care of, but the way it gets taken care of is by you showing up fully to say, hey, this is important to me, these are my goals. If you're not the one to help me with this, let's find someone who is. But it's your performance and check-in meeting. You must command that process.

John Neral: 13:12

All right, these are some of the exciting things that I'm looking forward to in my brand new mid-career GPS community. I don't even know if that's what's going to be the name of it is, but we're still figuring that all out. But things are coming together and they're coming together really quickly. So if you want to be the first to hear about how to get community membership, support for like-minded, highly driven, highly motivated mid-career rising leaders like yourself who are either in a state of career transition or they're looking to level up within their organization or they're looking to find a job, simply that they can find one that they love. This community is your place, and so the way to get on that wait list again is go to my website at johnneralcom J-O-H-N-N-E-R-A-Lcom, sign up for the wait list. You will get information soon and I'm excited to get this thing launched in the next couple of weeks. So until then, my friends, remember this you will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day.

John Neral: 14:29

Thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform and, if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit johnnerrellcom for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Darrell Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters, thank you.