4 Ways to Manage Less-Than-Satisfying Feedback from Your Annual Review

You’ve completed your annual self-evaluation and you’ve prepared for the review meeting with your supervisor. You thought you were ready to hear the assessment about your work and progress this year. But instead, now you’re trying to process your reactions to the feedback you received in your evaluation and review.

If you’re feeling this way you are not alone. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall have posited that the way feedback is delivered and received in many organizations can render it “good only for correcting mistakes,” and sometimes is ineffective even in achieving that. In their 2019 Harvard Business Review article, “The Feedback Fallacy,” they explain that simply telling people how they should improve their performance isn’t an impactful way to provide feedback. Instead, they suggest that what really makes a difference for employees is learning from someone what they need to do to thrive and excel.

You want to gain that knowledge, but it can be hard depending on what you are hearing from your evaluator. So how do you respond and obtain the information that you are seeking?

Evaluate and reflect on what you are hearing

Feedback is often delivered clumsily by evaluators. At times, feedback can also feel deeply and perhaps unfairly critical. If what you are hearing is difficult criticism, you may want to take some time to reflect on it nonetheless before pushing back on your evaluator’s review. That gives you the opportunity to consider how the evaluation may identify areas where you know you want to grow or seek improvement, even if you dislike the way in which the message about your performance was communicated. You also want to find a way to communicate with the evaluator about your concerns in a productive way, acknowledging their point of view while also seeking more clarification for yourself.

For instance, if you are told that you need to continue to improve your attention to detail so that you are providing “client ready” presentations, you may be thinking that you are often assigned very short, even unreasonable, turnaround times for such work. You may also be thinking that you’ve never been given any negative feedback about your presentations previously. But you may also recognize that there often have been multiple editing rounds where you have been asked to revise the work, and that the team is often too busy to really communicate well about what needs to be done. Given those reactions, it could be appropriate to go back to your supervisor to acknowledge that you, too, would like to reduce the revisions required. But you might also ask if you and the team can find a way to get better real-time feedback on specific ways to improve your work, and also if there are better ways to coordinate on presentations to avoid last-minute scrambles. Be ready to address the specifics of key issues which may come up in the meeting

Ask for more detail and explanation

After you consider what you have heard, you may still have more questions. For example, hearing that your performance “meets expectations” and that you should “continue to focus on taking on more senior responsibilities” might sound pretty good, but it doesn’t tell you much about what those responsibilities might be, how you can access them, and what that means long-term for your professional path at your company. Equally, being told that your “communication skills require improvement” or that you need to “focus on working towards the company’s priorities” in the next year, can sound similarly opaque. And what does all this mean if you think you’ve been communicating pretty well, and that you were also told that you met the goals that were set for you last year?

Start by asking your evaluator what they mean when they make those remarks and asking for examples of where you have succeeded or fallen short of what they are looking for in your performance. Ask them also for details about issues they are citing – “What specific work did I do that did or did not meet expectations?”, “What exact milestones do I need to achieve this year in order to get a better evaluation [or be promoted or increase my salary]?” “What will help me obtain opportunities or get more responsibility?” Be clear that you are seeking more information so you can better understand any performance details, and work to incorporate those into your professional development planning going forward.

Push for a more definitive assessment of how you can best progress going forward

Be clear also with your supervisor regarding your goals for the next year, and request the evaluator’s reaction to them: “Do you see me in that role?”, “How will I get the chance to work at that level?”, and “What do you see as the obstacles for me, and where can I get support to address them?”  Often, an employee and evaluator simply talk about whether or not the employee has met goals, or what their goals are for the future. But you also need to know whether those goals are realistic, achievable, or even envisioned for you by your employer.  

For example, what if your goal is to be promoted, and your supervisor outlines what factors the company requires in order for you to meet that goal and you agree you will focus on those factors? That’s a great start, but you also need to know some of the details around how likely such a promotion would be even if you hit those goals.  For instance, ask if there are economic issues that might result in fewer promotions in the next year(s), if there is a ceiling for the number of promotions in your department in a given period, and what happens if you are unable to meet the goals for promotion in the next year. You may also want to dig more deeply into how you can get the support that you think could help you accomplish that promotion. If you’re in a department or working with a team that won’t position you well for that advancement, for example, you want to know that and consider in light of that information what you do next.

Get additional feedback from others

Sometimes, despite all these efforts, it can be hard to get the additional comments and responses you want from your evaluator. Maybe they aren’t willing to engage, or aren’t skilled at managing questions or concerns. Or you may just want a second opinion in order to better assess the feedback you’ve received. In that case, you should consider seeking out another colleague that you can turn to in order to get their view. Identifying someone that you see as a trusted advisor, and asking them to give you their candid thoughts about what you are hearing in your evaluation can be helpful. They may have a different perspective, or be able to share additional information on what they have heard from others about your performance.

If after taking these steps, you still believe that the evaluation was unfair, difficult to understand, or not grounded in fact, you may want to have a conversation with your human resources or professional development team. Be prepared to explain in detail why you think that the review fell short of what you need to be able to understand and learn what how to maximize your performance going forward. These professionals may be able to suggest some additional steps to take, and help to facilitate a better conversation between you and your evaluator. This can also assist you in better preparing for the next review period, and getting more alignment between you and your evaluator on what your accomplishments are and how you are performing. It also provides you with a way to formally put your views on record with someone other than your supervisor, and be able to reference that if feedback and review with the supervisor continues to be challenging for you.

The review and evaluation process can be frustrating, so be alert to how you can actively work to gain more knowledge, assess more critically what you are hearing, learn how you are viewed by your employer, and be strong in advocating for yourself. If I can be of assistance in any way in working through these issues in coaching with you, please reach out to me to discuss.