Secrets behind nailing the performance review

The performance review can loom large over a team but with a little effort they can work for all the team, says Darren Williams, former DP of Grants Seat.

To use a football analogy, in every month, quarter or year there is a beginning, an end and a half time. In a football match at the beginning a good coach will define the desired outcome (result) and how to get it (tactics v1). At half time there will be an assessment of the performance so far in relation to the desired outcome (result) and maybe a change in approach (tactics v2).

Game’s end

At the end of the game there is a review of the group’s performance, the individuals’ performance, the tactics and of course the result on which decisions are made about the next fixture – i.e. who gets on the bus, who needs to work on their technique, who needs to play in a slightly different position next time. Good coaches do this regularly and without emotion and those who do deliver with rare exception.

Resistance to reviewing

When we talk to sales and general managers about their performance management process within a sales team, more often than not we see a lack of commitment. The reviews are undertaken infrequently, the content is vague and sometimes subjective and most of the time we’re told that “we haven’t got the time to do it”.

But isn’t this the problem? The perception is a performance review should take an hour or even more, and involve pulling vast amounts of data to be turned into a complex document that is then printed and signed in triplicate before being filed away and potentially used to beat someone over the head with at a later date.

Is it any wonder we a) don’t have or make the time or b) aren’t particularly enthusiastic about doing it?

Team talk

There is a need to carry our formal and recorded reviews but, much like a football match, the half-time team talk is as important, if not more, in delivering the desired result as the post-match review but has less formality about it. Spending 15 minutes one-to-one with each of your sales team is time well invested by a sales manager. Make it happen because nobody said this job was easy!