Focus it foward

I’m currently reading a book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor. I’ll probably do a review of it when I’ve finished it, but one of the things I have picked up from it so far is that success is gained from looking at the opportunities in the future rather than dwelling on the past. I quite like this point because it resonates with how I believe performance reviews should be conducted: focus on the future rather than the past.

Of course you need to learn from mistakes, so a reflection on the past is not completely negated. But it depends on how this is approached. Many of the performance reviews I see, or are involved in, still focus on the past. In some ways this is because of how the objectives are structured. Objectives are usually shaped around what you are meant to achieve, and you’re rated on whether you have or have not achieved them – this is very much focused on the past.

Furthermore, the discussion is usually framed around whether or not you have achieved the objective that is written right there. In an attempt to be as objective as possible it is easy to loose sight of the fact that managing people is seldom objective. Achievements are more fluid then what were written down 3 months (if you’re lucky) to a year ago (more likely).

Not to mention the fact that pay rises are usually linked to what happened in the past and how you performed (see past tense here). Which seems contradictory really – you get paid more for your future work based on what you did in the past. But is past performance an indicator of future performance? See my blog on the sigmoid curve on performance.

So, is there another way to focus it forward? This morning I attended a webinar by Sonar6 on objectives and competency models. What I found interesting was that one of the proposed models for objective frameworks was based around ‘business as usual’ objectives, ‘top challenge’ and ‘growth’. I liked that. You acknowledge what you should have done, under business as usual and then the rest is very much focused on the future. Thank you Simon and Angela for getting me thinking!