With September round the corner, Indian corporates gear up for the most important process which calibrates performance and gives a sense to the employee on how he is coping with all the challenges at work. Yes, it's time for the Performance Review! An exercise that comes out with equal number of accolades and brickbats at the end of it. The onus of making it a delight or a drab lies squarely in the hands of the manager. For any manager, this is the most critical time of standing up and being honest about that one thing that the team member looks forward to. The feedback!

Feedback is an art and at the same time a science. It's also about knowledge, skill and attitude, the 3 important ingredients that make up a professional. In the almost 3 decades that one has worked in HR, this was one attribute where one witnessed many managers fall short.

Feedback is nothing new that hits us once we take up a job. Rather it begins the moment we join a school and the annual exams become that most testing time of getting measured. The report card carry the marks as well as the assessment of different personality traits. And then it does not stop at school where the teacher has done the evaluation but it carries forward to home where the parents get down to dissecting the report card and share their thoughts.

If it were a process that starts way back in school, why do managers suddenly struggle from giving a proper feedback to their team members? This dilemma led me to look at the different managers I worked with and who were great feedback givers. What set them apart? Here are the insights and I hope it helps you shape up into a better manager and an effective leader tomorrow.

The homework
The feedback journey starts from the moment the new year starts. As a manager you need to keep the end in mind. That is, if I am going to delight my team member towards the end of the year with a balanced feedback, have I set the expectations correctly or not at the beginning of the year is critical. A lot of time needs to be invested in looking ahead for the feedback to be successful. Clarity towards key outcomes need to be articulated in the simplest manner so that it is well understood.

The notes
As the year progresses, one of the most important habit a manager needs to have is around taking notes of both good performance and not so good performance and what factors led to them. I recall one of my manager having this incredible practice of maintaining a diary in which he had a page for each of his direct reportee where he would keep recording significant events of that individual. This data was spot on when the feedback would happen. It requires an ability to analyse and record the key happenings all through the year. This can be a huge value add.

The check
As a manager how many times during the year do I check with my team member about how he is faring. The more checks one does, the more you are easing up the burden of the real feedback towards the end of the year. These chats are much appreciated by the team member. So keep taking out time to have these conversations. An ongoing engagement through the year will only facilitate the feedback process. And it also helps in doing the course correction wherever required.

The customer voice
Not many appraisal processes capture this essential element of performance and it ends up normally into a manager-team member dialogue. I would not recommend to get into a 360 degree mode but to start with, it will be helpful to get the feedback from the folks who get affected with your team member's work. This voice will only add to your views and can be a huge validation for your observations. Capture them.

The time & the place
I clubbed both these points which I would treat more a logistics necessity than anything else. But do they play a big role in affecting the quality of feedback? A resounding yes! As a manager I need to plan for feedback. Period. This means "when" you meet your team member and "where" you meet him is to be thought through and not just a rushed through call. For the dialogue to be fruitful, an environment of silence is critical. And doing the feedback sessions first thing in the morning can be very helpful since both the players are fairly fresh for the day. Taking breaks during a long drawn feedback facilitates the process. Do take them.

The moment
The time spent towards the feedback will depend on all the above points. If you get them all right, the process can be a 15-20 minute exercise and you can delight. It will get impacted if the above ingredients are missing or are done in half measure. A feedback badly handled has lead to breaking down of trust and eventually an exit. Hence, it becomes very critical to do a very balanced session where you highlight things that have worked and things that haven't. It also helps to open up the session by allowing the team member to share his experience over the past year. Listen and take notes. And to wrap it up all smartly, list out the expectations for the next year.
I hope the above 6 check points are of help. All of it is common sense and easy to do. But it's the sincerity of doing them that separates effective managers from others. Here's wishing you a great time for the upcoming feedback sessions. Enjoy it. And you will only enjoy them if you are yourself ready for them. All the best!