Performance Review Feedback That Actually Sticks (Year-End Leadership Series)

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
People first leadership.
Actionable strategies, realresults.
This is Things Leaders Do withColby Morris.

SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
Hey leaders, this is Colby Morris, and this is the
Things Leaders Do podcast.
Look, over the next four weeks,we're doing something special.
A year-in leadership survivalguide to help you finish 2025
Strong and set yourself up for2026.
Each episode, 15 to 23 minutes,like usual, are practical,

(00:34):
actionable tools that you canuse immediately.
Again, no theory, no fluff, justreal guidance that you can
listen to on your commute towork and implement the same day.
And we're kicking off the serieswith everyone's favorite topic,
performance reviews.
I know.
I know.
You're thrilled.

(00:55):
Nothing says holiday spirit,quite like sitting down to tell
someone they're a three whenthey think they're a five.
But here's the reality.
You're about to have theseconversations whether you're
ready or not.
And if you've been doing regularone-on-one with your team this
year, this should be relativelypainless.
No surprises, just reallydocumenting what you've already

(01:17):
been discussing.
But if you haven't been havingthose conversations, if this
performance review is the firstreal feedback some of your
people have gotten in months,well, you're in a trickier spot.
And we need to talk about how tohandle that honestly.
Because here's what I see happenevery December.

(01:39):
Managers spend hours agonizingover performance reviews.
They craft this, you know,careful feedback and then they
deliver it.
The employee nods, says, got it.
Maybe asks a clarifying questionor two, or maybe not at all.
And then by mid-January, yeah,nothing's changed.

(02:02):
The feedback evaporated likeyour New Year's resolution to
meal prep every Sunday.
And the data backs this up.
64% of employees believe thequality of feedback they receive
needs improvement.
That's nearly two-thirds of yourteam thinking, yeah, my manager
gives me feedback, but itdoesn't actually help me get

(02:25):
better.
So say we're tackling how togive feedback that actually
sticks, whether you've beenpresent all year or you're
realizing that you need to thinkdo things differently in 2026.
Before we talk about how todeliver feedback, we need to
address the elephant in theroom.

(02:45):
How have you been having yourregular one-on-ones with your
team this year?
And I'm not talking about, youknow, hey, got a minute?
You know, the the drive-by inthe hallway.
I mean actual scheduled,recurring one-on-one meetings
where you talk about their work,their development, what they
need from you.
If your answer is yes, you'vebeen meeting regularly, having

(03:08):
ongoing conversations, givingreal-time feedback throughout
the year, congratulations.
Your performance review shouldbe the easiest meeting of
December.
Because nothing you're about tosay should be a surprise.
You're basically justsummarizing 12 months of
conversations and putting itinto writing.
But if your answer is no, ifthose one-on-ones kept getting

(03:34):
pushed off because of fires youhad to put out or meetings that
ran over, or that project thatconsumed your life for three
months, well, then you're aboutto walk into a performance
review where some of yourfeedback might feel like it's
coming from out of nowhere toyour employee.
Actually, scratch that.
It's not going to feel like it'scoming out of nowhere.

(03:57):
It is coming out of nowhere.
You're basically about to hitthem with the leadership
equivalent of, by the way, weneed to talk about something
from March.
They're sitting there thinkingthis is just the annual
paperwork conversation, andyou're about to drop a so about
your communication style, likeit's a plot twist in some

(04:19):
thriller book.
They're sitting there, wait,what?
Since when?
Why didn't you I I thought wewere good.
Here's what's wild.
There's a massive gap betweenwhat managers think they're
doing and what's actuallyhappening.
Only one in five employees getfeedback weekly, but about half

(04:43):
of managers believe they givefeedback often.
So half of managers thinkthey're doing great with
feedback, but only 20% ofemployees are actually getting
it regularly.
That's a problem.
Because here's the thing youcan't hold people accountable
for expectations you neverclearly communicated.

(05:05):
You can't ding someone'sperformance rating for something
you never told them was an issueuntil right now.
That's not feedback.
That's an ambush with aperformance improvement plan.
So if you haven't been presentthis year, you need to handle
this review with extraintegrity.
Now I want to talk about how todo that.

(05:29):
Let's say you're in the boatwhere you haven't been as
consistent with check-ins as youshould have been.
What do you do?
Well, first, own it.
Don't dance around it.
Don't make excuses.
Okay?
Don't blame the busy year likeit's some external force that
happened to you.

(05:51):
Here's what you say.
I haven't been as consistentwith our check-ins this year as
I should have been.
And that's on me.
I'm going to change that in2026.
And that's it.
Simple?
Honest.
Takes about 10 seconds.
Here's what's wild.
That one sentence will do moreto build trust than any

(06:14):
perfectly crafted feedbackparagraph you spent three hours
writing.
Second, I want you to be honestbut fair.
Okay, this is where it getstricky.
You can only hold peopleaccountable for things you've
actually communicated.
So let's say you've got someonewho's been consistently late to

(06:37):
meetings, and it's been drivingyou crazy all year.
But you never said anythingbecause you didn't want to seem
petty or like micromanagey orwhatever excuse we tell
ourselves.
You cannot, I repeat, cannot nowhit them with your punctuality

(06:59):
has been a major issue thisyear.
Major issue?
For who?
You never mentioned it.
They didn't even know itbothered you.
That's on you, not them.
No, can you mention it assomething to work on moving
forward?
Why absolutely.
And here's how you frame it.

(07:21):
Hey, I've noticed you've beenrunning five to ten minutes late
to team meetings.
In 2026, I need you to be ontime.
Okay, it sets the tone for thewhole team.
See the difference?
You're not penalizing themretroactively for something you
never addressed.
You're setting a clearexpectation going forward.

(07:42):
And this matters because thestakes are real.
85% of employees will considerquitting if they feel they
received an unfair performancereview.
Think about that.
If your feedback feels like itcame out of nowhere, if it feels
retroactive or unjust, there'san 85% chance that person is now

(08:06):
updating their resume.
Okay.
Third, don't overcorrect out ofguilt.
Mm-hmm.
This is the other trap.
You feel bad that you haven'tbeen present, so you inflate
their performance ratings tocompensate.
Yeah, don't do that either.

(08:28):
If someone's performance hasbeen a three, don't give them a
four because you feel guiltyabout not having more check-ins.
That doesn't help them, and itdefinitely doesn't help you when
you're trying to hold standardsnext year.
Be honest, be fair, but don'tlet guilt make you dishonest in
the other direction.

(08:49):
Does that make sense?
Okay, fourth, I want you to makeit specific anyway.
Even if your conversations havebeen sparse this year, your
feedback still needs to beconcrete.
Not, you know, you need tocommunicate better.
That's useless.

(09:09):
What does better even mean?
More emails?
Fewer emails.
Shorter emails?
Longer emails.
Skywriting?
Instead, try this.
In the Q3 project kickoffmeeting, the team really didn't
have clear deadlines, and welost two weeks because of
confusion about who was doingwhat.

(09:31):
In 2026, I need you to send afollow-up email after every
kickoff with clear deadlines andownership.
Now, that's something they canactually do.
Vague feedback slides right offof people.
Okay?
Specific feedback sticks becausethey know exactly what to

(09:53):
change.
So you've owned your lack ofpresence, you've been honest but
fair, and you've made yourfeedback specific.
But here's the thing if all youdo is deliver this one
performance review and then goback to radio silence for
another 12 months, nothing'sgoing to change.

(10:14):
Okay.
So let's talk about how to make2026 different.
This is what I call the pivot.
Okay.
How are we going to make 2026different?
Here's what I want you to say tothat employee during this
performance review.
And yes, this is going to feelvulnerable, but that's kind of

(10:37):
the point.
Say, here's what's changing.
Starting in January, you and Iare doing regular one-on-ones.
Every week or every two weeks,we're sitting down and talking.
Now, I can tell you what youremployee is probably thinking at
this point.
Oh, great, more meetings.

(10:59):
This is going to be so awkward.
And you know what?
They're right.
It might be.
If you haven't been doing thisall along, that first one-on-one
is probably going to feel alittle weird.
They're sitting there thinking,what am I supposed to say?
You're sitting there thinking,did I structure this right?

(11:22):
You're both doing that thingwhere you're trying too hard to
make it feel natural, whichmakes it feel even less natural.
It's like a baby giraffe tryingto walk.
All legs, no coordination.
Everyone's a little concernedabout how this is going to turn
out.
But here's what you need tocommunicate to them.

(11:43):
And yes, share the why behindthis change.
Look, this awkwardness istemporary.
The alternative, having theseconversations once or twice a
year, and then when something'son fire, that's permanent
dysfunction.
And the data is really clear onthis.
Employees who get regular inputfrom their manager are 3.6 times

(12:06):
more likely to feel motivated toexcel compared to those who wait
for an annual review.
I'm doing this because I want tobe the leader you actually need,
not just the one who shows upwhen it's performance review
season.
These 101s are for you, so I canhelp you build the skills you
want to develop, so I can clearthe obstacles before they turn

(12:28):
into crisis.
So I can give you feedback inreal time instead of just
stockpiling it for December.
And so I can actually understandwhat you need from me instead of
just guessing.
Will the first few be a littleawkward?
Probably will.
Will we both survive?

(12:49):
Definitely.
Will it be worth it?
Absolutely.
Now, here's some additionalcontext for you as the manager.
Organizations that emphasizecontinuous feedback achieve 31%
lower turnover rates than thoseusing traditional approaches.

(13:11):
That that means people stay.
They're more engaged.
They actually grow.
They don't spend half theirperformance review wondering
where all this feedback has beenhiding for the last 11 months.
And then I want you to wrap itup with your employee like this.
Next year, when we're sittingdown for your performance

(13:31):
review, it's going to be acompletely different
conversation.
No surprises, no, you know,wait, where is this coming from?
Just two people who've beenworking together all year
talking about what's next.
So yeah, let's let's lean intothat awkwardness together.
It beats the alternative.

(13:52):
Now, whether you've been havingone-on-ones all year or you're
just starting them in January,you still need to know how to
deliver feedback in a way thatactually sticks.
So let me give you threeanchors.
Anchor number one, anchor tospecifics.
We touched on this earlier, butit's worth repeating.

(14:13):
Vague feedback is uselessfeedback.
You know what I'm talking about.
Things like, you know, you needto be more productive.
Your communication could bebetter.
I need to see more leadershipfrom you.
Cool.
What does any of that actuallymean?
If you can't picture thespecific behavior you want to

(14:36):
see change, your employeedefinitely can't either.
So instead of being moreproactive, try this.
When a client emails sitsunanswered for more than 24
hours, I need you to eitherrespond or loop me in.
That's what proactive looks likein this rule.
Now they know exactly what to dodifferently.

(14:59):
Specific feedback sticks becauseit's actionable.
Vague feedback slips off becauseit's just words.
All right, anchor two.
Anchor to the future.
Here's where most performancereviews go wrong.
They spend 80% of the timerehashing the past and 20%

(15:22):
talking about what's next.
I want you to flip that ratio.
Yes, you need to acknowledgewhat happened this year, but the
real value of this conversationis setting the direction for
2026.
Not, you know, you you missedthree deadlines in Q2, two in
Q3, and one in Q4.
That's just making someone feelbad about things they can't

(15:45):
change anymore.
Cool data point, but you know,where's it going?
Instead, try something likethis.
Deadline management has beeninconsistent this year.
In 2026, here's what I need.
If you realize you're going tomiss a deadline, I need to know
48 hours in advance, minimum, sowe can adjust.

(16:06):
Let's talk about what tools orsupport you need to make that
happen.
See the difference?
You acknowledge the past, butyou anchor the conversation to
the future, to what they canactually control.
Past focused feedback breedsdefensiveness.
Future focused feedback drivesaction.

(16:31):
All right, anchor three.
Anchor with accountability.
And here's the anchor mostmanagers completely skip.
The follow through.
You deliver this beautiful,specific, future focus feedback.
You have a great conversation,you both leave feeling aligned,
and then nothing.

(16:54):
No follow-up, no check-in, justradio silence until the next
performance review.
Yeah, that feedback isn't goingto stick.
You need an accountabilitymechanism.
And guess what that mechanismis?
The one-on-ones we just talkedabout.
In your regular one-on-ones, yourevisit the goals you set in

(17:16):
this review.
You check progress, you coursecorrect if needed, you celebrate
wins.
That's how feedback becomesbehavior change.
Okay?
That's how feedback becomesbehavior change instead of just
a nice conversation you bothforgot about by February.

(17:36):
So before you end thisperformance review, make sure
you have these things.
Specific actions they'recommitting to, a timeline for
those actions, and a plan forhow you'll check in.
Hint.
It's called the one-on-ones.
Without that third anchor, yourfeedback is just drifting out to

(17:59):
sea.
So here's your assignment beforeyour first performance review.
Ask yourself honestly, have Ibeen present with my people this
year?
If yes, great.
This should be straightforward.
Just document what you'vealready been discussing.
If no, own it.

(18:20):
Tell them you're going to dobetter in 2026.
Then actually do better bycommitting to regular
one-on-ones.
And when you're deliveringfeedback, any feedback, make
sure it's anchored, anchored tospecifics, anchored to the
future, and anchored withaccountability.

(18:40):
Because your people don't needanother performance review that
sounds good in the moment anddisappears by Valentine's Day.
They need that specific feedbackthat actually helps them grow.
And that starts with you beingpresent, being specific, and
being committed to followthrough.
If your organization needs helpbuilding a culture where

(19:03):
feedback is ongoing anddevelopment is intentional, not
just something that happens oncea year in December, I'd love to
help.
I work with leaders and teamsthrough keynote speaking,
executive coaching, andleadership training to build
people-first cultures thatactually drive real results.
I'd love for you to connect withme on LinkedIn or visit my

(19:26):
website.
And hey, if this episoderesonated with you, would you do
me a favor?
It'd be a huge favor.
Subscribe to the show whereveryou listen to podcasts and
actually leave a review.
That's what helps us grow.
And share this episode withanother leader who's starting
down a, you know, that track orstarting down a track of

(19:48):
performance reviews andwondering how to make them
actually matter.
We want to grow this community.
And that's how we get the wordout to make a bigger impact on
the workplace.
The more leaders who get thisstuff right, the better
workplaces become for everyone.
And remember, keep showing upfor your people, keep making

(20:09):
your feedback specific andfuture focus, and follow through
on what you commit to.
And you know why?
Because those are the thingsthat leaders do.

SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do.
If you're looking for more tipson how to be a better leader, be
sure to subscribe to the podcastand listen to next week's
episode.
Until next time, keep working onbeing a better leader by doing
the things that leaders do.

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Performance Review Feedback That Actually Sticks (Year-End Leadership Series)

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