Global vs local feedback

There's a difference between:

• Local feedback ("That email was really well clear, it would have been great if there were a summary too.") and
• Global feedback ("I'm glad you work here. You're especially strong at written communications, but it would be great if you could improve your attention to detail").

You could be synced up with your direct report locally but not globally, or vice versa.

You could be giving too much negative local feedback and too much positive global feedback, or vice versa.

The weekly mini performance review

I've found it useful to write a short (3-4 sentence) piece of global feedback, like a mini performance review, for each person I manage. I copy this across in our meeting notes from week to week, occasionally tweaking things if my overall assessment has changed.

This means that we're always synced up on their overall performance, so there won't be any surprises come the annual performance review.

It also helps to put specific feedback in context: if they made a big mistake one week, then I'll share that, but right next to that they'll see my overall assessment (which is usually positive!).

It doesn’t take long - maybe less than a minute on average - to copy this mini performance review across from last week’s agenda to this week’s, and check that it’s still accurate. If I need to tweak it, that might take a bit longer, but in that case it’s worth it to stay synced up on their overall performance.

What might these look like?

Here’s a rough template:

• Start with a sentence that says how they’re performing overall (below expectations / performing well / exceeding expectations)
• One sentence summarizing their strengths
• One sentence summarizing what you’d like them to improve (maybe framed in terms of what they’d need to achieve the next promotion)
• Maybe one final summary sentence