’Tis the Season to be Jolly…Even Amidst Performance Reviews (ugh!)
‘Tis the season to be jolly!… ‘Tis also the season for performance reviews for many organizations, which oftentimes is not such a jolly affair. But it doesn't need to be that way.
An effective performance review not only highlights the positive side of performance, but also addresses the negative side of performance in terms of identifying areas for improvement and creating a plan to achieve those improvements in the upcoming year. This is a burdensome and emotionally draining task for most of us, but one way to make it easier and more effective is to be as empathetic as possible with your employees. Just make sure it's the right flavor of empathy.
There generally three types of empathy: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and compassionate empathy.
Cognitive empathy simply means the ability to understand why someone is feeling a certain way. While this is helpful in the performance review, it can also be used in ways that would not be considered very noble. For example, a manager could take some sort of weird pleasure in seeing his or her employee squirm under intense criticism (there’s no one like that, right?). Cognitive empathy allows the manager to understand what is happening emotionally, which does not necessarily lead to good outcomes.
Emotional empathy is the ability to actually feel what the other person is feeling, as if the emotions were contagious. This is helpful in the performance review because it gives the employee a feeling of connecting with you. However, negative feelings and experiences could stay with you and spill over into the rest of your day and cause some unintended consequences, such as being perceived as miserable, unhappy, or simply burned out.
The best flavor of empathy for the performance review is compassionate empathy, also referred to as empathetic concern. Having compassionate empathy or empathetic concern means there is a strong desire to help the other person. In the case of the performance review, this is the manager who truly wants to help his or her employees improve, and finds ways for them to achieve long-term success in the workplace by being actively involved in the development and implementation of necessary improvement plans. .
For the employee, a manager’s compassionate empathy leads to a feeling of understanding and support, which ultimately leads to high job satisfaction, high morale, and low employee attrition. For the manager, compassionate empathy leads to positive feelings as a result of helping another person improve. Win-Win.
With this mindset, you'll be more likely to have successful performance management meetings with your employees, which means that you can continue to keep the season jolly!
An effective performance review not only highlights the positive side of performance, but also addresses the negative side of performance in terms of identifying areas for improvement and creating a plan to achieve those improvements in the upcoming year. This is a burdensome and emotionally draining task for most of us, but one way to make it easier and more effective is to be as empathetic as possible with your employees. Just make sure it's the right flavor of empathy.
There generally three types of empathy: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and compassionate empathy.
Cognitive empathy simply means the ability to understand why someone is feeling a certain way. While this is helpful in the performance review, it can also be used in ways that would not be considered very noble. For example, a manager could take some sort of weird pleasure in seeing his or her employee squirm under intense criticism (there’s no one like that, right?). Cognitive empathy allows the manager to understand what is happening emotionally, which does not necessarily lead to good outcomes.
Emotional empathy is the ability to actually feel what the other person is feeling, as if the emotions were contagious. This is helpful in the performance review because it gives the employee a feeling of connecting with you. However, negative feelings and experiences could stay with you and spill over into the rest of your day and cause some unintended consequences, such as being perceived as miserable, unhappy, or simply burned out.
The best flavor of empathy for the performance review is compassionate empathy, also referred to as empathetic concern. Having compassionate empathy or empathetic concern means there is a strong desire to help the other person. In the case of the performance review, this is the manager who truly wants to help his or her employees improve, and finds ways for them to achieve long-term success in the workplace by being actively involved in the development and implementation of necessary improvement plans. .
For the employee, a manager’s compassionate empathy leads to a feeling of understanding and support, which ultimately leads to high job satisfaction, high morale, and low employee attrition. For the manager, compassionate empathy leads to positive feelings as a result of helping another person improve. Win-Win.
With this mindset, you'll be more likely to have successful performance management meetings with your employees, which means that you can continue to keep the season jolly!
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© 2012 Created by Bob Herdlein.
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