The One Question Performance Review

A frame of reference for providing meaningful feedback

I don’t think I’ve ever had a meaningful performance review in my 25 year career.  I also don’t think I’ve ever gave a truly meaningful performance review at the start of my management career.  That’s not to say that I’ve never given, or been given, meaningful feedback, just never as part of an official HR performance review process.

The problem isn’t with reviewing performance, it’s with the process.  The questions are usually supplied by HR and are the same for all roles making it tough to give role-specific feedback.  So, you are left to write comments for broad categories like Communication or Interpersonal Skills.  The deadlines always feel rushed and you are writing feedback for five employees at once, so you repeat yourself and resort to generic platitudes instead of truly thoughtful feedback.  The feedback devolves into an inventory of completed projects to measure the employees contributions.  In the end, you are trying to just check a box.  There’s a reason why most everyone hates the performance review process.  

Whenever review time rolls around, I think a lot about what would make the process better.  How could I give better feedback?  How could I get better at delivering real praise and uncomfortable truths and not platitudes?  It wasn’t until I had been a hiring manager at multiple organizations that an answer presented itself.

One of the advantages of having been a hiring manager at multiple organizations is you can hire great people you already know and have worked with before. However, it also happens that you sometimes have former coworkers that you would not hire again reach out to you about a role.  This scenario can be awkward and you have to be honest with the person about why you wouldn’t hire that person again.  It was this situation that simplified my thinking about performance reviews of current employees down to a single question.

Would you hire this person for the same role again, why or why not?

This question cuts right to the heart of the person’s performance.  It’s the “why” part of the question that forces you to clarify exactly what issues you have with the person’s performance.  If you have doubts about whether you would hire a person again at your next company, those doubts need to be in their performance review.  If you absolutely would hire a person again, those reasons why need to be in their performance review.

This frame of reference also works for other types of reviews you may give.  Have the opportunity to review your boss?

Would you work for this person again, why or why not?

Doing a 360 review for a peer?

Would you work with this person again, why or why not?

Trying to decide if a person is ready for a promotion?

Would you hire this person for a more senior role next time, why or why not?

I’ve found that using this frame of reference makes providing meaningful feedback on performance reviews easier.  Of course, most of us don’t get to choose what questions are on the review, but at the very least, you can use this frame of reference to develop your feedback, then map your thoughts to your questions.