Do you know anyone who enjoys getting performance reviews? Even when things are going well, these can be stressful events. No one really likes to be analyzed under a microscope, having all their last 6 months (or whatevever length of time there is between reviews)  of work open to criticism.

Getting feedback from managers is often one of the most effective ways to improve your work performance and improve your ability to deliver top-quality value.

Joelle K. Jay wrote a terrific article on this very topic. She goes beyond the formal performance review, looking at all kinds of workplace feedback.

“Feedback is how we learn,” she says. 

“Without feedback and reflection, you have no way to know how you’re doing. You don’t know what others think of you or how you might be holding yourself back. What you don’t know can hurt you. A lack of self-knowledge can limit your opportunities and even stall your career.

On the other hand, when you seek feedback, you open yourself up to reflection. You become much more thoughtful about what you’re doing and why, how you can improve, how you can maximize your efforts and get better, more predictable results.”

She goes on to give specific ways in which feedback can help you move speedily along your career path and ten dos and don’ts to help you make the most of the feedback you receive.

If you have any ambitions of moving upward in your organization, or you just want to continually get better at what you do, I highly recommend that you read this article.

Donnie Bryant
Content Director
Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals
dbu@donnie-bryant.com
http://twitter.com/Upstart__Nation

Dr. Laurence Peter famously postulated that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” He said that in a

Courtesy: Vladimir-Melnik/PhotoXpress Free Images

traditional management model, workers are promoted from one position they excel at to the next, until they finally get to a position that is above their level of ability. (Interestingly that could never happen in an organization like this.)

He wrote a whole book about it called The Peter Principle.

You may or may not agree with Peter’s observation, but one thing is certain: there are managers in many organizations whose subordinates consider to be incompetent. Maybe you’re in a situation like that.

What can you do about it?

Amy Gallo gives some helpful insights in to dealing with this difficult type of workplace relationship in her article, “How To Deal with Your Incompentent Boss.”

Two ideas that I particularly like are “make it about you, not your boss” and “lead up.”

Here’s a short excerpt:

Regardless of your boss’s competence level, you need to work together to get your job done, and presumably advance your career. Managing your boss works best if you frame requests and interactions around your needs. “Telling someone who is not self aware that they aren’t self aware is generally not helpful,” McKee explains. Instead, say something like: “I want to do a good job and achieve my goals, and I need your help to do that.”

Read the rest of Gallo’s Harvard Business Review article  here.

Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals