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Bert Martinez:
Today’s subject is probably going to maybe bother some of you guys. I think a lot of employees and managers will look at the subject matter and just kind of roll their eyes. And today we’re talking about one of our favorite things, and that is performance reviews and appraisals. And on the show with me is Dr. Ken Lloyd, who has written a book specifically about this. Ken, welcome to the show.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Hi. It’s so nice to be here. Thank you.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so the book is I had it here and then it went off the screen. But it’s Appraisal and Performance for Dummies. Am I close?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Very close. Performance Appraisals and Phrases for Dummies. Second edition.
Bert Martinez:
Second edition. All right. All right. And you can find that. I’ll put the links in the show notes so you can also find it at your favorite bookstores or Amazon. I want to start off by asking you, are performance reviews and appraisals even valid anymore? Because they seem like with what we know about human performance, what we know about the way the brain works and our emotions, and having this performance review and appraisal seems like old school. Does it? Is it even valid?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, valid is an interesting word. I don’t know that they ever were really valid, as in the meaning of accurate, useful, verifiable. The process still goes on, but it’s been dramatically changed and improved in many organizations, with a growing number of organizations moving toward a more progressive and clearly more usable, positive and structural approach.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so let me start off by this because. And I don’t know if it’s changed, but back in the day, you would have this appraisal review or the performance review. It was an annual thing, right? Once a year. And I always thought that was so funny because, man, in 12 months, a lot can go off the rails. It’s like going to the gym once a year and expecting results, expecting to maintain your physique. So that’s always seemed like it made no sense.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Bert, you’re 100% right. It makes no sense on any level to be giving people feedback and information on actions and programs and processes that they have been involved with over the last year. And I don’t even remember it. And you’re telling me now I did a good job. I didn’t do such a good job. What are we talking about? If you look at basic learning theory, people learn when feedback is provided close to the behavior in question. If I did something wrong or great it eight months ago, I should know about it then. If I did it Wrong.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
How do I improve if I did it right? That recognition will cause me to repeat the positive behaviors. Waiting all that time is absolutely counterproductive. It’s not even just neutral. It creates more trouble.
Bert Martinez:
Because I’m thinking, I want to get your thoughts on this, because if you are giving feedback once, maybe twice a year, what’s actually happening psychologically to the employees? Does anybody, I would say the employee and the manager. Does anybody even really take these seriously? What’s going on?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, for the employee, the actual perception is the company really doesn’t care. My manager doesn’t care. There’s minimal respect, minimal trust, minimal interest and concern for my growth, my development, my success, you know, so, fine, I will respond in kind by my performance. So it’s terrible messages back and forth. Then when they do sit down once a year, oh, here we go. The manager has to put together, where is all this stuff going through their notes. The employee goes, well, I’ll do some cut and paste. I’ll try to throw some stuff together for this, and we will go through this ritual, and that’s it.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And that just doesn’t work in today’s workplaces at all. Managers don’t want it, and employees surely don’t want it. Now, we know that today’s employees want feedback, but particularly of the millennials at work. They want to know how they’re doing, but they don’t want out of date, old, inaccurate trivia spewed on them intermittently. They want to know how they’re doing and how can this information help me as a millennial, get to my goals, advance my career, so strengthen my skill, mix. I don’t want to just hear something I did six months ago was positive or negative. It’s useless. Right?
Bert Martinez:
You wouldn’t run your family like this. Right? If when I think of employees, they’re, you know, they’re kind of a. This kind of family type of dynamic, if you will. And not to say that every place that you work at is like a family. Of course, I think that could be applicable because most families are dysfunctional and most places that at work are dysfunctional. So, hey, we’re just like a family here. But, you know, you wouldn’t do that with your child. You wouldn’t, you know, whether it’s a young child or a teenager or whatever, you wouldn’t sit around and say, okay, I’m gonna give you feedback in 12 months.
Bert Martinez:
You’re doing a good job. Stay on course, fight through it. Figure.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It just seems like, no, there’s no way that that Feedback would be accepted or internalized or utilized. It would just be, what in the world is that? I don’t even remember that. And now you’re telling me that I did this wrong or I did this right. It’s meaningless and it’s a little frustrating as well.
Bert Martinez:
In the book Performance Appraisals and Phrases for Dummies, I found my slide.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah,
Bert Martinez:
second edition. But in the book, you talk about, and you correct me I’m wrong, you talk about a weekly check in as opposed to an annual check in. Is that right?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Well, you kind of have a couple of things going on, Bert. One, instead of having annual reviews, it makes much more sense to have those formal reviews, actual performance reviews, either biannually or even quarterly, where we really sit down and let’s talk about it. We’ll talk about the structure of those in a second. But without those going on. In between all of those, we have what’s now called continuous feedback. And that’s really what you’re mentioning here. Continuous feedback really means a once or bi weekly sit down scheduled between the manager and his or her employee individually. And we talk about how things are going in terms of goal attainment, performance changes that are going on, new initiatives.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
What questions do you have? So we’re making sure, certainly there’s informal contact and there should be regularly. But we’re sitting down every week or every other week, and we’re talking about how things are going so that if someone’s doing something well, we give them recognition, positive feedback, continue doing that if improvements are needed. It’s not just sitting there once a year, say, hey, you did that wrong, you better fix it. It’s, let’s talk about what happened. How can we work together to correct this, to upgrade this? What do you need? What questions do you have? So it really, it opens up a dialogue on a formal as well as informal basis. So that’s where continuous feedback comes in and combines with quarterly or biannual appraisals.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so when you talk about continuous feedback, I just kind of put you on the spot here a little bit. Are we talking about real conversations? Because again, sometimes you don’t need to have, like you said, a formal sit down. It could just be a flyby out in the hallway. But are we talking about a real conversation or just more, I’ll say, corporate noise dressed up as communication.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, great question. It’s not just informal chitchat or, hey, pass here the hall. Hey, hey, Bert, by the way, you did a great job on that project. I’ll see you later. I’m going to get my coffee. No, it’s a formal, scheduled sit down, private discussion. And importantly, it’s a discussion. It’s two way communication.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It’s not just a manager saying, hey, you did this right? You did, here’s what happened last week. No, let’s talk about it. And it means by definition, active listening and truly communicating and truly trying to work together to build whatever might be going on there and to correct whatever might need to be corrected as well as to reinforce whatever has gone well.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. So one of the things that just came to me is that as humans, a lot of our communication is what I call surface or superficial. Right. Again, like if you’re talking to your kid and you say, how was school? Fine. Conversation over. Okay. You know, have a snack, get your homework done. And unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until after my kids have left the nest, so to speak.
Bert Martinez:
But now people have learned not to ask those, you know, surface questions, but to go deeper. So what was the best part of school today? Or what was the best part of this project that you like so far? And so I think that is that changing? Do you see that changing when it comes to appraisal reviews or just, just general conversation there in the workplace or are we still lagging behind?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, no, I do see the kind of changing that you’re talking about where it’s not just, again, if you ask people yes or no questions. You have a good time in school? Yes. Did things go well? Did you get all your homework done? Yes. Any difficulties as opposed to how do things go in school today? What went well? And it’s that same kind of open ended questioning and discussion with the employees. But again, it’s a discussion, it’s not. I’m sitting there as the assessor, the appraiser, the evaluator. You did this right, you did this wrong. That’s not what it is.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
We’re talking about it, we’re building on it. What do you need? There’s even an expression out there, a new term called feedforward. People talk about feedback and that’s letting you know how you did on the work in the past. So we’re talking about it in terms of not just saying, you did this right, you did this wrong, but we’re discussing it. And FeedForward now takes what is going on and how can we build on this? How can we do some upskilling? What kind of training, what kind of programs might you want to get involved in? Maybe you should attend some webinars or take Some classes. How can I work with you to help you get to where you want to go in this job and in your career? So it’s a forward look. These appraisals today are far more forward focused than just looking backwards. And that’s a big difference in it.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah, no, I like that too. Let me ask you this, is there such a thing as too much of this, too much feedback?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
I think there can be. I mean, you’ll read that it’s so important to give employees recognition. Recognition is just. And some managers can just, oh, I get it. So now they’re saying, hey, great job there. You really smiled. Well, and I like how you, you walk down the hall and really? Yeah, that’s too much. It becomes perfunctory, meaningless, and even a little insulting.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Oh God, I walked in here, hey, I like the pencils that you’re using. Stop, stop. So yeah, you can go too much with it. But that’s where if we do it as a two way conversation instead of just a one way spew of data, it actually is a lot more effective and productive that we’re truly listening and engaging with the team.
Bert Martinez:
You know, it’s interesting to me, we’ve had so much focus on AI and do you see AI being a value in this feedback forward feedback type of situation or just this constant feedback loop? Do you see AI as being a value in this?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
That’s a really good question. On the one hand, AI and there are sites out there that can help managers and scheduling, organizing, having prompts go out and taking care of a lot of the administrative side of it. That’s a real plus. Then it comes to the actual feedback. Let’s say, hey, I’m just going to go out to ChatGPT and I say I have an employee who never gets things done on time. What do I say? And you’ll get an answer. The problem with that is that number one, employees know they can feel it lacks authenticity. It’s not genuine, it’s not really from you.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
That’s a negative. And frankly, employees should be evaluated, if you will and get coaching and guidance and feedback and feed forward from you as their manager. Not from anything artificial, not from AI. But you can use AI as your own coach tool. Hey, give me some first draft, give me some thoughts on how to approach this. But it’s got to go through your filters or the employees are going to react negatively and they know there’s research that proves it.
Bert Martinez:
All right, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the feed forward, but I also want to ask you this because I can just see some managers going, oh man, I got a, I gotta be the, the hand holder, bottle washer and the manager. You know, it seems like overwhelming because back in the day, at least when I was in the corporate world, managers were like, by the numbers. Oh, you know, you missed this number, you missed that number. You know, you haven’t taken any days off, great, you know, whatever. But now we’re talking about more holistic, right? We’re talking not just the corporate side, but the emotional side, the mental side. The managers are supposed to, as you just said, be concerned about this employee’s career. It’s like, man, it’s like two full time jobs. What do you tell managers?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, well, that’s really what it is. I mean, in the old days, I remember a book, a management book I have from years ago, it says, here’s your job plan. Organize staff, control and direct. Oh my gosh. And that’s all one way, you know, you just get there this way you do. That’s not managing, you know, that’s dictating as opposed to managing. Now there really is this two way street to it where we are engaged in active two way communication and building the lines of communication and mutual respect across the board. So it turns out it’s far more effective.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It saves managers a lot of time as opposed telling someone to go, go do this, go do that. The odds are they’re going to resent it. They’re going to want to have their own inputs in it. They may just do it wrong, particularly if they’re not getting feedback other than six or eight or 10 months later. So it’s actually a way to save time. One way to think about this as a manager is to look at oneself as a coach. Okay? You’re not there as the assessor, the appraiser, the dictator or any of that nonsense. You’re a coach.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And that means, yeah, we’re managing or leading the. But we’re also coaching and guiding because that’s how we’re really going to build the employees, build the team and build performance. That’s really what we want to do here. We want to help the individuals get to their goals, align those goals with our department and our company goals. And we’re not going to do that just by throwing it on them on a plate and say, all right, here it is, digest this and then see you later.
Bert Martinez:
Right. I like the idea of a set of the manager title, the coaching title, because that is more holistic, right? It is more, the individual has I think has been given permission to go wider versus just keeping it on a spreadsheet. And so the other thing that I think about is that you may not want to, let’s say, hang out with a manager, but you would certainly hang out with the coach. And in the sense that loyalty and that camaraderie is important. And I think, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, I think that there’s a bunch of stats out there, or at least data, that people seldom quit a company or they seldom quit a job, but they quit the manager, they quit the environment because it’s no longer serving them on a personal level.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely right. Study after study shows that that’s the primary reason why people will leave jobs, go right back to management. And when you think of being a coach, what word comes to mind but team? Yeah, let’s build a team. Let’s make this team oriented. And two underlying factors and behaviors that come into this components are respect and trust. And anytime a manager wants to look at himself and herself and say, how am I doing with my team? Am I demonstrating and truly showing engaging in respect and trust? If not, why not? What’s the issue? Because that is so important. And employees sense that talk about leaving an organization. Yeah, they just didn’t respect me.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
They didn’t trust me there. And that can be just those two qualities or certainly others. Just those two factors can clearly interfere with a person’s loyalty, commitment, engagement, all those factors that we want as we’re working with our team of employees.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so let me ask you this, because I’m sure being in the industry that you’re in, you’ve seen like a lot of us have seen different articles and, and again, data that, that this younger generation, you know, they’re hard to put in a, I’ll say, to conform. And a lot of them don’t show up to work and they don’t have. And they don’t give you the respect of even a phone call, hey, I’m not coming in today or whatever. What’s your take on this new generation in the workplace, especially when it comes to appraisals and review?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, well, we do know this younger generation wants feedback, research on that. But again, they don’t want this meaningless, inaccurate, time dated, out of touch type that’s not useful to them at all. At the same time, I think we have to be a little careful stereotyping, you know, big picture. Yeah, they come in late, they don’t want to do this. At the same time, in organizations that really show that they’re interested in them as individuals, that show respect, that are authentic, that are not just bluffing and pretending and playing, but are interested in them as individuals, even in their mental health, their work life balance, the career development opportunities that are present for them. It links much more to them. But again, it’s easy to get in with bias and stereotypes. Oh, you know, this is some Gen Z kid.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
I know what I’m dealing with here. This is gonna. And then we engage in behaviors to try out the very behaviors that we want to avoid. Expectancy theory. If I expect someone to fail on a job, the odds are that’s going to happen because I’m going to engage in behaviors, they’re going to sense to them, oh, this person wants me to fail. You know, all right, that’s what’s going to happen. But yeah, the new generations, yeah, they’re from the digital world. It’s different.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
They like technologically savvy organizations and that’s important to them. And you don’t want to walk in and say, yeah, I’m really glad to work with you. And you know, I, I use the Google. Yeah, okay, trouble. We’re not going down that path. Yeah. To stay current, but to make sure we’re rewarding that, encouraging that. And frankly, listening to them, their ideas, they don’t want to just be pushed along.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And frankly, part of what they see is this very important aspect of, and I mentioned it, work life balance. They look at their parents, their parents, friends who put everything into their jobs, only to lose those jobs in a restructuring or a reorg, and they’re thinking, I don’t know if I want to devote my everything to work. So we have to make sure we have. We are conscious of work life balance, particularly for those employees, and make sure that we’re respectful of that.
Bert Martinez:
That’s a very valid point. I think one of the blessings, for lack of better terms, of COVID is that a lot of people woke up to the fact that they had no balance. And balance is a very tricky thing to do, especially if you’re the owner of the company. But there is this, this mindset that America has had because America was built on hard work, you know, just grinding through it. Dedicated 24. 7 we got to make this happen. And maybe it’s time to change that mindset, because as you pointed out, there’s a lot of people who sacrifice everything for the company. And then the company says, see ya.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Exactly. And this generation, the millennials, are very conscious of that. And they’ll work. They’ll work hard, they’re smart, they’re talented, they’re technologically savvy. But we have to understand that they’re bringing in some different values. Just as you said, with remote employment and companies now with hybrid plans, a lot has been learned. I remember in the days there was an old sex saying that, look, if you can’t come in and report to work tomorrow, Saturday, then don’t even bother showing up for work on Sunday. That whole mindset is gone.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Okay? That’s not what they’re looking for. And there’ll be periods where they’ll really put in full and hard effort, but at the same time, they don’t want to be all treated alike and they don’t want to be told, oh, your generation, we can’t rely on you. And yeah, frankly, they’re not as wedded to a time clock. And it’s not, hey, get here at 8 o’. Clock, they might come in a few minutes late. And it doesn’t. That’s on time and it’s just. Okay, that’s a value system.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Is it the biggest deal in the world? Well, look, if you’re flying a plane and we’re to have a takeoff, yeah, but in many cases, okay, let’s try to understand. And at the same time, when they do come in earlier on time to provide some recognition for that people repeat behaviors that are rewarded and it can just be verbal. Of course, you’re not going to give them a piece of candy every time they show up on time, but you know, to give them that psychological, hey, that’s great. Really appreciate your being here now. Terrific. Let them know you recognize when they’re making those extra efforts.
Bert Martinez:
Yes. And I think again, companies are recognizing this. You know, Google is famous for giving their employees, I think 20% of their time to do whatever they want, to experiment, to fail or whatever Zappos became famous for. Again, doing a lot of stuff for their employees and allowing their employees a lot of freedom. And I think that’s important because at the end of the day, it’s the productivity that you bring to the table. And so if you can, if you can get, let’s say 40 hours of the work in 30 hours, then do that. I’m okay with that. And I think that you’re right that again, there’s that shifting of the mind.
Bert Martinez:
If you’re a critical situation, like you said, pilot or a surgeon or something, that’s got to absolutely be there. Yeah, that’s going to kind of take care of itself. But I think, I think at Least for me, that was one of the things that I had to work on myself about because I’m very, you know, again, the way I was raised was you show up on time, and that meant 15 minutes before your appointment time. If you got there right on time, you were late.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, absolutely. Even you’re doing a podcast. Imagine if you said, we’re going to start at 10, and the person shows up, hey, you know, 10, 10, sorry. There are times when any of us of any age in any generation got to be there on time period, or we’re going to literally and figuratively miss the boat. And so that’s. That’s part of it. At the same time, though, recognizing that we have to have some flex and what kind of, what can we do to help? Again, going back to this, this aspect of work, life balance. But they want to know that you care about them.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And I mentioned mental health. How’s it going? How you. In part of these continuous feedback sessions, how’s it going? How are things working out? What questions do you have? What help do you need? What’s happening that we can do to make this a better experience for you? And again, we start doing more of that forward focus, feet forward to help them get onto a path where they can say, hey, you know, this is great by doing this, this is going to carry me to where I want to go further down the road instead of get it done now, you know that, you know, just do your job and get it done. That whole thing that’s out, that will not fly with. Certainly not with the younger generation at all.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so let’s talk a little bit more about Feed Forward. I. I find this an interesting idea and I want to kind of just have you walk me through it. Give me like the, the big picture or the umbrella, if you would, about Feed Forward and how this came about.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Sure. That it really evolves from feedback. We see areas where performance could have been better and certain goals that weren’t met. Progress along the goal continuum is not being made. We can tell in the past, hey, look, you didn’t do this, that or the other. We need to see improvement here. We need to step it up and all that other nonsense as opposed to, all right, here’s what’s going on. Let’s talk about the performance and let’s talk about where you want to go from here and how can we help create a path to get you to your career and work goals.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
So we’ll look at wherever support performance fell a little short. And what can I do? How Can I help train, guide and support you in this area? What kind of, if you will, upskilling can I provide or can we set the stage for you to accomplish? So we’ll talk about setting up specific behavioral improvements, but we’ll talk about it, we’ll discuss it. It’s not, you got to do this, you got to do that. We’ll discuss. We’ll set some jointly set some objectives. And we’ll also work not only in terms of performance goals, but what are called development goals, the kinds of goals that you have in your work and in your career to carry you to whatever that goal would be. And how can we help? What can we do in terms of training, guidance, upskilling programs that we can build your success today and tomorrow and down the road? Employees want to sense that you do have. Particularly younger.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Employees want to sense that you do have interest in their career, where they’re going, and not just verbalizing it. Yeah, you know, hope you get there someday, but, you know, your goal is to be in this, that kind of position. What can we do now to help help you get toward those career goals? And goals are not just pipe dreams. Goals are really clear, specific, measurable. They’re benchmark dates. They’re prioritized. So I mean, yeah, I can have a dream. It’s great to have dreams, but unless it’s a goal, it’s just going to remain a dream.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
So really working with employees to recognize and shape with them the kinds of performance and development goals that they would like to have and then work with them to, to help them achieve them. My goodness, an annual appraisal. If we wait a year, person has some goals, all kinds of things could have changed. There might have been some work goals, but now processes change, technology change. You shouldn’t even be doing it that way. And yet, you know, we agreed to that a year ago. So we’re really. It’s.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It’s that forward focus for employees that really resonates far more today. And it’s got to be genuine. It can’t just be lip service to it. What are we doing? And are we putting up a real. Making a real commitment to our employees to help them learn, grow, develop, and advance and get where they want to go.
Bert Martinez:
It sounds like to me that. That this feed forward is basically coaching kind of what we were talking about before. You’re. Yeah, you might look at the past, but you’re not going to focus on it. You are fundamentally focusing on future events. Am I getting that right?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, it really is. We want to Understand the past and what went well, what needs to be improvement. And then we turn to the future and go very broad with it. Specific performance areas as well as bigger picture. As we span into the person’s longer term goals, career goals, they want to do, what areas that they want to want to build in. And that’s very motivational to employees. It builds their commitment and their loyalty, their interest in the organization. I’m going to stay in this place and I’m going to really work hard.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
This place is really supporting me and I don’t just mean giving me a paycheck. It’s so much more than that.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. All right, so when you look at the manager’s position today, how much of the manager’s job is really about evaluating versus coaching?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think that you would really look at it from the managerial standpoint. How does this tie in with each of my individual employees? I was certainly lean to the coaching side and evaluative is again, more, you did this right, you did this wrong. So even in the evaluation process, there’s that coaching that underlies it. So it’s not just saying, you missed this date, you missed. This was short, this was a little sloppy. It’s not that it’s really from the coaching standpoint. So even when we’re giving feedback, we’re doing it as a coach.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And that’s the mindset to keep. So, yeah, that evaluative process is still there, but it’s not just evaluate go. It’s now, let’s talk about how we build from here and correct this. Because we do want to build performance. We want to have it aligned with the performance objectives of the company. And we want people to succeed. And it’s interesting. When people perform well, they’re more satisfied.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And they know it’s so funny. People think, well, satisfied employees are productive. Yeah. But people can be very satisfied at work and not be very productive. That happens. Yeah. I like it. I see my friends, we go to lunch, we have this great time, but I’m not getting anything done.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
So I’m satisfied. I like working here, nobody bothers me or anything, and I get this money. But that is not what we’re looking for. If we really are productive, then we get that real bona fide satisfaction sense of self worth that is really motivational for employees. So we really try to set up a situation, a context where they can learn, grow and succeed.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so what do you think is happening when the manager is just focused on, on the let’s Say judging or the evaluation versus the coaching. What is the difference there?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, when it’s just. When it’s just evaluative or. And I’m getting some feedback, I don’t really know what to do with it. And I, frankly, I don’t care. No one says anything about what other than instead of been a 22, it should have been a 29. And it’s just. It’s not real relevant or meaningful to me. And then it usually comes with an implied threat.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
You don’t get to 29, you know, you’re gonna. You’re gonna be out even without that word. So that’s one as opposed to, you know, we’re not at 29. Let’s work to get to 30, and let’s see how we can do this. What. What do you need to help you get there? What do you need from me as a manager? What kind of support? Well, you know, if you would give me the right resources. What resources do you need? So in other words, it’s not just looking back, it’s. If you look back, what can we do to build with the employee to take this entire situation forward? Let the employee know we really value this individual as a member of our team.
Bert Martinez:
And that kind of brings up my next question. It seems like the managers would have to go through some training of their own. Right. Because otherwise we’re just setting them up for failure.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Excellent point. And as companies move more toward this forward focus, there is managerial training that is very helpful. A lot of the folks that are coming in from newer management programs have it, but there are seminars, there’s coaching that they can receive that can help them learn this. It is a different way of doing it. We go to multiple appraisals and continuous feedback. Let’s talk about how to do it and what it really means. Because it’s easier for a manager to say, oh, you know, I’m really busy, and now you’re telling me every week or every other week I got to sit down with these people. But ironically, it does end up saving time because they do their work correctly, they’re more productive, they’re more satisfied, they’re more committed to the organization.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
So all those benefits accrue. So we have to take managers past that point where they think, oh, now they want me to do this. Let’s talk about it and why it actually is a timesaver and actually increases your own success as a manager.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so if I want to, let’s say, completely destroy trust, you know, in other words, what are some of the biggest mistakes or screw ups that, that, that make appraisals, you know, completely destroy the trust that is needed to have a functioning team.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, I think one big term that we see out there in the workplace now a lot in studies is called psychological safety. To consider that as a key value in our organization. What does that mean? It really means being an organization in which people can voice their views, their opinions, their suggestions or thoughts without reprisals, without sarcasm being tossed at them, without negativity. But they’re truly heard. Doesn’t mean we’re going to implement everything the employee says. But employees can make a mistake, but they are heard and they’re respected. We want to know what the employees think and what they feel, what they believe and where they would like this company and this department and me as a manager to go. It’s safe for them to do that.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It is psychologically safe. As opposed to, you know, instead of coming up with these so called ideas, we’ve tried all those. Go back and do your job. That kind of thing is unsafe. So to build a psychologically safe organization to be more receptive to employees ideas and inputs and not only receptive, but supportive of that, even if we can’t use this one, the next one could be the great shining light that would really help us get somewhere. And employees enjoy that. They like being heard. They want to present their ideas.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And that’s just part of the overall value system of furna psychologically safe organization. It’s much easier to put in the kinds of, if you will, appraisal processes that we’re talking about today.
Bert Martinez:
You know this, this kind of gives me a little bit of insight why they, the gig economy as they call it, things like Lyft and Uber and Postmates and deliveries kind of exploded because if you’re not getting that feedback, if you feel that your job is unsafe, then you’re going to figure something else out to do. Because you feel if you’re already feeling on your own, then might as well make your own money.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely. And that even as managers, are there ways that we can help this individual sense that he or she has ownership in this job? Not that they’re necessarily so called intrapreneurs being entrepreneurs within the organization, but they have some leadership, they have some responsibilities, they do have ownership in it, they have some independence, they can show their creativity instead of here’s your job, do it and move on from there. I remember a TV show I used to watch as a kid, but one of the stars said to the young child, says I Want to think for myself. The father says, well, when you’re old enough to think for yourself, I’ll let you know. That kind of thing in parallels to that in companies. And then you see people being dissatisfied and yeah, that can lead them to just go off to go into a gig economy. I don’t have to put up with all this corporate nonsense. And again, going back to seeing what happened to people who devote their lives 100% in full to their jobs from generations gone by and how has that turned out for too many of them,
Bert Martinez:
them where it stands today, do you find that this whole performance appraisal system, is it, is it totally broken as it stands today?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Well, I see it’s broken in some organizations, but fortunately I’m seeing more and more organizations, leading organizations, moving over to more frequent appraisals and frankly to, not that they might are calling it continuous feedback, but in some cases they do to those feedback models where they are having more regular interaction, two way communication with their employees. Call it what they will, but that’s what’s happening because the old annual appraisal was just torturous, frankly for both sides, for managers putting together and for employees having to sit down and go through that.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. All right, based on what you’ve seen, what’s your take on what is it that employees really want? And we’ve talked about trust, we’ve talked about encouragement. If you were, if you were going to build, let’s say, the ideal organization, how would you structure it to retain the most amount of quality employees you could retain?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, I think it’s a lot of what we’ve, we’ve talked about and pulling all that together, it would be to set up a psychologically safe organization. Employees are trusted, respected. We truly listen to them. It’s two way communication. There are opportunities for the employees to learn and advance and to grow. They receive recognition for their performance. It is safe in every respect, physically as well as psychologically. But employees are valued as individuals.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And none of this is just word salad, but rather actual performance and behavior. Kind of the buzzword there is, you know, creed versus deed. Okay, the creed, yeah, we talk all this stuff, but the behavior, it’s the same old thing. It really needs to get into the actual behavior, the deeds out there that show these employees, hey, this is authentic, this is genuine, this is the real deal. That’s what we would try to build on.
Bert Martinez:
You know what’s interesting to me, and again, I want to get your take on this is that most people have heard, you know, two way Communication, active listening, some of the other buzzwords, but it’s so rare. I mean, why are we so bad at it if we know about all this stuff?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Well, I think part of it is changing our behaviors from what we’re used to. There is kind of a natural resistance to change. It’s easier to stick with the old methods. And, hey, this is what turnover’s always been. This is what always happened. And just to go on, on that path, but, you know, to learn and to grow and to be better as people. Got to get out of the comfort zone, got to be willing to step into new arenas and continue our own learning. And that’s so important.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of doing what we did, but frankly, to really succeed and also enjoy life. Make it a lifelong learning process. Whether you’re reading, you’re going to seminars, you’re going to classes, you’re attending groups, you’re doing things that are different. But to push us out of that comfort zone, that’s really keeping us sharp. I know there’s concern as people get older, you start to fall into the same old traps, and how do you stay sharp? And there’s a lot of concern about what happens, frankly, with memory. As we age, doing and engaging continuous learning, new adventures, new kinds of actions on the job, off the job, will help in that regard. So it helps us as individuals as well as helping our organization and helping the people on our team.
Bert Martinez:
All right, so in your opinion, what is the most effective mindset for managers, supervisors, business owners in conducting these performance appraisals?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
I think I would go back to the word we’ve used. I would say think of yourself as a coach, not as an authoritarian, not as an assessor, not as just an evaluator, but you’re a coach. So, yeah, we want to provide the feedback, and we want to build the team to make this individual, as a member of our team, more effective, hence making the entire team more effective. I think I could ask myself, was I really acting as a coach when I said this or that to that individual? No. I was being a jerk, and I don’t want to do that, because that’s going to resonate. If you think back of times where you’ve received negative feedback, it stays with you. It has a lasting impact. At the same time, so does the praise.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
You did a great job on this. It was so great working with you. All right, I’m interested in your thoughts on this. We want to have the positive messages stay with them, resonate. And when we act that way, they’re going to act that way in kind. It’s a little contagious. If we’re showing respect and trust, they’re more likely to demonstrate it in their dealings with their peers and with any individuals that they may be mentoring or training or helping. So it does spread.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
It’s an important aspect to keep that in mind. Just from the standpoint of coaching, how it influences others in their own behaviors,
Bert Martinez:
I would add that the sting or the hurt from negative feedback probably lasts 10 times as long as the positive appraisal because we’re human n it’s human nature. So we’ll remember that terrible thing that was said and Forget about the 10 good things that were mentioned.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely. And when you think back on them, you kind of get that feeling that it’s a physical reaction as well as a mental reaction to that negative feedback. And it does not do much for our employee motive, our own or employee motivation. Someone gives us that. That’s not going to inspire me to improve or change. It’s going to get me annoyed and feel a little hurt as opposed to providing that constructive feedback that we’ve built from it and then some recognition. Hey, I just want to tell you, we talked about that situation, you know, three months ago. I want to tell you, you have so improved that type.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
That’s going to be remembered as well. And then it really tempers that negative feedback that might have been sensed or perceived from the past.
Bert Martinez:
I want to get your thoughts on this because it seems like a lot of the information covered in the book, obviously it’s applicable to work because it was the focus for work, but it really dovetails into personal relationships, family relationships as well.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely right. And in terms of, when you think about it, family relationships for dummies that. Well, you want to treat your family members with respect, trust, listen to them, provide with timely feedback, help them learn and grow. Yeah. It’s being respectful and truly engaging with them as individuals, understanding them, working with them, and certainly not dominating them. Imagine, I dare you to give your spouse a classical performance appraisal. Hey, you know, last. Because last March, last January, when you did this, it was really wrong.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Imagine. And that’s what goes on at work. So, yeah. And as you said, work and family. It is our family in many respects. These people, we’re with them, frankly, in many respects, during more waking hours each day than we are with members of our own family. So it’s something to keep in mind. I agree that family aspect is important.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. All right, so if you had to boil it down. What’s the one thing managers should stop doing immediately when it comes to performance reviews?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Stop doing annual appraisals without adequate ongoing two way communication throughout the year. That is just all that’s doing is wasting time generating anxiety, angst, dissatisfaction, disloyalty, and who knows, even some kind of retribution to strike back at the organization and end those before they do even more damage to you and to your team and to your organization.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. And like we’ve talked about, for some people this is going to take some time. It’s a mind shift. It’s, it’s different than what a lot of people associate with performance and appraisals and things of that nature. It is, what do you call it, an interesting take. And also it allows people to see the fact that the system is changing. Right. We talked about the Gen Z, but just overall the system is changing.
Bert Martinez:
People want to feel value. We talked about trust and everything else. So the system has changed and it’s really catching up. Or I’ll say updating your skills. Right. You got to update your skills in order to keep the people that you want. Because the people that you want make or break a company.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely. And it comes right back down to how we are leading, coaching them. I’ve even read that we shouldn’t even be using the word manager. Managing. You manage resources. You know, we need to buy this much more. We got to allocate them over here and there. People were leading and were coaching.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Just a kind of a different mindset. If I am managing my people in that, under that definition, I’m treating them pretty much the way I’m treating the furniture and the supply chain and all the other administrative stuff that goes on as opposed to leading and coaching. Am I acting as a leader, as a coach, or am I influencing them? Am I working with them and building and strengthening them and their performance?
Bert Martinez:
It’s interesting that, that you made that analogy because I think for a lot of people they were being managed as a resource. I can replace Bob with Jane. Jane is a little bit younger. She’s got the same skill set. She’s. She might be a little less expensive because she’s younger. And so we’ll just swap out those resources.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah.
Bert Martinez:
And it goes back to what you talked about that where this younger generation has seen their parents being managed like a resource where you know, your chicken salad one day, chicken crap the next.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, exactly. Right, Totally. I can, yeah, we need some new furniture here and let’s get rid of these people and let’s also get Some new paint, come on. And people sense that.
Bert Martinez:
Right?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
You know, value me as a person, as an individual. I’m just another cog in this gear. That’s it.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. All right, the book is Performance Appraisals and Phrases for Dummies, available at Amazon. Or we get your favorite books. And I gotta ask this real quick. What was. I know this is the second edition, but what was the overall inspiration for writing the books?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Fifteen years ago? I wrote the first edition and the inspiration was kind of twofold. 1. 15 years old. That’s a lot of dated information, Ken. You’re saying a year is old, that’s 15 years. And then. So I was thinking about you. We really need to do a new one.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And frankly, right at that point, the good editors over Wiley said, hey, would you like to do a new edition of that book? And I said, yes, yes. Yeah, definitely. So that was really the inspiration. It was. The time had come and I would have done one. And the fact that they came and said they’d like to do it really just dovetailed perfectly.
Bert Martinez:
We call it the Stars Aligned. And you guys had the same thought. Okay, all right, so I gotta ask you this. Since it was 15 years ago, radically different?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
No, not radically different. I think just my own nature and interests were pushing against the annual thing even then. Even in that book, I referred to the concept of performance management, of making sure you’re communicating with your employees throughout the process so that they don’t walk into an annual appraisal. And it’s a surprise party. People should not be surprised in their reviews at all. And if that’s happening, that means we’re not leading or managing properly. They should know exactly what’s going on in terms of their performance when one sits down with them for a formal appraisal, be it annual, quarterly, or biannual. But that standalone annual really has to go.
Bert Martinez:
I think. I think that what we need to do is maybe send a couple of copies to Pete Hegseth and couple of other people at the White House that seem like they’re, in my opinion, their leadership skills are. Are non existent. Or if they are, they’re back to the, you know, the 1940s, 1950s type of leadership, do it my way or
DR. KEN LLOYD:
hit the highway, and yeah, it’s time for some upgrades. I totally agree. We all have more to learn. We can all learn.
Bert Martinez:
Yes. And as you pointed out, part of having a fulfilling life is that continuous learning. And it, whether it’s music or art or, you know, you’re reading or maybe learning A new language or whatever. You know, my dad lived to 95 years old, and when you would go visit him, he would have four or five chess games going. He’d have a book open for each chess game. He was learning a new language. He was still writing. And I think that was what kept him going because he smoked, he drank, and, you know, I’m sure genetics played a part, but I think he was mentally so active that he didn’t have time to slow down.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Absolutely right. What a gift that must have been for you and your family. But. And also an inspiration, but you’re absolutely right. And we have to continuously learn and reach out beyond here. He’s learning new languages, he’s got multiple chess games going. All that is. It’s rewarding, it’s fulfilling, and frankly, it’s great for the brain.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yes. And it makes him feel better about himself. But he’s also keeping all those, if you will, synopses going. You know, things are connecting and, you know, I’m always reading, and not just reading business stuff, but I’ll read novels, I’ll read anything. Oh, I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize that. How interesting is that? But that’s, that’s what we want to do. And certainly the idea of learning new languages and new approaches and strategies and techniques.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
And you mentioned your dad with the writing. Writing the same. It’s always, you know, for me personally, just been just great enjoyment to do it. I like to see the blank screen. What’s going to appear and learn from there?
Bert Martinez:
Well, and I. One of my favorite tools sometimes is an escape, is YouTube because I like. I like history and I like law and I like science and. And then I have a couple of hobbies so I’m. I can use my ADD to my advantage and like, do the law thing for a little bit. Do the science thing for a little bit. Oh, look, here’s the latest skill set for this hobby. And anyway, it’s a great tool.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Yeah, we prefer to say wide ranging interests. Yeah. This is great, Bert, just great.
Bert Martinez:
Well, Dr. Ken Lloyd, thank you so much. I appreciate you stopping by. Like I said, I’ll put the links here in the show notes if somebody wanted to reach out to you. Is there a specific website that we link?
DR. KEN LLOYD:
The website goes back to a newspaper column I used to write where people would write in about problems they’re having with people at work. So the website is jerksatwork.com, jerks@work.com.
Bert Martinez:
i love it. Dr. Ken, thank you so much for stopping by.
DR. KEN LLOYD:
Thank you. A real pleasure. Great chatting with you, Bert. Thank you so much.
