Businesses ultimately depend on the success of teams, but performance reviews focus on the strengths and weaknesses of individuals.
How do you bridge the gap?
It’s easy to draw comparisons when considering a team: he’s better at sticking to his budget, she comes up with the most creative ideas, he lands the biggest clients. Reviews that allow you to look at people as a group - to see them in their teams and evaluate how their individual contributions drive success for the entire team - can provide better insight into their true performance and impact on the organization.
Looking at individual contribution without team context paints an incomplete picture: a person who doesn’t hit sales targets or have extensive product knowledge might actually be the facilitator who makes her whole team run smoothly. Ultimately it’s the team’s output, not the individual’s, that benefits the organization most.
Which hurts more? Your manager telling you you’re a 2, or your team telling you you’ve let them down? Peer feedback should be included in reviews because it comes from the people you work closely with every day, not from a manager who might only see you once or twice outside of your annual performance review.
Teamwork is dynamic: brainstorming, creativity, innovation and collaboration, all of which can be greatly affected by the combination of people and personality types. Team-based reviews can help you better understand individual contribution to positive group dynamics: it’s easy to see which teams are working like a well-oiled machine, and which need a little extra support.
- Use a review system to measure interpersonal and cooperative competencies as well as objectives, and compare performance within teams.
- Create an environment where frequent feedback is encouraged, and collect peer feedback in reviews.
- Manage teams as teams and enjoy the benefits: more open communication, closer working relationships, higher trust levels, and increased productivity
To see how our learning and performance tools enable managers to review teams for what they really are (teams!) check out csod.com/growth-edition
