Performance Management Articles

The Worst Way to Give Performance Feedback
Most leaders give feedback in a way that will be received as an attack.  This leads the individual on the receiving end to react defensively.  Are you delivering feedback in a way that demoralizes your employees and is weakening your relationships?

Employee Reviews:  5 Things You Need to Know
Employees hate them, and bosses hate them too. How to make the process effective, productive -- and painless.  Featured on AOL Small Business.

The 10 Most Common Reactions to Feedback and What to Do About Them
Most performance issues will elicit a fairly predictable range of responses from employees, some of them even positive. We have identified the top 10 employee reactions and suggest effective ways of addressing each. Understanding these reactions and what to do if confronted by them can provide the confidence needed to take on challenging and potentially volatile performance issues.

Addressing Employee Behavior Issues
Often, the hardest part of a manager's job is talking with employees about performance related issues.  Frequently, the areas that require attention relate to behaviors that are difficult to quantify, such as interpersonal skills, personality traits, motivation and attitude.  This article explains how to find the right words to describe behavioral aspects of performance.

Managing Disruptive Behavior in Healthcare
Serious enough in non-life-threatening industries, disruptive behaviors by healthcare professionals represent severe consequences including threats to quality of care and patient safety.  Effective January 2009 the Joint Commission introduced new standards requiring more than 15,000 accredited healthcare organizations to proactively address behavior that undermines a culture of safety.  Is your healthcare organization ready to meet this challenge? 

Three Keys to Reducing Defensive Reactions to Feedback
Providing quality feedback is the most underutilized "tool" in any manager's toolkit. Because of the typical difficulties associated with such discussions many managers avoid or mishandle this basic responsibility. This article shows how to craft talking points that have a better chance for a "you're  right, I do need to work on that" employee response instead of the all too common defensive reaction.