004. Crush Your Year-End Performance Review

Do you have a year-end performance reviews coming up? Alejandra goes over a detailed plan on how to prepare for these critical meetings that can catalyze your career growth. It's hard work, but this process not only leads to skills improvement but also significant career growth such as promotions and salary hikes.

01:56 Importance of Year-End Reviews

02:58 Preparation for Year-End Reviews

05:01 Reflecting on Your Accomplishments

07:39 Preparing Questions for Your Manager

09:13 Practicing Your Goals

10:36 During the Meeting: Communicating Your Goals

11:08 Asking Clarifying Questions

14:46 Post-Meeting: Debriefing and Drafting SMART Goals

16:27 Following Your Plan

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Intro Song: Cumbia No Frills Faster by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100275

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Transcript

Ale: 0:54

Hello, friends and welcome back to Latinas in leadership. It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. So I'm really looking forward to Mac and cheese. My husband last year made a Mac and cheese. That was the first time he ever made it an eight was. When I say fire. I mean, this Mac and cheese is a problem. So we vowed to each other at that time that this would have to be something that's only like a couple times a year. Because the way we go in. On this Mac and cheese. And it is so delicious. It's obviously like a million calories. Which, you know, we're really big into our health. Moving our body, making sure that we eat well and things like that. And so even this, this is all quality, all organic, et cetera, et cetera, but like just the sheer amount of calories we know is just ridiculous. So we have to. Just keep it to a few times a year and I'm so excited. Cause I'm like, it's that time the Mac and cheese is coming back. And so I'm really looking forward to it. I hope that the holidays is going to be treating you good. And that you are going to be eating some delicious food as we go into the holidays. Now today, what we're talking about is a year end reviews. You know, as we are talking about the holidays, we're talking about the end of the year, and this is a time where some of you are going to be entering into your. And he will reviews. I want to put this out there so that you go into your year end review, feeling confident and feeling prepared for it. My clients can get really anxious about their year end review. And sometimes when we get anxious, we get avoidant. That kind of depends on what your style is, but for some people, especially my clients that I've worked with, if they're feeling anxious about something, they kind of try not to think about it and that strategy to your year end review it doesn't help because then you don't prepare much for it. And then that makes your anxiety worse and it makes you feel even worse about the fact that you're not prepared for this. Year end review. Let's not do that this year. I'm going to tell you exactly how you can prepare for your year end review and to make this the best one yet. Your year end review is a gold mine for leveling up your career trajectory. It's really such an important time for you to be able to have great communication with your manager. Be able to set some goals and set your trajectory into a very clear path to a promotion.. So let's get started. When we go into before, as you're preparing for this year and review, before you want to number one, clarify your goals. What is your desired outcome for your year? End review. I always tell my clients, you want to know what is the purpose of this meeting? No matter what meeting it is, maybe it's a meeting with your peer or a direct report or your manager, whatever it is whenever you're going into an interview. Think about this question. What is the purpose of this meeting? That's how so many meetings wanted it being. Purposeless and you get to the end of it. And you're like, okay, so what are we doing? Because what was the purpose? And so when you think about going into your year end review, think about what is your desired outcome for your year end review? What would you also like to have happen in the next 12 months? This is a really important thing for you to consider. What's your goal over the next 12 months, are you looking for a salary? Raise a promotion title, pivoting into a different department. Are you looking to actually leave this company again? This is something really important for you to get clear for yourself. What is the desired outcome for your year end review? What would you like to get out of it? And then also, what are your goals? What would you love to see happen over the next 12 months? And then hierarchy in terms of those goals, is there a, do you have multiple goals? And if you do have multiple goals, how are you prioritizing them from the most important to the least important goal? When you are setting your goals, you smart goals. I went over that in a previous episode, smart goals. You can Google it. It's super easy to find. There's so many resources on it. S stands for specific M is for measurable a is for actionable R is for relevant and T is for time bound. It's a really great way for you to organize your goals. So that they are specific and you can. Look back at them and. Make sure that you are making progress. An example of what would be a vague goal versus a smart goal. Would be a vehicle may be okay. Yes. I want a salary raise next year. Okay. That's a vague goal. So if you put it into the smart format, You would say something like get a 7% salary raised by December 1st, 2024. That would be an example of a smart goal. So that's number one. You want to clarify your goals. Before you go into this meeting, your preparation starts now. What is your desired outcome for that year end review? And what would you love to have happen over the next 12 months? Get clear on that and set smart goals and make sure you're prioritizing your goals. Number two reflect and list out your accomplishments. This is. A non-negotiable. Before you go into your year end review, you must be reflecting. You must be aware of what you have accomplished and list those out. Not just in your head. I don't want you to just thinking about this on your drive or on your commute, on the bus or on the train, whatever it may be or on a walk, actually sit and think about and reflect on your accomplishments. If you want to crush your year end review, you've got to go in there prepared, knowing what you have accomplished that year. So review the past year and collect as much information as possible. Collect numerical data. Get quotes from your clients. For example, if you're an account manager and you have clients. See, if you have any emails where they have given you praise, or they have given you a compliment on how great you are to work with, or talk to some of your peers or maybe other team members that you work with and see if you can get quotes from them. Have they ever sent you an email, praising your work or saying thank you for something. When I say get quotes, I mean, just look through your emails. A lot of times my clients will have emails that are already telling them how they are doing such a great job. Look back at those and compile them and find them so that you can compile them. And have them in one place. Another thing you can, you can do is let's say if you can't remember much of the past year, which of course we can easily forget how much we've done over the past week. Not let alone the past year. If you can't remember much of the past year, review your calendar, your emails, you can go through those and then see, okay, what were some of the things that were on my calendar? In my emails, you'll start to jog your memory and you'll be able to remember more about things that you have done, and you can write those down. So any projects you want to make sure that you're compiling everything you've accomplished and listing it out in simple language, using numerical data to showcase any of your accomplishments. Where you can, you know, numerical data, having quantifiable results is not always going to be possible, but wherever it is, make sure you have that in there. You also want to reflect on these questions. If you're just chilling right now, this would be a great thing where you can take out pen and paper and write this down or put it in your notes. If you're driving, don't do that. Just listen. And you can catch this when you are no longer driving and capture this. So you wanna reflect on these questions. What did you learn this year? What mistakes did you make and how did you improve on them? And then how did you help the company save money? How did you help the company save money? I really want you to push yourself to think about that. If you feel like you're in a role where that's really not applicable, just I encourage you to really dig a little deeper, just think about it. Was there a process that you made more efficient? Was there a meeting that you were able to eliminate because you decided to go about it in a different way and that saving the company time, just think about how you could have saved the company money. I think this is always such a helpful way to consider. Your accomplishments because business is business and their bottom line will always be the thing that they are looking at. So. Think about how have you helped the company save money? And also think about how did you help your team members? Number three. Prepare questions that you will ask your direct manager. I want you to have at least four questions that you are going to ask your direct manager. Reviews these year end reviews should be a dialogue. They are not a one-way street. So questions you can ask can, these are just examples by the way. So don't just take these, you know, really consider for yourself what you want to ask, but some questions that you can consider are what are the company's goals for the following year? How can I improve my contribution to the company over the next year? What are the goals for the team in the next year? It's really important for you to come up with questions and personalize them to you. I obviously am speaking right now to you, but I don't know what your job is. And I don't know what industry you're in. When I'm working with my clients, one-on-one we curate these questions because I'm getting to know them. And I know what their role is their day to day, their team, their department, their company, et cetera. These I'm giving to you more vague so that you can personalize them. So really make sure you personalize these when you're asking these questions. And when you are talking about these things, be specific. The goals that you have should be specific. And even when you're asking questions or in dialogue, Be specific. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that once you're in the actual meeting, but this is one of the mistakes you want to make sure you're avoiding, which is vague. Philosoph in these year end reviews. That is one of the most detrimental things that you can have for yourself, because then you don't actually know what you need to work on. When you get vague things like be more proactive or speak up more. So that's number three. You want to make sure you're preparing questions for your manager and make them specific prepare at least four. Maybe you'll go through them all. Maybe you won't, but at least have four and make sure that you are asking questions. Reviews are a dialogue. They're not just a one-way street, where your manager is telling you what you did. Good, and what you didn't do. Good. And where you need to improve. This needs to be a dialogue. Number four, practicing your goals with people that you trust and that you feel comfortable with. So a number one, I asked you to create goals. You want to make sure that you're considering what are you looking to accomplish over the next 12 months? And with that, you want to make sure that you are very clear about what you're looking to accomplish over the next 12 months, because this is something that you are going to be communicating and maybe that's uncomfortable for you. So if you think about you communicating that you want to get promoted, or you communicating that you would like. To move to a different department or whatever it may be. You want to practice saying your goals with trusted people so that you can get comfortable saying it before you go into the meeting itself. This can be really important for you, especially if you get very anxious in these types of meetings. I had one client who was so nervous about telling her manager that she wanted to get promoted in the following year and was thinking that maybe she wasn't going to be agreeable to her or didn't think it was going to be possible for her. So we practice this in our one-on-ones. We practiced her saying this, getting comfortable. I gave her objections or acted, or maybe said something that she was fearful of me saying like, oh, I don't think that that's going. To be possible. And we role-played that so that she could become more and more uncomfortable. And sometimes, you know, you just go into the meeting. It doesn't mean that you're going in there without any type of fear. But if you can't do it brave, do it scared. It has to get done. If what you're looking for is to get promoted. You have to be able to practice saying your goals and communicating them. So that's number four, make sure you're practicing saying your goals with trusted people so that when we go into the actual meeting, we're about to go over some of the steps that you can take in the actual meeting. This is what you're going to do. So during the meeting, you are going to one, communicate your goals to your manager. whatever it is that you came up with for step one, in terms of coming up with your goals, you're going to communicate that to them. Now let's say you're like, okay, I'm trying to bounce from this job. Allah, like, am I supposed to tell them like, okay, no. You're trying to leave the job. You're trying to change careers then that is not necessarily something that you're going to communicate. However, it's a really good thing for you to know for yourself. Like, let's say you are looking to change jobs. What are the things that you can gain from this job that would be the most supportive for you in that career change? So number one, communicate your goals. Number two, ask clarifying questions. If you're a manager in the meeting of your performance review is speaking in vague statements, ask for clarification. This is an example. No, maybe your manager says I would love for you to be more proactive. If my client tells me that that is what their manager told them. I always prepare my clients to ask clarifying questions because this isn't going to help. Very much. It's still very confusing and there isn't actually. Uh, plan on how. This is going to play out. An example of how you could ask clarifying questions for this one would be oh, okay. Thank you. I'll definitely work on that. If I was more proactive, what results would you see in order to know that I am succeeding? Where, what is an example of two tangible ways I can show you that I'm being more proactive. Where would you love to see my proactive? Skills showing up the most. Where is my lack of proactiveness showing up the most right now. You see all these questions are going to give you a lot more information and are going to help you actually put together a plan on how you can improve. And showcase that versus if they just say, oh, I would love for you to be more proactive. And you're like, okay. Well, how, where how's your manager going to know? More specificity clear is always better. Clear is always better. Okay. So ask clarifying questions. Making sure that you're actually going through this. I had a client that was told that she needed to take more initiative, for example. They were like, yeah, you need to take more initiative. And this was something that was already told to her the year before, and she had still not gotten promoted. And she was thinking that she was working on this and she was just like, I don't get it. Like, I feel like I'm taking initiative, but nothing seems to be happening. So this year we prepared with specific questions and ask clarifying questions and we realized that her manager actually wanted her to be specifically able to make decisions on her own on key projects and then just report. Back with results. We realized that that was what taking initiative look like for this manager and for my client. She was thinking that her taking initiative was okay making these decisions, but let me present these decisions to her to make sure that everything's all good. And then I'll move forward, continuing to take initiative and I'll move forward and get it done. So the part where they were in miscommunication was she was thinking that presenting the options to her was taking initiative and the manager was thinking, no, that's you not taking initiative. I want you to just make the decision and go. And you have to realize that some managers are going to like that in some managers are not, some managers are going to want you to present to them. The options first. And then run off and take action. So getting to know your manager and their style is really important. And asking these clarifying questions is important so that you know what you're working on and not sitting here thinking that your. Taking all the initiative and then they're not even recognizing it because y'all, aren't on the same page. After we learned this, then we put together a plan on how her taking initiative would look like. And then she was promoted the following year. These make a really big difference when you're on the same page with your manager. Number three during the meeting, you want to communicate to your manager that you will follow up after the year end review, after the meeting. And go over some clear goals that you are taking from that meeting to ensure that the two of you are on the same page. I would communicate that because this is maybe something you haven't been doing. And so it's going to be different and it can be a great way to just give them a heads up communicate to your manager, that you are going to follow up and you are going to state some goals that you've taken away from the year end review. And if they could please give you feedback from it to see if there's on. If the two of you are on the same page, or if something needs to get. I adjusted. During the year end review during your meeting, you want to be taking notes as many notes as possible. If you need to ask for a pause so that you can take notes, please do that. This is about your career growth. This is a matter of. Your action plan to getting promoted. Is connected to this, to this meeting here, because this is how you showcase that you're growing. This is where you're showcasing, how you are improving and where you're taking on more. So take notes. Take your time. If you need some, if you need them to pause, ask them to pause. And then afterwards, what you're going to do is number one, you're going to debrief and you want to draft smart goals based on your notes. Organize your brain. What just happened? What were the most important parts of this meeting? Review your notes and then create smart goals. You ask clarifying questions. Let's say you go over your notes and you realize I did not ask clarifying questions on that. I don't know what she means about me taking more initiative or being more proactive or speaking up more. Like, I actually don't know where. What that actually means, then you know that you need to have another conversation. And that is totally okay, but you want to organize your brain, go over what just happened. What were the most important parts and review your notes, create smart goals. And you should have short-term goals that lead into your longterm goals. So let's say your longterm goal was to get promoted into a manager level position. Your short term goals should feed into that. So that may be something like complete. Complete a certain certification. Or it may be too for you to organize a presentation and pitch yourself to get onto one of the big projects, you know, is coming up in the new year. And why you would be the best person to handle that project that has the largest budget you've ever worked on. You want to come up with short-term goals that lead into your long-term goals? Number two, you do want to send that manager, your email or that like something written where you're clearly stating. Again, what the goal is. And then the short-term goals that you're going to be working on that lead up to that. Ask for feedback. Anything that was missed anything that is misunderstood or anything that she thinks, or he thinks would be better suited as a goal for you? And then after that, Make sure to follow your plan. Whatever you came up with in this meeting. Whatever the plan is, whatever the smart goal is. Follow it. If you say you're going to do a certification, do the certification. If you're going to try to get onto a project that is the largest account, for example, then get organized and get on that project. Whatever your plan is, follow it. My clients go into their year end review confident because they have a plan. You'll be shocked at how much a plan can do for you. Imagine you get into your car. And you're going somewhere for the first time and you don't have GPS and you don't have any written directions down. And you just go, like, of course, you're going to feel a bit insecure. Unsure. I don't really know how to get there. I think it's around this area, but I'm not really clear. Versus if you have your GPS and you know exactly which way you're going, there is a level of confidence that comes with that. So go into this prepared. This is what I went over so that you can have a little recap. Before the meeting, you want to clarify your goals. You want to reflect and list out your accomplishments, prepare questions for your manager. Come up with at least for practicing your goals with trusted people. During your meeting, you want to communicate your goals to your manager. You want to ask clarifying questions? And you want to communicate to your manager, that you will follow up. That you will follow up with clear goals from the meeting. After you want a debrief draft, some smart goals. Send your manager, the recap email, and get feedback, tweak goals as needed based on feedback. And then follow your plan. If this sounds like a lot of hard work. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it's not. Making sure that you are growing in your career is hard work. Getting promoted is going to require hard work from you. And it's totally worth it. Snagging, the title that you deserve is totally worth it. Getting that 15, 20, 25 K salary increase is totally worth it. Sometimes what my clients need the most is accountability and holding your hand every step of the way. And I do that because I get it. If it is hard work, But the hard work works. So at least I'm not having you do hard work. That doesn't work. I promise you this stuff works. Okay. Get to preparing. Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend. And prepare for your year end review, because this will be the best one yet. Talk to you soon. Bye.