Why do we have this?

To give managers the tools to talk about performance with direct reports continuously and with confidence.

Read our Performance playbook before going through this guide, and watch the corresponding manager forum (40min) for a deeper dive.

Table of contents

Why talk about performance continuously?

Performance should not be a 6-monthly sit-down but a continuous cycle of constructive, well-delivered feedback (see How to give/get great feedback).

Doing this is critical to achieve our mission:

Because giving timely feedback well:

  1. saves you from having more difficult conversations down the road
  2. saves others from bad surprises

In contrast, not giving timely feedback:

  1. drags out the issue needlessly, often with knock-on effects on other Jurors
  2. reflects back on you as the manager

But talking about performance can still be highly uncomfortable, especially when you have to deliver negative feedback. That can lead to someone avoiding it altogether:

Fear that… Possible response:
They have a strong negative reaction “I don’t want to make them sad / dislike me”
They get de-motivated “We don’t have time to be slowed down right now”
They mis-understand your feedback “I don’t know how to say it right, so I’ll hold off”
They disagree with your feedback “I don’t want to get into an argument”
The root cause is partially beyond their control “It’s a structural issue, so I need to fix that first”
You’re not fully sure what’s going wrong “I need more information before I talk about it”
You’re not fully behind the feedback (2nd-hand) “I don’t believe in this, so I’ll water it down”

Over time, this can turn into a vicious cycle where you don’t talk (candidly) about performance until the problem becomes too hard to ignore:

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