Seeing yourself clearly: How to write a self-review your manager will love
Jenner and the coast | Jeff Bramwell | jeff@bramwellphoto.com
It’s January and for many of us, it means the kick-off of a process that can fill many people at work with dread: performance reviews. If you’re an individual contributor it means you need to reflect on your performance in the previous year, write a self-appraisal, and share feedback about your interactions with your peers. And chances are if you’re a manager you’ve got those same responsibilities and you have to write reviews too.
Regardless of what role you’re in, it’s work that has to be prioritized in addition to your day-to-day responsibilities. Now when it comes to writing our self-reviews, we have to write one that ideally feels reflective of the work we did in the prior year and resonates with our manager. And writing a self-appraisal should ideally be pretty easy because it gives us a chance to talk about one of our favorite topics: ourselves.
According to a study published by Harvard University researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, most people spend almost 40% of conversations talking about themselves, and when we do our brains actually get a biochemical buzz from the self-disclosure. To make it even more interesting, the study shows that talking about ourselves activates the same parts of the brain that light up when we talk about rewards like food or sex.
If we like talking about ourselves, why is writing self-reviews so difficult for many of us?
Additional studies from Cornell University offer a clue. Cornell’s researchers discovered when we talk about our performance at work, what changes is our ability to objectively assess ourselves. What makes it worse? The team at Cornell found poor performers paint even more inaccurate pictures of themselves than high performers.
In my experience as a consultant who spends a lot of time with people developing the skills needed to give feedback, receive feedback and navigate conversations about performance, I see many challenges that hinder our abilities to be objective.
We have blind spots. It’s hard to evaluate ourselves objectively if we don’t know where we shine and we struggle. These blind spots often result from not regularly asking for feedback from the people who work with us on a day-to-day basis. In a session I recently facilitated about receiving feedback, when I asked the group what makes asking for feedback difficult many of the reasons I heard were anchored in fear: the fear of the unknown, the fear of criticism, and the fear of confirming what we’re scared to hear about ourselves. Our blind spots show up in our self-appraisals when our managers don’t see examples of what we’ve learned throughout the year about the impact we had on different situations and people.
We’re afraid of failure. Many people at work are focused on succeeding and asking for feedback means we have to be willing to be vulnerable. For many high achievers, talking about setbacks and reflecting on what they can do differently taps into another fear: the fear of failure. We don’t want to look bad, particularly if we work in an organization where people are subtly encouraged to maintain a positive, strong, dare I say bulletproof image. The fear of failure prevents us from learning from our mistakes. Our managers wonder about our fear of failure in our self-reviews when they notice us over-magnifying our successes to cover our mistakes, downplaying any setbacks that occurred, and not being willing to talk about what we’re learning about ourselves.
We’re biased. Everyone is impacted by biases at work and when it comes to writing self-appraisals cognitive biases are one of many that play a role. Cognitive biases impact how we think. They can lead us to pull information from the wrong sources, seek to confirm existing beliefs, and even fail to remember events the way they actually happened. There are over 160 cognitive biases and they can cause us to believe we’re objective when we’re not. If we’re not willing to take a step back and reflect objectively on our performance throughout the year, in our self-appraisals our managers may notice us projecting our beliefs, opinions, and past experiences on things that happened throughout the year in a way that is preventing us from seeing things from other viewpoints – including theirs.
Mastering these challenges requires self-awareness, an ability our brains acquired over 150,000 years ago that allowed us to examine our behaviors, emotions, and thoughts. It’s a trait that distinguishes us from most other species on the planet. In her book Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed in Work and Life, Tasha Eurich shares how her research led to the conclusion that self-aware people make better decisions, have stronger relationships, and are more successful at work.
Introspection matters when we evaluate ourselves because demonstrating self-awareness is what our managers are looking for when they read our self-reviews.
Self-awareness is an indicator that we have the ability to be objective when we look at our own performance. While writing self-appraisals isn’t always a bag of fun, they’re good for us because they force us to take an honest look at ourselves. Ultimately getting better at writing self-appraisals our managers are going to love is about strengthening our ability to be objective. And don’t get me wrong, we can be impartial and still highlight the wins we had throughout the year. However, as we’re beginning to master the skill of remaining objective about our performance, it’s also about showing that we’re confronting challenges, making progress, and learning over time.
So how do you write an objective self-review your manager will love?
Paint an unbiased picture. When talking about your successes, summarize your performance in one to two paragraphs maximum. Keep it focused on the facts and the results. While it’s difficult, it’s something your manager will really appreciate. It brings to mind a quote from Winston Churchill I’ve always loved: If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter. Many people fall into the trap of making a long list of everything they accomplished throughout the year, often including way too much information. However while the details may seem relevant to you personally, what your manager really wants to see is a very concise, no fuss, no muss summary that captures your two-three biggest accomplishments. Tell a story that paints a picture of what made the year different, what your biggest challenges were, and what you’re continuing to learn from them.
Demonstrate you’re listening to feedback. Proactively include and reference feedback you received throughout the year that changed how you see yourself and improved both your relationships and your work. It can be feedback from your manager, your cross-functional partners, your customers, and the people who report to you. Don’t play it safe, listing easy or tactical things focused on projects or processes. Focus on meaningful, personal changes you can make. Your manager wants to see both an acknowledgment of the feedback you’ve heard along with a commitment to the behaviors you believe you need to adapt or strengthen. Demonstrating self-awareness signals you take the feedback you receive seriously and are growing as a result of it. Show you’re listening, dig deep, and focus on one or two difficult changes you’re motivated to make.
List stretch goals to push yourself. When you’re asked to list your development goals in your self-review, your manager wants a clear sense of what will challenge and energize you. What won’t resonate is reading a list of the things you want like a promotion, a salary increase, or a change in job level. What will resonate is hearing what you want to do in the next year. Avoid incentive-focused checklists and lean into the leadership opportunities that will prepare you for what’s next. For example, if your company uses career ladders or expectation grids use them to inform your goals. Remember your manager wants to see goals that prepare you for what’s next because they need a steady pipeline of people who are growing and ready to tackle new challenges. Create goals that focus on gaining experience that takes you out of your comfort zone and ultimately get you closer to those new opportunities you want in the future.
Ultimately writing a self-appraisal that resonates with your manager comes down to telling a concise story about the results you drove, showing you’re self-aware, and demonstrating a vulnerable honesty about what you can do differently. When done well the reflections you share about yourself can be a powerful way to enlist your manager as an ally who is committed to helping you reflect, adapt, and grow. Self-reviews don’t have to be a check-the-box exercise driven by an annual process. They can become an illuminating practice driven by our commitment to continually learning about ourselves.
Tom Floyd is an executive coach and founder of Flouracity, a professional development company that helps managers grow in their careers, leaders flourish in their roles, and people become the best version of themselves.