Feedback and AARs (After Action Reviews):
How rigorous are you at giving performance reviews?
If you were to announce that as of tomorrow, the performance review process is forbidden, how many of your managers would fight to keep the process in place?
In my experience the answer would be few or none. Why is that?
It must be that those managers (and perhaps you as well) don’t find value in performance reviews. Consider the logic behind that statement---giving people feedback about their efforts doesn’t prove to be valuable.
Since that statement doesn’t make any sense, there must be something else going on. Maybe it’s the way that performance reviews are structured and conducted in your company?
If you are not finding any value in the way your company currently handles performance reviews, the questions you should be asking yourself are:
- How do we learn from what happens?
- How do we give meaningful feedback to each other?
- How do we encourage an ongoing give and take at the grass roots level of the company, as well as at the executive level?
Developing a performance review process which implements the answers to these questions will go a long way toward ensuring the achievement of the operational excellence that is necessary for you to faithfully keep your promises to your customers.
Most people come to work each day wanting to be important.
They want to make a difference. They want to be valued.
You may think of some obvious exceptions to these statements. Some jobs, some bosses, some conditions have made people cynical.
Some situations have caused people to lose faith in themselves. If they feel useless they will act as if they are useless, and don’t care.
If they feel insignificant, they will not use care in what they do. If no one listens, they will quit talking.
If you want to give rise to the passion inherent in your workforce, provide opportunities for them to make a difference.
Helping Your People Make A Difference:
One powerful way to enable your people to make a difference is through the introduction of the After Action Review (AAR) process.
The United States military pioneered the AAR as it transformed itself into a learning organization in the aftermath of Viet Nam.
The technique worked because it was powerfully aligned with a culture that supported being savvy over being cocky.
A spirit of inquiry replaced arrogance. People were rewarded for speaking the truth.
The system used the information it generated to correct mistakes and teach people what they didn’t know.
Then, damage to one’s career came from not learning rather than from never admitting to a mistake.
The AAR process is simple in its design. Its power comes from the value that everyone involved continues to draw from it.
After any action, the people involved can sit together and reconsider what happened.
When the people who work the process believe they will benefit from the efforts of doing so, as opposed to simply going through the motions to follow a protocol, leaning takes place.
The value comes from the activities that are sparked by the review, which are based on understanding the what/where/when/how/whys.
A commitment to excellence requires a shared commitment to doing things right. Successful people are committed to continuing to learn.
Having an effective process in place that enables the learning supports excellence.
People cannot produce excellent outcomes without feedback.
Feedback is a course correction mechanism that we use to master complex skills and tasks.
The traditional performance feedback process has you sit with your boss once a year and discuss your performance on a number of fine, albeit generic dimensions.
This approach is seldom productive, and doesn’t lead to any real learning. It’s passé.
Today, managers seldom watch their direct reports working at their tasks.
Internal customers, partners and teammates are in a much better position to comment on a person’s performance and to offer feedback when it is fresh and focused---when it’s the most useful.
The AAR process takes advantage of this by including those who are most intimately familiar with the work being done.
Instead of being a once a year event these conversations are a matter of fact---ongoing dialogue that is no big deal.
Approaching feedback in this way is powerful if the purpose is instructive, rather than accusatory.
For the value to be harvested from the effort, the leaders of the company need to ensure that the feedback serves a purpose and that it stays instructive.
The U.S. Army performs AARs after every action, at every level.
While this process should become a regular part of how you and your people do business, your people don’t need to slavishly analyze everything that occurs.
Once people are familiar with the process and are reaping value from its use, part of the learning that takes place is that they will come to recognize when it needs to be applied---the AAR process becomes yet another effective tool in their repertoire.
Are you committed to having a learning organization that values being savvy?
Do you want to reward your people for speaking truth and recognizing mistakes or problems when they happen, and resolving them effectively before they become the basis for chronic underperformance issues?
Do you want your people to feel valued and charged about coming to work to make their contributions on a daily basis?
Do you want to have the most effective and successful company you can possibly have?
Valuing, supporting and using an effective performance review process is one of the ways that businesses can transform themselves into organizations prepared to thrive in the emerging marketplace of the 21st Century.
44. Conducting The After Action Review (AAR)
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Tool Preview: Enables you to introduce the AAR as a default process for learning from experience.
It is a learning process for the organization---used appropriately, it raises the problem solving skills of the organization as a whole. [Read Now]
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