How do you bounce back after a negative annual review?


Last month a friend and coworker asked to meet with me. They had just received a negative review for the first time in their career, and they were trying to figure out where to go from here. This is a topic I haven’t seen discussed much, so it’s probably worth diving into.

About twice a month, I’ll get someone coming to me to ask for career advice. I’m starting to collect the more common questions and my thoughts on them. I’m putting these together as a series of blog posts under the tag CareerPlusPlus.

It is possible to bounce back from a negative review.

Most of this post will be focused on the person receiving the adverse eval, but I have some suggestions for managers at the end.

Address your emotions

It is hard, maybe impossible, to not take a negative evaluation personally.

Responses to these can be all over the map: anger, fear, frustration, disappointment, depression, relief, rage, etc.

Whatever your emotional reaction is, it is valid. I don’t believe we can control our emotions, but I do believe we can control our actions. There are some actions we can take that will move us to a better emotional place, and there are some that will move us in the opposite direction.

It is important to note that an annual review does not and should not be taken as a statement of your value as a person. It is a statement of your performance in a specific role at a specific time.

I recommend having a conversation with another human being about this. A professional setting may be extremely helpful, but a friend across a table at a coffee shop can be immensely helpful also.

Walk Away

You need to get into a state of mind where you can objectively look at the problem ahead of you. Go exercise, even if it’s just a walk. Do something active that doesn’t take a lot of brain power. There are a multitude of good reasons to do this.

Take Stock

We need to look at the review objectively. The first question I asked my friend was, “Is this review correct?” That is, are the points made in it accurate? Did their performance really come up short of expectation?

Where those expectations realistic? Were they known in advance of the evaluation? Was it fair?

This is not a yes or no question. There is probably gray area. Where do you agree, objectively, with their assessment and where do you disagree?

People often get defensive. That’s not helpful at this stage. Rather, we are just trying to identify the places where the performance fell short of expectation during that reporting period. Let’s be as objective as possible and just identify it without justification or blame.

Make a Plan

Part of this you will need to do with your manager.

Every few years management types will get all up in a frenzy about some kind of technique that will be the “end all and be all” of management. Right now it’s KPIs and OKRs. Give it a few years and it will be something else. These are all just replacements for trying to substitute management for leadership. Unfortunately this is a case where you can really benefit from some actual leadership.

The question we want to answer is, “What would it look like X months from now to be in a place where I would meet expectations?” I would not yet try to map that to whatever the tool of the day is (OKRs or whatever). Rather, I would try to get a good idea of what kind of performance the manager would want to see.

If we can have in our mind what that would look like we’re ready to really make a plan.

It’s time to set three goals. Why three? No idea. It is the magic number. It works from my experience. That’s all this blog is – my experience.

  • Goal one: short term achievement
  • Goal two: long term achievement
  • Goal three: professional development

I would be looking for a fast win. What can you show in the next month that demonstrates to your manager that you are responding to the evaluation? I do like to use the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time based) goal acronym because I find it does help make these better formulated and objective.

Do not try to solve all of the world’s problems in a day. Find something specific in your work that could be done in a month that is not easy to get done in a month. The goal is to demonstrate you are working hard to bounce back.

The point of the second goal is to make sure you’re sustaining the effort. I would be targeting this to align with whatever your organization’s next evaluation period would be. If you’re getting a PIP (performance improvement plan) or similar, then I would align it to be near the end of the PIP. Otherwise you might align it with your mid-year review. If you don’t have one then I would ask your manager to set up a time in 3 or 6 months to review and see if you’re on track. Again, I would want to write this goal like the previous in regards to how to objectively evaluate it.

Aside: I plan on writing a post some day about how to write goals, because that’s a whole topic unto itself.

The third goal is about demonstrating you’re growing in your role. What I would want to do here is to look at the negative evaluation and find one aspect where your performance didn’t meet their expectation. Then I would try to write a goal that demonstrates you’ve achieved an improvement in that area.

For example, suppose you’re in a role where you are suppose your negative review said something along the lines of poor communication to stakeholders in other groups or organizations. I would think that one way to improve this would be to set up a method where you can consistently share the right information at the right periodicity. So I would probably write a goal to publish X every Y days/weeks on platform Z and to report on feedback from A, B, and C at time D. That would show that you’re working on regular communication and incorporation of feedback. For your specifics, you will need to think some yourself and talk to your manager.

At some point, I would want to make sure I have a conversation with your manager that goes along the lines of, “What do you need to see at time X such that I would receive an evaluation that meets expectations?”

Prepare Your Contingency

Update your resume.

If you have received a negative evaluation, your manager has indicated you are going to be fired if you don’t change. It may not even be fair or deserved. That’s irrelevant to preparing you for how it impacts you. You need to be ready in case it doesn’t go your way even if that isn’t your fault.

I wish I could say all managers and all companies treat their employees fairly, but that isn’t the reality we live in. Some people out there will give negative evaluations so they can use it as justification for a firing later. I wish this weren’t the case, but I know it happens. It’s wrong. The point of all of these blog posts is to be helpful, which in my mind means responding to the reality that we live in.

So… go update your resume.

Start looking to see what other jobs are out there. I would probably even apply to a few jobs that look promising. Leaving on your own terms is far better than leaving on the company’s terms.

I’m not saying you have to leave. I’m saying you should be prepared to.

Advice for Managers

Writing a negative review can be hard, but I would never shy away from it if it is warranted. One of the worst things we can do for an employee is to lie to them, including about their own performance. If someone is not living up to expectations, they must know or they will never grow.

If the person is surprised when they receive their adverse evaluation, it is your fault as a manager. You should be giving regular feedback on performance throughout the year. When you have 1:1s, that is the time to periodically give this kind of feedback in a specific way.

The section above about making a plan can equally apply to the manager. I recommend thinking about what this person would need to demonstrate in 1, 3, and 6 months to be in the place of meeting company expectations.

You also have to ask yourself the hard question. Is it possible for this person to meet the expectations of this role? If the answer is no, then you have to move them out of that role, because you are only delaying the inevitable. Whether that means moving to another role in the company or letting them go will depend on your specifics.

I have never regretted letting someone go for under performance. I have regretted when I waited too long to do so when it was clear they could not or would not perform that role as expected.

Closing Thoughts

This is one of the hardest conversations you’ll ever have. It is also extremely important that you do have the conversation in a direct way that is focused on the performance and not on assigning blame.

I have seen direct reports come back from a negative review and become very productive team members. Sometimes people need this kind of pressure applied to them to get them out of a habit.

If you’re on the receiving end, I know a lot of this is hard to hear. Growth does not happen from a position of comfort.

This, too, shall pass.