This is the time of year when most organizations conduct performance reviews. For some these are annual reviews, for others they are midyear reviews, typically based on the fiscal year of the organization. Many begin the process by asking the employee to conduct a self-assessment. In other words, they want to understand from the employee their perspective on how they have done toward each of their goals.

My question to you is do you take time each year to set goals for yourself professionally and personally? And, if you do, are you monitoring and measuring your progress? 

As many of you know, I am a fan of OKRs (objectives and key results) and I use them on both an annual and quarterly basis. At the beginning of the year, I set my objectives and key results for the year. These encompass both what I plan to accomplish professionally and personally. Then, each quarter, I create my quarterly OKRs – I call these my 90-day sprints – that will see me making progress toward those annual objectives. At the end of each quarter, I take some time to evaluate how I have done as compared to what I’d planned.

Assuming that you do set your goals and monitor them, I’m curious as to whether your assessment is positively or negatively biased. By this I mean, are you looking at the progress you have made and what you have learned along the way or are you focused on the gap between what you’d said you would accomplish and where you are?

I reflect on both those areas where I’ve met (or exceeded) what I’d set out to do as well as those that didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. In each case, I am focused on the learning that I can take away from this assessment.

Where I’d met or exceeded the goal, what contributed to it? Had this objective been more comfortable for me, so I invested more of my time and energy on it? Had I set the bar too low? Had I been able to leverage my network to make progress more quickly than I’d anticipated? And, what can I learn from this that I can apply not only to those areas where I did not meet my expectations but as I set my objectives for the following quarter?

I use a similar set of questions to reflect on those areas where my results lagged what I’d projected. Had this objective felt a bit too far out of my comfort zone and, as such, I didn’t put the energy and time into it that I could have? Had I been overly ambitious and set the goal a bit too high? Did I miss an opportunity to take advantage of my network to support me in accomplishing this goal? And, what can I learn from this that will allow me to recalibrate this goal for the coming quarter?

I’d love to hear from you. What are some of the questions you as yourself as you conduct your midyear performance review? What are some of your learnings that you will be leveraging for the second half of the year?