By Janet Lewis Matricciani

Years and years ago, when I was young and naïve – I’m still young now, just the scars of life have made me not as naïve as then – I went in to meet my manager for my end-of-project performance review. I was working at a consulting firm in Manhattan.

I had a pretty good relationship with the manager and done all asked of me and more, so I had reason to expect an above-average review. In fact, it was only mediocre. As I read through it in front of the manager, there were things written that did not relate to me at all, criticizing the financial model I had written. Except I hadn’t - another woman was in charge of that piece of the puzzle. When I pointed this out to my manager, laughing silently to myself as it was obvious he had just cut and pasted what he wrote in her review into mine, he could not admit he had made an error and tried to defend what he wrote. 

“Well if you had written the model, those are the mistakes I would have expected you to make,” he said. 

“But I didn’t write the model!” I said. 

It was to no avail. When I asked for specific examples of vague issues he had described such as “Could do marketing better,” he was lost for words. “You should know what the specifics are,” he said, smartly turning the problem back on me.

 

Another time, another consulting firm, the manager verbally gave me a wonderful review of my work in my first year there on an international project. A week later, he got his performance review. He was hoping to make partner and was told he would not make it that year. Soon after that, it was time for my written review.

“I have reviewed you as a project manager,” he told me, “since you were really managing that project, not just acting as a first-year associate.” I thought this was good news since I was only paid as a first-year associate and therefore anything I did more than that was surely a good thing. 

“You didn’t do a good enough job,” he said, “You didn’t follow all the company’s project manager rules and guidelines.” 

“How could I follow them when no one told me that they even existed, let alone what they are?” I asked. 

 “You should have found out and followed them,” he said. 

Other added components of the review sounded like what I had heard he was told about himself since none of it even remotely resonated with my personality, work behavior or activities on the project. 

“Is this your performance review or mine?” I wanted to ask him, but this was a rare instance where I let discretion be the better part of valor.

He spent so long trying to justify what he had written without any specific examples to back it up that we were two hours late for the end-of-project dinner with the team.

 

This taught me two things I had seen time and time again. Firstly, there is no point in ever pushing back on a performance review. If you do, you will be told you are defensive or unaware of the truth, and - to try and hammer home whatever it is they are trying to say negatively about you – the manager will then exaggerate every single issue written in the review, as if in this way, it makes it more true rather than less so.

Secondly, a review is much more about the person giving the review than the recipient. Most people find it impossible to separate what they think of others from how they view themselves in life in general, so in the work environment, where they can give feedback to an underling at no risk, this situation is amplified.

So what do you do, when you get that review? If it says wonderful things, then be happy. You could still lose your job tomorrow if the company does a downsizing or you get a new boss who doesn’t like you because it reminds him of his ex-girlfriend who dumped him, or whatever else it might be that you are or have what he doesn’t. This boss could fire you tomorrow if he is told his team is too big, or if he thinks he might get fired and you might get his job because you are so good. 

Also, just because the review says you are good at your job, it doesn’t mean you are. He may only have written this very positive review because his boss likes you so it would cause a stink if he didn’t. He may have written it because he has been told his reviews have been too negative about his teams or he is too hard on his people, making them work all day and night, so he is trying to make himself look like a nice person. It may, as you see, have very little to do with your actual performance.

So don’t let this review go to your head.

Furthermore, you can get a great review and no bonus at all. My friend Jackie worked at a consulting firm and was told at the end of the year that her performance had not been good enough to warrant an annual bonus so she didn’t get one. The next year, she worked insanely hard to be sure she would get a great review. She did. But then her manager explained the company had performed very badly so no one would be getting any bonuses that year.

I had my own experience of this when I was working for an education company. The CEO told me I had done such a fantastic job that no one in the company would get a bonus at a higher percentage of their salary than me. When the bonuses came out, it turned out everyone got 25 percent of their salary as a bonus. So he was truthful: no one got a higher percentage than me. Just he chose to omit the fact no one was going to get a lower percentage either.

 

If the review is average or not good, stay calm. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t argue back. Don’t point out inconsistencies. That won’t change anything. Take copious notes so you can read them later when you feel calmer. Thank the person and tell them you will work on the areas they mentioned. Then read through the review at a later date and take to heart only two or three things that resonate with what you personally would like to change.

Or you can do what I did when I worked in Paris in consulting years ago and my manager gave me an awful review. This is the high-risk strategy, but in life it is also important to be true to who you are, no matter the cost. “To thine own self be true,” as Shakespeare wrote for Polonius to tell his son, Laertes, in Hamlet. Laertes then goes on to murder Hamlet to avenge the deaths of his sister (Ophelia) and his father, so I guess we can call him a good listener.

Anyways, there I was, working in Paris at that time. My manager was known for being horribly misogynistic. In those days, you could get away with it scot-free. I thought the project had gone well and was outraged when I sat with my manager, whom we shall call Leo, and read the review which basically said I had performed poorly. This was particularly outrageous because we had been working on the acquisition of a French company by an American one and the deal had happened and both parties were very pleased with the result.

“Please sign below to say you agree with what I wrote,” said Leo. 

I stayed very calm (the first most important thing. 

“Not only will I not sign because what you have written is not accurate, “I said, “I also want us both to get on the phone with Jonathan [the head of the London Office from whence I had been loaned to Paris] right now and talk about this review and you can state your views and I will state mine and let’s see what he says.”

 My eyes were blazing. I knew Jonathan thought very highly of me and anyway, I wasn’t going to take this rubbish. 

“Go on, call him now!” I repeated. 

Leo’s whole demeanor changed. “That won’t be necessary,” he said, as he tore up the review and threw it in the trash, “Let me have another think about your work on that project and check with some other folks, I may have misunderstood some things.” Leo did not want to get on the wrong side of Jonathan who was a lot more powerful than he was – I had taken that bet and won. 

A few days later, Leo gave me a new written review. It was very positive – and much more accurate as far as I was concerned. I happily signed in the box to say that I agreed with it.

 

So those are your options: argue back, suck it up, fight it, each one has its own set of risks and rewards. Just remember that the performance review is 90 percent that manager’s review of themselves more than anything to do with what you did or do.

Take the 10 percent that resonates, learn from it, and move on.

-        Janet Lewis Matricciani is a two-time CEO who has worked all over the world and is multilingual, now sharing her business lessons publicly. She can be reached at [email protected].