The Performance Review. It seems that every company, organization, and t-ball league has one today. Not only are they rampant, but many times they are the single gateway to your next raise or promotion. The problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to get the most out of their review, and consequently they miss out on great opportunities. It’s not because they don’t want to get to that next level, it’s that they don’t know how. This is where the tips below come in. In my experience, if you really make an effort to work them into your routine, you will definitely see the difference the next time your review comes around.

• Analyze your last review - This is something that you should have done right after you’re last review. You want to start working on your weak areas immediately so that next time they are your strong areas. A good way to do this is to write down each weak area, and brainstorm how you can improve in that area. Write the resulting ideas down and keep this list visible at your desk. Make sure you try to work on at least one of the ideas everyday.

• Get intermediate feedback - I wrote a whole article on getting feedback, that’s how important it is. To make it short and sweet, the first time an area in which you can improve is identified to you should not be in the formal review. With that being said, it’s pretty much assured to happen. However, you can minimize this. Make sure you get feedback from not only your supervisor but also any team members whom you supervise on a regular basis. If you’re unsure how to do this, you can read my aforementioned article on asking for feedback.

• Prepare for your review - This is an extremely important piece of advice. Before your review, you need to make sure you get yourself prepared. For starters, if you can get your hands on the criteria for the review, take a look at it and try to fill it out like you were reviewing yourself. If you can’t, make a list of what you think your strong and weak areas are. Most importantly, be honest. If you can’t be honest with your weak areas especially, then don’t even bother following any of this advice. We all have weak areas, identifying them is the only way we improve on them. For your strengths, write down specific examples of how you are strong in each area. For example, if you are a good team leader, you could write that your team finished all of its work on schedule (list the specific milestones you hit). For your weaknesses, write down some ideas on how you could improve (similar to the first bullet point). Make sure to bring your lists to your review.

• Make your review a two way conversation - During your review, don’t just sit there like a fence post. Make sure you understand all of your supervisor’s points. If you think they are missing a strength in your review, take out your strength list and suggest some (along with your supporting examples). Also, if you think that they identify something as a weakness that you don’t think is, discuss it. The important thing to remember here is that this is your big chance. In my company, these reviews can be YEARLY. Once a year is not a lot. Say what you need to say, make sure you understand everything that went on. If you need to work on something, make sure that you know what direction to take. You can even ask your supervisor for suggestions. If they are already on your weakness list, bounce some of the ways to improve off your supervisor to see if they agree. Another thing that goes a long way is to show that you are actively taking charge of your career. Showing you are interested in maximizing your performance at work is guaranteed to raise your stock with your manager.

Note: These tips are based on the fact that you have a meeting to go over your review with your boss. If this is not the case, try to schedule one. Otherwise, do the best you can to take the review that they have given you and write up any questions/concerns you might have with it. Then, email them this list and try to initiate some kind of back and forth. Otherwise, the review doesn’t end up doing anybody much good.

These tips are guaranteed to make your next performance review better for both you and your boss. However, don’t limit yourself to these tips alone. If you can think of something else that will help, go for it. There probably are many things you can do that are specific to your line of work that can help you out. Make a concentrated effort, and I’m sure you’ll be glad with the results.

Ok, now that everything seems to be in order for the meeting, we will explore tips on how to actually act while attending the meeting. Let’s get started.

• Seat Selection - Generally, it is not a huge deal which seat you take at your meeting.  There are a few guidelines however.  For example, you should try not to take a seat where you think the conductor of the meeting will be seating (such as next to the projector where they will be running their presentation from).  Also, if you are meeting with clients, try to sit with your peers.  This facilitates note taking as well as helps whoever is conducting the meeting to direct different parts of their presentation to specific members of the audience.  However, this is not a hard and fast rule and is highly dependent on your situation, so it’s your judgment call.

• Posture - This sounds like a no-brainer, but most people really don’t pay attention to it.  Just like your Mom told you when you were a kid, sit up straight and don’t slouch in your seat.  Don’t put your feet up on another seat, and for god’s sake don’t fall asleep or doze off (I’ve seen this on a number of occasions).  If you think you are going to have trouble staying awake during the meeting, bring a soda or coffee with you.  Drinks are generally acceptable fare at most meetings.  You want to showcase that you are actively involved in the meeting and paying attention to what is going on.

• Making Comments/Asking Questions - This is a highly situational tip.  There are some meetings where you are just there to take notes or be a fly on the wall.  In this case, talking is usually not encouraged.  However, most of the time if you have a question or a comment to make, there are some guidelines you should follow.  For example, make sure that you know what you’re talking about before you comment on something.  Don’t throw out some “buzzword” just to make yourself look good, as most people will see through this.  When asking questions, have the question formulated before you ask it, don’t ramble.  Rambling questions waste everyone’s time.  Also, don’t just talk for the sake of talking.  This will do you no good and just annoy people who want to get things accomplished at the meeting.  Finally, make sure you are “business appropriate” at the meeting.  Don’t think you can throw out an offensive joke just because a client does, it doesn’t work that way.  Even at an internal meeting, think before you speak.

• Paper Rustling/Noise - Try to limit the amount of extraneous noise you make.  For example, don’t rustle your papers loudly, especially near the speaker phone if you are using one.  This just distracts everybody at the meeting and makes you standout for all the wrong reasons.  Another big one is loud gum chewing (you probably shouldn’t be chewing gum anyway), as well as finger or pen/pencil tapping.  You don’t have to be totally silent, just try not to be noticeably obnoxious (read: squeaky chair).

• Take Notes - Remember that pad and pencil/pen you brought? Use it, it’s not for show.  Even if it’s just to put the meeting title and date on the pad, do it.  This shows active interest in the meeting and makes the audience think that you value the goals of the meeting.  Also, these notes could be valuable if the resulting meeting notes are not up to par.  Good meeting notes can help out tremendously when dealing with follow up meeting action items.
• Eating - As stated earlier, taking a drink to a meeting is usually acceptable.  However, you should try and stay away from taking food to a meeting.  This can be distracting to the rest of the meeting attendees and is not appropriate for most formal meetings.  Once again, this is situational, so use your best judgment.

Those are pretty much the big points that I think about when attending a meeting.  Look for a future article on how to facilitate a meeting.

If you missed Part I of this series, see it here: Surviving a Formal Meeting - Part I.

Courtesy might be one of the most important contributing factors to your day to day workplace happiness.  While many people don’t think about it in this respect, it really does play a huge role in how happy you are while you work, and consequently what your level of productivity is.  There are many little things that you can do to make sure that you are being respectful of your co-workers, but I’m just going to list a few that I think are some of the more common points of contention at the office. 

And the candidates are:

• Personal phone calls - This can potentially cause massive problems at your office.  While making personal calls at work is often necessary, that doesn’t mean that you should be on the phone constantly with your girlfriend/boyfriend, or the neighbor who lives across the street.  This kind of behavior is distracting to your peers as well as frowned upon by your supervisor, who will no doubt catch you in the act.  Also, make sure that when you’re on the phone, you are cognizant of who is around you.  Repeating a dirty joke loudly over the phone is inappropriate and might offend someone.  This is especially true in today’s workplace where we work in a very open environment (read: cubicles).  If not managed, these kinds of incidents can even cost you your job.  My office has separate booths where private phone calls can be made, I recommend that you take advantage of such amenities, or even go outside or an unpopulated area to make a longer or more private call.

• Office Roaming - We all need to take a five minute break every once and awhile to stretch our legs and clear our heads.  However, you should be careful about where you take this break. If you go over to your buddies cube and start talking about the NCAA bracket, make sure you are aware of who is around you.  Personal conversations can be very distracting to the person working next to you.  This is related to the Personal Phone Calls topic above, as it can cause the same kinds of problems.  If you need to roam, take a walk to the water cooler, or maybe grab a cup of coffee at the Starbucks across the street.  The key things to remember are to always be cognizant of who is around you and how much time you are taking on these breaks.  If you’re never around, that can mean nothing but bad things for you.

• Clean Work Area - This is true not only for people who share a work area (such as a double cube), but also for people who have a single work area (such as a desk) and share some common areas with their co-workers.  If you are putting together a bunch of binders, and have materials all over the place, make sure to clean up after you’re done.  In the case of a shared desk, try to keep your materials (such as papers, folders, etc) on your side and in an orderly fashion. This is good because it makes it easier for other people to work, more often than not converses and organizes group supplies (see missing pens), and also makes your office look better if your clients just happen to stop by.

The above are just some of the ways to show courtesy to your co-workers, and they really aren’t that hard to implement as part of your regular work routine.  In summary, some easy tips to remember are:  always be cognizant of who is around you, try to contain your water cooler runs to a reasonable amount, and if you can possibly help it organize your desk into something resembling “clean”.  Additionally, try to look for other things at your workplace that you can do to make it that much better for everyone else, I promise they will all appreciate it.

 

Meetings are something that most of us engage in everyday at the workplace.  They could range from an informal chat at a cubicle to a scheduled event in a conference room.  This series of articles will provide tips more geared toward the latter type of meeting, what I call the “Formal” meeting.  A few examples of this type of meeting could be a weekly status team meeting, or possibly a review meeting with your clients.  You’ve most likely experienced this type of meeting before, but the question is:  How did you handle it? 

Let’s get down to the tips.

Here is a quick checklist to run through before you enter your meeting:

• Did you print out all of the meeting materials?  This is important, as you can’t rely on the meeting organizer to always print out copies or even have enough copies of the materials. 

• Did you skim the meeting materials?  This goes hand in hand with the first bullet, before a meeting you should take a look at the materials to see what exactly is going to be discussed. This way you can do any necessary research before the meeting on possible questions you want to ask, as well as identify any possible problems that you can head off before the meeting.  If you don’t have time to take a look at all the materials, at least look at the agenda so you have at least a skeleton of an idea of what is going to be discussed.

• Do you have all the necessary contact information?  This is crucial, as a lot of meetings now are “teleconferences” (telecon’s is a common term for them) where you either dial into a meeting system to join or start a meeting (an example would be Meeting Place).  Making sure this information is on hand before time will ensure that the meeting starts on time.  In my experience it is extremely annoying to be stuck waiting for a meeting to start, listening to elevator music.

• Do you have a speaker phone reserved?  This really applies to teleconferences, but if you are holding one or joining one, you should make sure that you have one ready and reserved for you meeting.  At my office, these things fly off the shelf like they were made of gold, so I always reserve well ahead of time.

• Do you have a room reserved?  This may sound, but you would be surprised how many times you schedule a teleconference, a couple of people get together to dial in, and they discover they have no room.  It’s very distracting to hold a teleconference around your co-workers, so I wouldn’t suggest holding it at your cube.  Get a small room if need be, it’s more private and less prone to background noise getting in the way.

• Do you have a pad of paper and a pen?  This is important, as you never know what is going to come out at a meeting.  You should ALWAYS bring something to write on and something to write with to your meetings.  Otherwise, that tidbit of important information you heard will end up going in one ear and out of the other.

• Do you know where the meeting is?  This is especially true if you are a new hire at your company and may not be familiar with the layout of your office yet.  If the meeting is being held in a conference room that you don’t know the location of, ask beforehand where it is.  This will save you the embarrassment of not only walking into the meeting late, but in the middle of the presentation.

Now that you are ready, it’s time to enter the meeting. Check back for Part II of this series, where I will discuss the finer points of actually attending the meeting.

Update: Continue on to Part II of this series here: Surviving a Formal Meeting - Part II.

You heard me.  I have a Safeway in my office building, and it is pretty bad.  Here is a list of top 3 things I dislike about it:

1. It smells funky.  I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t strawberries.
2. The “Produce” is nasty.  Obviously, it is neither fresh nor tasty.
3. In addition to #2, anything not pre-packaged that lasts for a long time is pretty nasty.  I have gotten bad milk there on a number of occasions, along with bad nuts, produce, etc.

So in summary, stay away from Safeway when it comes to lunch time or break time.  The fact that it is IN MY BUILDING and I suggest this should be enough to warn you away.

Recently at my work, an executive hit upon a very good subject: being proactive for your career.  This is probably one of the best things that you can do for your career, but surprisingly enough, a lot of people are what she calls “Tumbleweeds”.  These are people that just roll along from assignment to assignment, never really taking the initiative on anything, never suggesting anything, just like a tumbleweed in the desert.  They might do a decent job, but that is all that they do.  Consequently, when it comes around to promotion time, they usually fall to the wayside.

How do you escape this deadly fate?  Are you DOOMED????  Lucky for you, the answer is no.  There are several things you can do to make sure you are making a positive (”positive” being the key word here) impact at your workplace.  I’ve outlined a few starters below:

• If you are finished with your current assignment, and you don’t have anything else to work on, seek out your supervisor and see if they have anything else they would like you to do.  This shows initiative and that you’re just not sitting around cruising the internet waiting for direction.  Be careful with this though; don’t rush through assignments just to get another one.  Make sure to keep the quality of what you produce high.

• If you see some way to improve what your team is currently working on, suggest it to your supervisor.  The key here is to come up with a plan of improvement first before you talk to them.  Don’t just say “Oh, this isn’t working”.  You want to approach it like this: “This part of the process isn’t working, but here’s how I would improve it.”  For example, say you’re working on a software design and notice that the template you are using could be improved.  First, come up with an example of what the improvement would be (say a modified template), and then present it.  This demonstrates both a deep understanding of what the team is doing and a willingness to help make the project better.

• This next suggestion can be pretty hard for people to do.  Basically, if you see an opportunity for new business for your company, you should approach your supervisor and possibly higher executives with this opportunity.  Now, this may seem daunting to a lot of people because it is a pretty big step.  However, as long as you think that it is a legitimate opportunity, and you have a good set of reasons why it is a good opportunity (this is very important as you don’t want to waste anyone’s time, let alone your superiors), then this can do nothing but good things for your career.  Even if the opportunity isn’t acted upon, this is huge in the eyes of executives, as it shows that you are tying to “grow the business” as it is commonly called, or finding new avenues of revenue for your company.  This is the kind of thing that executives do everyday, and is a great quality to showcase.

• If you are presented with an opportunity to take on more responsibility, you should take it as long as you are comfortable with it and confident that you can accomplish it with a high degree of success.  Taking on more responsibility will show that you are ready for the next level of your career.  However, as stated above, make sure that you are comfortable doing it and that you can do it successfully.  Otherwise, the effect is just the opposite, and there might not be another opportunity for you for a long time.

These are just a few of the ways that you can take charge of your career.  They’re a good start, but you should come up with some of your own that are tailored to your specific work situation to use in conjunction with the suggestions above.