Answering the question: How is Bob doing ? (in his role)

January 28, 2022 1:45 PM

I am a sr. manager, with a small team. I moved over to this department about 6 months ago. My boss, who is a Director I really like working for, has asked me a few times in recent months at varying intervals, “How is Bob (insert name of a manager or junior manager who reports to me) doing?”

Do you have a structure that you use and would recommend, to do a quick account of someone on your team’s recent performance? I am able to answer the question, but feel like I could provide a better, succinct yet more well rounded summary, am finding that tough without a structure. How do you answer this question?

For clarity – there are many widely available performance metrics, and I don’t believe my boss is asking me to quote numbers. I think he is looking for a feel of how are folks are progressing in their role. Also note, there is a ton of freedom about how you do these roles. You can set your own priorities, create longer term strategy while juggling the day to day sales numbers and issues. The majority of the team has a year or more experience in the role, and are solid performers. In short: how can I help best speak to my team’s performance, in these quick conversations ?

posted by walkinginsunshine to Work & Money (6 answers total)

How about 'most salient strength/weaknes -> impact -> next steps'. So, "Bob seems to be a really fast learner, so I'm ahead of where I thought I would be in training. I'm going to try giving him some extra responsibility on the X project.' 'Bob's doing OK but has a little trouble inspiring confidence in clients. I'm having to keep him more in the background during client meetings. I'm thinking of having him shadow Suzy to see if he can pick up some stronger skills in that area.'

It forces you to think both about big picture and strategy, which is probably what your manager is hoping you are doing anyway.
posted by Ausamor at 1:55 PM on January 28, 2022

I find Ausamor's answer really good.

You'll want to find out what kind of manager your boss is. Some really hear any opportunity for improvement as a negative, so you may want to calibrate it. So for those bosses, if I'm feeling good about a team member's performance, I might say, "Katie is crushing it, totally showed some great initiative in Project X and solved a really tricky problem with locking. Hoping we can train her into Project Y soon." For someone who needs a little help, I might say "Sam is doing well. We're working on keeping the PMs in the loop better, but we'll get there." If they need a lot of help, I'm very frank about it.
posted by advicepig at 2:39 PM on January 28, 2022

The specifics mentioned above are really good. If you’re having trouble thinking of those specific things, a framework I’ve found helpful is thinking of things a person could:

* keep doing - things they’re already doing well and should continue
* do more of - things they’re starting to do well and should double down on to improve
* stop doing - habits you’d like to see them stop because they’re harmful to themselves or others, whether in the long or short term to someone else, or for their own career
posted by conkystconk at 3:32 PM on January 28, 2022

Agreed that your manager wants to hear about how you're running your team. Think of it less as your manager wanting to know what Bob is good or bad at, and more about how you're making use of Bob's strengths and mitigating his weaknesses. What's your plan for Bob? You boss needs to feel confident that you can manage your people. Once they have that confidence in you, they won't need to ask about Bob.
posted by pipeski at 4:00 PM on January 28, 2022

It depends on how in depth he wants to get. If it's a quick question, in my experience it basically means "what is Bob's impact to the org." Is Bob standing out, making your life easier, improving something significant? Or is Bob screwing up or not coming up to speed fast enough? Or is Bob doing what you ask him to do and doing a fine job but not exceeding expectations? Once that's been conveyed you can go deeper if there's interest or time.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:02 PM on January 28, 2022

Agreeing again that this is a great opportunity to show what you already *are* doing as a manager to support your team. Ausamor, I also really appreciate your script formula above - the steps section would be a great place to mention *current* actions as well as next steps. E.g., having identified weaknesses/strengths “I’m putting him on X project to help build his responsibility”/“I’m working with him on inspiring confidence during client interactions, and setting him up to shadow Suzy”.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:15 PM on January 28, 2022