review

This week on the podcast…

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss are answering a question you asked in the mailbag! We received an email from a practice leader who was asking questions about employee reviews. They wanted to know what are some of the best and most effective questions that should be asked. They were also curious about our take on who should be answering those questions, especially to help give the best overall picture of an employee. And lastly, they wanted to know should management be reviewed and if so, who should review them? If you have listened to the podcast before, you might already know that Stephanie and Andy both think should is a dirty word. This was a fun episode, let's get into this…

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, this is Stephanie Goss. I'm coming at you with another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I had so much fun diving into a question from the mailbag about how do we do reviews that don't suck. Now, fair warning, we did this episode right after I had just done a session at VMX on performance reviews and things that are better than a performance review. So I was super fired up. Andy got fired up as well. There's some soapbox moments, a lot of fun. And we talk about the mailbag question, which was, what are some of the most or effective and or best questions that should be asked on a performance review? Who should be answering those questions and should management get reviewed too? This was a lot of fun, let's get into it. And now, the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie-I-made-you-look-Goss. I made you look.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, you actually did your job that time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I did. I remember. I was like, what song? We're talking about performance reviews today. And I was like, “That kind of fits.” Also, my 11-year-old daughter is very into the Meghan Trainor song, I made you look.

Stephanie Goss:
I was going to say is that playing regularly at your house.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. It plays regularly and there's lots of strong eye contact and dance moves. Like it plays and she just locks eyes with me and breaks it down. And I'm like, “What is this?”

Stephanie Goss:
If you have not seen the Instagram Reel, I think it's called… I need a social media lesson from Tyler and Kelsey. I don't know what any of the things are called. I'm not on TikTok, so I know it's not TikTok. But if you have not seen the video on Instagram of Kevin Bacon and his daughter doing a dance to that song, you have got to watch it. I have watched it probably 25 times. It makes me smile so big every time I watch it. When I need to smile, I'm like, “Well, let's watch Kevin Bacon dance to this because it is…” Especially if you're a parent, I think you'll find it funny. It was hilarious to me.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, I have a resolution for the New Year that I've been keeping so far. I know this sounds familiar.

Stephanie Goss:
Are you going to join TikTok?

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, that's the resolution a lot of people have been hoping for.

Stephanie Goss:
I thought you were about to make Tannetje's day and then we could have an announcement on the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… you need to do TikTok. And I'm like, “Ah, don't hold your breath.”

Stephanie Goss:
Not TikTok. What is your resolution?

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's the opposite of TikTok. I'm not kidding in this, but my resolution for 2023 is to be more bored. Not more boring, but more bored. I mean that because I noticed about myself that I sort of seek constant distraction, you know what I mean? And I listen to a lot of podcasts. Generally, I have a bunch of podcasts I listen to, I listen to audiobooks. I'm always reading multiple books and that's not bad. In fact, most people are like, “Oh, that's really good because it's not junk,” but I'm feeding my brain and blah, blah, blah. But Stephanie, what I realized about myself at the end of the year was I kind of live in this perpetually distracted state. I'm always listening to something, I'm always thinking about something. I'm always doing something. And I think it's contrary to being present in the moment in a lot of ways.
And so, what I mean, when I say that is I found that it's been my resolution so far, is just not having that phone in my hand all the time or even on my body and to not put my headphones in whenever I have a moment. And so, I like to wash the dishes and listen to podcasts or listen to audiobooks. But I decided it's like, you know what? I'm just going to take a break from doing that for a little while. And what I found is that when I don't have my headphones in and I'm washing the dishes, my kids come and talk to me and they don't come and talk to me when my headphones are in. And my wife walks in and she didn't say anything, but I'm just standing there washing dishes. And so, I say, “How was your day?” And I'm genuinely asking, not just a perfunctory greeting, but how's your day?
And so I've found that I'm having these conversations and I'll go walk the dog and I won't listen to my audiobook or I won't make a phone call just to talk. I'll just walk. And I feel like I get good time just to think. And then the neighbors come out and talk to me. And so, I'm talking to the neighbors now and I'm like, “I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks. But I feel like I'm really connecting to people in a lot of ways.” And I think I do feel like my level of mental fatigue has kind of gone down. But I just say that because my daughter has been dancing at me a lot, but it's because I'm just there and I'm goofing off and I'm not doing anything. And she'll start dancing and you know what I mean? And then it just kind of turns into this thing-

Stephanie Goss:
She's engaging with you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… when I'm on my phone. And so, I don't know, it's just when we were talking about dancing fathers and daughters, it made me think about being bored.

Stephanie Goss:
I like it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And it was funny though, I had this thought as far as we're talking about performance evaluations and stuff. So I was in the kitchen and I had my headphones out and I was just washing dishes. And my wife came in and we were talking and I said something about trying to be more bored. And she was like, “Oh, is that why you don't wear your headphones?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And she goes, “I think it's really great that you're doing that.” And I was like, “Ah, well, thanks for saying that.” She was like, “I hated when you had your headphones at all time. It made me so mad.” And it was funny because my language of appreciation is affirmation. Like that's my love language, affirmation. And so, tell me that I'm doing something good and you'll make me really happy. It's funny because I felt really happy and then I felt really not happy. And I just wonder how much positive feedback is given on the way to negative feedback. You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:
A lot.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I really love how you handled that client. Usually, you're kind of a jerk and you know…

Stephanie Goss:
It's the poop sandwich.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It is. It's the poop sandwich, but it's without a top bun. It's like, “Oh, I wonder how many of us are like, I'm saying something nice and he seems really appreciative. Now, it's my chance to say the mean thing or just the critical thing.” Now's my chance to be critical because I said this nice thing and I'm like, “How much maturity does it take to say the nice thing and then not say the critical thing that you have in your pocket and just be done?” And I think that's really funny, but I was just thinking about it when I was like, “Oh, speaking of performance reviews…”

Stephanie Goss:
I just got one from my wife.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I got one from my wife that sounded like praise. And then quickly turned into, let me tell you how, I hate when you wear your headphones and wash dishes.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, so funny.

Dr. Andy Roark:
She's not wrong. But just all the joy from her initial praise of my resolution just went right down the toilet.

Stephanie Goss:
So it's funny that you say that because we've been fighting that. We've been fighting the same thing. Both of the kids are, and they're same as you. They're listening to audiobooks, they're reading, they're listening to podcasts, and they're really smart kids. And they share stuff with me and I'm like, “I didn't even know that, that's history.” They constantly teach me things. And at the same time, it totally bugs me that they're constantly having earbuds in or have their headphones on. And we'll be in the same room, we're sharing space. But we're all listening to something separate. So on New Year's, I intentionally put my phone down and took my ears out and I was like, “Hey, you two, tiny people, let's have a conversation about what we want to do this year.” And so, we did some bucket listing and some goal setting, but it came about like we were talking about things that we wanted to learn this year.
And I told the kids one of my goals for myself this year, which was to work on my fluency in Irish. So I lived in Ireland and taught high school there and taught in a bilingual school. And so, I can read a decent amount, but my conversational Irish has never been great. And I would love to improve that because I really want to take the kids to Ireland and have them be able to see all of my old haunts and all of that kind of stuff. And so, that was a goal that I set for myself. And I was talking to them about languages and they both were telling me, I was kind of surprised. They were like, “I want to also learn a second language.” And my daughter was like, “I want to become fluent in ASL.” And I've been teaching her ASL since she was little and she actually has quite a good grasp on it.
Honestly, her skills in fluency is surpassing mine at this point, which she was like, “I want to actually be able to converse with people and have total conversations.” And my son was like, “I want to learn Russian.” And I was like, “Where did that come from?” But really, he's like, “I think that I actually want to learn Mandarin.” He's like, “Because it is one of the most commonly used languages in the whole world.” And he starts spouting off about statistics and being able to converse with people. And I was like, “This is great.” And so, we were talking about different ways to learn language, and I was telling them, and I've been using an app and they have been quietly watching me apparently the last three days. Because I started using a language app and was doing my 15 minutes a day and sitting there and practicing. And last night, I come in the front room and they both have their headphones in and I'm like, “Oh, not again.” But I stopped for a second. They're both freaking working on languages.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's cool.

Stephanie Goss:
And I was like, “This is awesome.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's very cool. I like it.

Stephanie Goss:
So yeah, I'm a fan.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The takeaway is there's a balance. It is about intentionally doing things and using your time and then also making some space to just unplug. So like I said, I'm not saying I'm giving up podcasts. I enjoy that stuff, but I think I'm going to be more intentional about when I am listening to audiobooks and when I am intentionally not listening to audiobooks-

Stephanie Goss:
And being bored.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… and I'm just being bored.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, let's talk about intentions a little bit because we got a mailbag question about employee reviews. And it's really funny because we're recording this. By the time this comes out, VMX will be done and over. But I'm actually speaking at VMX with our friend, Megan Brashear, and we're doing a session about employee evaluations. And so, I was really excited for us to talk about this on the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Get it, Stephanie. Get it.

Stephanie Goss:
I can't wait. And Megan is so fun, it's going to be a great session.

Dr. Andy Roark:
She's amazing. She's absolutely an amazing person.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, she is.

Dr. Andy Roark:
She's so great.

Stephanie Goss:
And we both feel passionately about this subject, so I'm super excited. But we got a question in the mail bag about being effective with reviews. And specifically they were asking about questions that are effective for being asked. But they were also specifically asking about who should answer questions on a review? How do you get the best overall picture of an employee? And then they were also asking, should management be reviewed? Like as a manager, should I be getting an annual review? And if so, who should be reviewing me? And I just thought it was a great collection of questions that could go in you and I's hands, could go in a million different ways. But I just thought this would be such a fun one to talk about on the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, this is hard. And I'm not sure how we're going to talk about this exactly. Because it's like where do we talk about what should be and where do we talk about what is in making the best of it? You know what I mean? It's like if someone said, I want to eat ice cream for all three meals and a hot fudge and caramel on top, which flavor of ice cream should I have for breakfast? And you're like, “I think we should back up past what flavor should I have for breakfast and talk about the underlying plan.”

Stephanie Goss:
Should we eat ice cream for all three meals?

Dr. Andy Roark:
You know what I mean? I don't know if that made any sense at all. But that's how I feel when people are like, “What question should we ask in this annual evaluation?” I'm like, “What flavor of ice cream should we have under the chocolate syrup at breakfast?” I'm like, “Wait, how did we get here?”

Stephanie Goss:
That is such a great analogy. I love it so much.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This can just spin wildly out of control. But that's how I feel, I'm like, they swept up somewhere along the way.

Stephanie Goss:
I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And now we're in this bad place asking the final question.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, people get frustrated because I get asked this question a lot as a manager and as someone who speaks as a manager in our industry, I get asked this question a lot or a lot of should questions about reviews. And if you have listened to the podcast, you know that Andy and I both feel like should is a very dangerous word. And my question back to them is, what's the point? Why are you doing a review? What are you trying to do with it? Because that will shape the answer or the opinion that you get. And the why has to be at the forefront of this question. And I feel like the why is almost always the afterthought.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, completely.

Stephanie Goss:
And it's the how, that's the first questions.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. How do you do this? And not the question of, why do you want to do this and what is the point? And it doesn't shape how you do it, it completely defines how you do it. And so, when people say, “What question should I ask?” My response to them is, “What do you want to know? What is the purpose of this exercise?” And they're like, “I don't know. To perform an evaluation.” I'm like, Well, then, ask whatever you want.”

Stephanie Goss:
Because someone told me that I had to check a box once a year.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The point is to perform a review, ask whatever the hell you want. And then really, this is a scheduling exercise. But on the schedule, wait until the time has passed and the person has appeared and then you're done and that's it. You have performed a review and that's it. But I'm not kidding. And again, this is why I go off the rails. I'm like, “what are we doing here?” Anyway, but as we know, there are some people who are like, “I am required to do this evaluation. And so, now, cocky, just tell me now that I have to do this, what do I ask?” But my answer is still the same. “What do you want to know and what are you trying to accomplish?” And so, I don't believe that there is a right way to do an evaluation because there's not a right goal you should be aiming for.
The questions I would ask you, Stephanie Goss, if we sat down together and I was going to do your employee evaluation, they're night and day different from what I would ask Maria Pirita, who works with us as well. And you're both wonderful and you both have similar jobs or do kind of similar things, but you're in wildly different places in your development and in your skillsets and in what your interests are and where you're going and how you're developing, and what's important to you and who you interact with. And all of those things are going to dictate what I would ask you in an evaluation. And that's not even taking into the fact or the idea of, “Is a once a year evaluation a good idea as a format?” And I go, “Well, no.”

Stephanie Goss:
Well…

Dr. Andy Roark:
But inside of it, it would be very different.

Stephanie Goss:
I think because that answer speaks to why you would give us evaluations in the first place. So the why for you would be to have a developmental conversation and talk about goals and the vehicle would be asking us different questions based on who we are, what our interests are, where we are in our career, what we're working on. When you give that answer, you are looking at it from that perspective. And when it comes to employee reviews as a whole, a vast majority of managers and business owners are taught to, and or choose to look at it as a box that has to be checked, number one. Something that has to be done on a prescribed timeline, number two. And is being done, the why is documentation to cover their ass really.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yes.

Stephanie Goss:
Or to figure out how to pay their people. Both of those two things are inherently stupid and messed up systems that I am absolutely against. And so, it is a wild soapbox for me. And it's funny because Megan and I got together and were talking about our session for VMX, and she's like, “How do you feel about annual performance reviews?” And I was like, “Oh, okay, you just handed me a soapbox. Like 10 feet high and said, climb up.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
45 minutes later, you stopped talking. And she was like, ‘Well, that's our presentation, then I'll ask you that question and then I'll go have lunch and you'll just go off.”

Stephanie Goss:
No, but really, that is really unfortunate because it is leftover from where industry and work and employment started in the stone ages. And that is one of those things that has not progressed anywhere near along with wages anywhere near the rate of inflation. We haven't changed this process. We're still trying to apply this process that has been used forever and ever and ever to what we're doing now.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, and a lot of it is driven, and you said this before. A lot of it's just driven by HR. If you're a corporation and not only in corporation in a Megan sense, you'd be a small business. Especially your employment lawyer will tell you, you should be evaluating people and documenting their performance because this is required. So anyway, the frustration, it's not real frustration, but a little bit that you hear is, I am super pragmatic. I want to get things done. And the idea of having an annual evaluation or even these scheduled formal evaluations, I go, “I think they're largely counterproductive to actually growing human beings and leaders and developing people.” But I get that, again, I think it's an HR liability legal thing.
And then also, it's a way when people say, “We want to give raises and we need a formal structure to do that.” That feels fair, and in some way objective. Then evaluations and some sort of a formal grading scales come into that. And so, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't do them. I'm just saying that the way they're usually put forward is not only not super helpful, it's often counterproductive. It drives anxiety levels and cortisol levels through the roof. It makes people really uncomfortable.

Stephanie Goss:
The team hates it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The team hates it.

Stephanie Goss:
They're driven by anxiety. The managers hate it because I will tell you, having run bigger practices, who wants to spend three to four weeks of their life, trying to think back on the last year for my entire team and actually make that actionable and individual? It's an impossible task and it gives everybody anxiety.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. That's our general philosophy on evaluations, the better way… So here's what should happen in Andy's magical world that doesn't exist. In Andy's magical world, that doesn't exist, you would talk to your people in an ongoing basis and you would trust them. And when they did things that were good, you would say, “Hey, that was really great.” And you would not say it on your way to telling them what they had done before that you didn't like.

Stephanie Goss:
It would be a complete full sentence.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It would be a complete…

Stephanie Goss:
You did this thing and it was wonderful, thank you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. It would even be a full sentence. It would be a full interaction. That would be the stop and then we would leave. We would go to other places and stop communicating for a certain amount of time.

Stephanie Goss:
All right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But we would tell them what they did that was good. And then when there was room for improvement or we as a mentor or colleagues saw a place where they could develop, we would say, “Hey, I noticed that you did this thing. Can I give you some feedback on it?” Or, “Hey, this is what you did really well. This is what I need you to work on going forward. Can you do that for me?” And that's the whole interaction there. It's not, “Here's nine things and here's a running history.” It's, “Hey, I saw this go down. Did you see it? Do you agree that that's kind of what happened? Let me tell you what the perception was, looking at it from the outside. Can you do that differently next time?”
And you just give them the feedback right then, not with a pen and paper in your hand. Not in a scary way with a door closed. You just say, “Hey, I need you to work on this. You are really good at this thing. This is what I need you to work on going forward.” And then you go on with your life and you don't treat them like a pariah. You don't avoid talking to them for the rest of the day. You just say it and then they go, “Okay.” And then you go on. And ideally, when the boss says something that hurts their feelings, they say, “Hey, yesterday when you said this, it hurt my feelings.” And you'll say, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. That makes sense that you would hear it that way. That's not how I intended it, but I understand how you heard it. I'm sorry. I'll do that differently next time.” And that's how this whole thing should work. And doesn't that sound like a beautiful, wonderful place to be? Like, does that make sense?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes, it totally does. And then it leads to the question of, well, if we're doing that, what is the point? Because it still asks the question, what's the point of having a review structure? And I would argue that in that hallucinatory world, there is true power. The power gets unlocked in terms of the employee review because then you have the ability to say, “Let's look at where we've been. Let's review the journey.” The word review means let's look back. So what is the look back? Where did we start the year? Where did we end the year? And you have the ability to look at it in the context of the good and the challenges. And what I mean by the challenges is what progress did we make on the challenges? Not these are the things you screwed up and it feels punitive, but these were the challenges you had and this is how you overcame those challenges.
This is the progress you made around those challenges. So it is positive and it is forward focused in the sense of, what are we going to continue doing to continue to change this or improve? And so, for me, when people ask me this question, I ask them, what's the point? What are you trying to do there? Because for me, I as an employee want to exist in Andy's hallucinatory kind of world where the review process and the structure from an HR sense exists to support an employee driven process where I am engaged in my work. Where I get to set goals, where I get to have conversations with you, Andy, that says, “Hey, this is the thing I'm super interested in. This is why I'm interested in it, and why I think it can benefit me and why I think it can benefit the company.”
And we have had those conversations and then we're monitoring the progress of that work. That's the kind of review process I want to be a part of. I hate feeling like I have a system and a structure and I have to check the boxes. And I recognize that myself included in both private and corporate practice, the expectation was set that this is a box you're going to check and you're going to check it once a year. And for a lot of my career, it was tied to money and it was tied to pay evaluations for the team. And that is the thing that I hate more than anything. And I won't soapbox because I could do a whole episode on that alone, not alone. But I recognize that that is a structure that a lot of people have to live within. And so, I think that's really asking the question of what is the point? What are we trying to achieve so that we can manage expectations as best we can is the best possible thing we can do When it comes to reviews.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I just like the term evaluation and I think you're hitting around that as well. I don't want to be evaluated, like weighed, judged, measured. I don't like that.

Stephanie Goss:
Because it puts the power in somebody else's hands.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. You, Stephanie Goss are going to tell me my worth in some way in, and it's not. It's like there's a judge, but no ability for me to say, “Well, this is what was going on,” or “This is the context in which I made decisions,” or “This was going on in my personal life.” And again, I know I'm thinking a little bit far, but not really. I don't like that term, evaluation. You and I do a lot of work with leaders at Banfield and they have their PDP, which is their personal development plan. And I'm like, “I will a 100% show up for my development plan meeting where we talk about what I have done, what I'm doing well, and what I could do in the future or how I could grow and develop going forward.” I'm much more on board with that meeting than we're going to evaluate your performance in the last year and tell you your worth.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think that's the thing that a lot of people wrestle with because for a lot of companies, that was the structure in theory for me in the corporate environment that I worked in. And at the same time, it was still tied to my compensation. It was still the evaluation. And to your point, I think a lot of people try and combat the evaluation by saying, “Well, we're going to have a self-assessment as part of this.” So you get a voice and you get a say. And most of the time, that voice and that say isn't really factored in to balancing out the scale and equaling out the scale. They're giving you the chance to say what you have to say, but how much of that is weighted into your score? And so, I think the system and the structure is inherently flawed and it's something that I love to fight against in terms of veterinary medicine.
But the whole point of the podcast is like, okay, how do we actually make this actionable? What do we do with it? And there's two sides to this. One is the place where you get to live in Andy's hallucinatory world because there are people who are the boss or who are in a position where their practice owner says, “I don't care what you do, as long as you do it and you get to make it all up.” That's the best seat to be in because you get to ask the question, what's the point? What are we trying to do here? What questions are we trying to answer? And you get to make it up, or you're in the camp where there is a structure you maybe don't have say in it, and you still have to do the thing. And so, then how do you make it the most least anxiety driven for you and for your team and how you make it the most effective within the constraints that are placed upon you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
What I want to do, let's take a break here.

Stephanie Goss:
I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about, given the constraints that we're in, let's talk about how we do this. Let's talk about, great, we've told you what we think. That doesn't change the fact that it has to get done. Let's come back and let's talk about how to do it. But one thing I do want to say just before I forget, I think we need to separate the idea of compensation tied to evaluations. That's too much, it's too big to-

Stephanie Goss:
It's a whole soapbox.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, it's a whole soapbox.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The whole other thing. So we're going to put aside anything about how compensation is tied to evaluation. Just how do you do evaluations that don't suck. That's our plan, all right?

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. I like it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, so we are back. Let's go ahead and start to lay this thing down. Now though, I want to talk about this chronologically. I said before the break, Andy's fantasy world where we give feedback on an ongoing basis. Do that thing, and the fact that you have to do an annual evaluation, that should not change. It's not like, well, I'm not going to give feedback in the moment because they're going to get it later on. We all know the idea of giving someone feedback on something they did three months ago is dumb.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, oh, totally. I think the trick that a lot of us miss, myself included, for a really long time was that I would give that feedback and then I wouldn't document it. And so, then, if you are doing some sort of evaluation structure, then you sit down and you're like, “I don't remember what happened over the last year, but I remember the last thing they did that annoyed me.” And that's what we focus on, it's whatever. That's how our human brains are conditioned to look at that negative. So the trick is that documentation. And you're not going to write every little thing down, but you have to have a system for yourself as a leader and as a manager to capture the big things, good and challenging and document it on an ongoing basis.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There's a million ways to do this. I use Notion, I love the app Notion. It's just a great brainstorming app. I'm not talking about sharing with a team. I have it for myself. I have a team gallery, it has all of my people and they have their pictures there and it has their contact information and it has personal things that I want to remember about them, their birthdays, spouse names, kids names, things like that. That I'm like, “I want to just make sure I have all stuff.” And then for each one of them, when I have an interaction with them or something, and I do it when they crush it too. And that's a big point I want to make is do not go around and record all the bad stuff and ignore the good stuff. And then you're like, “What's this evaluation about?” And you look back and you have all the crap, all the bad stuff, all the bad days. Don't be that person.
When they do something great, write it down. And when they do something that needs to be corrected or something you want to work on or an ongoing pattern of behavior, jot that down. But the big thing with this is just have a system. And honestly, I make sure it's on your phone and I say your phone because you're going to think about it when you are at the post office and you're like, “Oh man, that was really great.” And when you get that idea of that person, what they just said was really kind. Pull your phone out, jot the date down, jot down what you saw. And then when you come around to the end of the year, you're like, “Hey look, here's a couple of things I just want to call out. One of the things that I admire most about you is this characteristic.”
And I saw it multiple times through the year. I remember on this date, I saw it here on this date, I saw it here and this day I saw it here. And people go, “Oh wow, you really have been paying attention.” We always think that we're going to remember things. No, you're not going to remember it. You got to have a system to write it down. The evaluation doesn't happen at the evaluation. It should be working throughout the whole year to build a fair and helpful picture of what we're trying to do.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I do very similar except for I am the kind of person where I have to actually write it. So I use a reMarkable tablet and it's basically like a digital notebook. And when I was at the practice, I had a folder for the practice and there was a folder for the team. And just like you with Notion, everybody had their own notebook and I would write it down and you can index the pages. It's like super cool, it's one of my favorite work tools. But it has to be something where you are recording it on an ongoing basis, whether it's your phone or handwriting, but remembering if you're handwriting things, that's what I love about the reMarkable, is that I can then digitally upload it because so many of our hospitals are using HR software.
And the last thing you want to have to do is write it down for yourself in multiple places or then have to spend the time uploading it to the place where it's supposed to go. So looking at your own individual hospital and your own individual systems and figuring out how do I organize this in a way that is not, I have to go unlock a cabinet, pull out Andy's employee file, find the section, and then insert my page here. That should not be your system.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, start your system way in advance and start gathering information so you have real examples. The other thing to do at the same time, probably even before that is figure out what you're doing here. What's the point of this evaluation? Is it, I'm going to bring my employees together so they all know what I think of them? That's arrogant and stupid and not helpful. Who cares what you think of them? Is it so that you can reap justice upon them? And all the people who got away with things will be held accountable. That's a terrible twisted system. Is it so that I can help mentor them and help them grow and help them enjoy their time here and help them be more successful in their career and where they want to go? I mean, the thing is the point of the evaluations, it's not for me.
If I have a problem, I'm going to call you or I'm going to walk up to you and I'm going to tell you about it. And that's how I'm going to handle it. And it will get handled. And so, if we're going to have this sit down meeting, it's not because I need something. Because if I needed something, I would've told you about it already so that I can help you to be happy here and to grow. Because I really feel like as leaders, we have a personal responsibility to try to grow the people underneath us. And sometimes that means we grow them and they outgrow us and I think that that's a good problem to have. That means you're doing good in the world and what are we trying to do here? And you can't hold a meeting if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish.

Stephanie Goss:
And for me, that is the place that I settled that allowed me to sleep at night as a manager was to say, okay, even if I have a system and a structure and I have to live within this, my own personal drive for reviews was to look at how can I help grow this person? What are their goals? What do they want? And so, for me, it was about making it goal driven in whatever form that took with an individual employee because it actually allowed me a lot of freedom and flexibility to say, well, this person has professional development goals like, they want to become a certified tech. Or maybe there was something that they were working on that fit the ladder developmentally.
But it also allowed me the freedom and flexibility to take the people on my team who were like, “I don't actually know what I want to do.” Or, “I really love my job, and yet, I don't want to grow up the ladder, but I still want to learn.” Maybe it's about, I want to learn how to be… I mean, I had one of my team members who was CSR and she was older and I remember the first time we sat down and she said to me, she's like, “I'm probably going to cry.” And she's like, “But you asked me what my goal was going to be for myself in this next year.” And she's like, “I want to learn how to get faster with the computer.” She's like, “Because I feel like I'm always holding everybody up.” And it was so funny because everybody looked at her through that lens of she was the older person who didn't love the computers and she saw that in herself and wanted to fix that.
And it took huge cahonés for her to say that and be vulnerable. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, we can totally help you with that. That's a great goal. It benefits you because it's something that you want and you desire, but it also benefits the team as a whole. Hell yeah, let's come up with some goals around that and a plan to help you get better.” And what does better mean to you? How do we define that? It gives you that flexibility as a manager. And that was where I kind of sat with the whole process is like, how can we make this about where do people want to grow?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I love it. I think there's three pieces to what we put into this evaluation, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So when I'm putting together and I go, “What's going to happen in this evaluation?” So I've generally got an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I've been hopefully documenting behaviors that I want to talk about or things that I feel like are capstone moments for this person throughout the year. Three things. Number one, the questions to ask what I'm trying to figure out what they are. Because I can't tell you what they're, because they're different for everybody.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I, Andy Roark as the leader, what do I want or need to know so that I can help this person to grow and develop? So what are those questions? What do I need to understand so that I can better serve you as a manager, as a boss, as a leader, as a grower and mentor of people?

Stephanie Goss:
What do you love about your job? What do you find most challenging about your job? What feels like the biggest success you've had in the last whatever time period?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, and remember, I love positive inquiry. When you think back on the last year, what have been the highlights for you? When you think about the best day that you can remember working here, what was it? Tell me about your dream day. And again, I'm trying to figure out what you love. Why? Because if I know what you love, I can open up doors for you. I can put you in positions, I can give you opportunities that are going to make you happy. As opposed to being like… And we've all seen things where you're like, “I'm going to give this person opportunity.” And they're like, “Why did you punish me this way?”

Stephanie Goss:
I didn't want that opportunity.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know this is the worst thing ever. I've had people on our team. I'm like, “You're going to do a one-hour presentation at the conference.” And they're like, “What did I do to you?”

Stephanie Goss:
Oh-oh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I mean, you've got great things to share and I thought you would, and they're crying. And anyway, all right, what do I need to know so that I can support you? If I was getting evaluated, what would I want to have happen? It's the golden rule. And so, people are like, “What should we ask in the evaluation?” I would say, “I don't know. If you were getting evaluated, what would you hope that they asked you?” Or “What would you want to be asked?” And then, bam. And that's it. So part of it is give the evaluation that you would like to have. And that doesn't mean from a grading standpoint. But it's like, well, I don't know, evaluation should benefit the employee. They shouldn't be a punishment they have to go through. And so, it's the golden rule. If you were them, what would you hope happens at this evaluation?
And then number three, what would be beneficial to that actual person? And that involves asking them before the evaluation, “Hey, is there anything that you're hoping to talk about at the evaluation? Is there anything that you're looking for? Is there anything that you're going to want to discuss about the coming year?” And ask them. And they might be like, “Oh, I would like to talk more about opportunities for me to learn new skills that I don't have.” And I would say, “Great, I will look around. It will be top of mind for me. Maybe I'll try to get some ideas and then you can come and we'll discuss that then.” And then when they say, “Hey, in this evaluation in the next year, I would really like to do more of this. I'm not caught flatfooted. I've got some ideas.” I'll be like, “Cool, tell me more about what that means.”
And I can at least know what they're going to be interested in and just do a little pre-thought on what questions do I have for them? What do I need to understand to be supportive there? So anyway, just to summarize, what do I need to support this person? What do I need to know? If I was this person, what would I want to have happen? And then number three, just straight up asking them, what do you hope to get out of this meeting? And ask them ahead of time so that I can incorporate that into their evaluation. And I feel like if you ask yourself those three questions and you find that, you can figure out what questions to ask that are going to get you what you need. Between those three things, you've got a multi-hour evaluation session that you're never going to be able to get through anyway.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, yeah. So the format that I ultimately kind of settled on for myself, and you have to make, find what works for you. For me, it was splitting it into three parts as well. The first was where have we been? So the look back. And when I say that, our natural human brain wiring is to go to the negative a lot of the time, and what were the things that stand out? Well, the things that stand out are the client who came into the lobby and got shouty, right? Because that's an event that triggered our brain. And so, when we look back, we often look for those negative things. And so, my own challenge for myself was that if I was going to put anything on the lookback list that was constructive or was a challenge for every one of those, I had to have four other positive landmarks.
So 4-to-1 rule. So for every five things that I looked back at, four of them had to be positive. And I mean really solid concrete examples, not just, “Oh, I said one negative thing. So now I have to come up with four good things to outweigh that.” Because I've been in that position in a structure where I felt like I had to say positive things just to say positive things. But I want to look back at the last year and I want to ask the team member to do the same. What was the last year like for you? And if we're doing our job and we have the documentation, you should have a whole notebook full of positive things that have happened over the last year. Let's pick out some of those highlights and look at it on a developmental curve.
Where has the growth been over the last year versus the last year has been not so great? Which is where review processes tend to focus, I think a lot of the time. And then the middle part is where are we right now? So current state, how are things going? How do you feel about your job? What do you love the most about your job right now? What are you finding most challenging about your job right now? Present state, how are things going? State of the Union on both sides. And this is a conversation, this is not, I've thought about all these traps to catch you in this conversation. It is about really how do you feel about your job? Are you happy? Are you not happy? And where are you going? And there's tons of resources out there for specific questions that you can ask your team in terms of one-on-ones and asking them how they feel about their current state at work.
And then the last part for me is where I try and spend the bulk of the time in a review, which is where are we going? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do in the future? Having it be as future-facing as possible, and looking at it very much from the perspective of what excites them? What do they love about their job? What do they want to do more of? And I love that you ask that question, how can I help them do more of the things that they love, Andy? Because that's really where you get the excitement and the enthusiasm and then the structure, having to set goals, make them smart, figure out how to check those boxes.
That becomes easier to do when there's excitement and passion behind, and a why behind it. If somebody feels like they're doing it just to check the box, you're going to get BS. It's going to be crap in and crap out. And so, for me, it's about what actually excites them about their job, and then focusing on the questions that I want to ask to unlock that and drilling down into their why.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. So quick pearls for doing these as well. So other things I want to put out, I agree with you and I are on the same page as far as figure out what you're trying to do. I liked your idea of past, present, and future. It's a good way to set and organize the thing.

Stephanie Goss:
The structure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, the structure. It's a good structure. I like to sit and think about what is my purpose? What am I trying to create and accomplish here? That's just how my brain tends to work. I think you can put those two things together into something really beautiful and make something. Rules of thumb for me is ideally the person should not be surprised by anything they hear in the meeting. And if you're thinking about your structure and you're like, “Oh boy, they're not going to know that I'm going to say this.”
Then I would say, “Why haven't you communicated that to them before?” If you buy into the Andy idea of we talk about how things are going, not in a scary way, just in a matter of fact like, “Hey, I care about you. I want you to be successful. I want to support you. I'm really honest and transparent about what I need. I want you to be honest and transparent about what you need.” You shouldn't get to the evaluation and someone goes, “Andy, it's been a bad year for you.” And I'm like, “What? I know it's been a great year for me.” “No, it hasn't, Andy.” I don't want that, and nobody wants that. So they should not be surprised by what you're going to say. And if they're going to be surprised, then we have some communication challenges that have nothing to do with the meeting itself, and we need to work on that.
So number one, they should not be surprised. Number two, do everything you can to lower the stakes here. Try not to make this a big scary meeting that they're going to stress out about for a week. And they're going to walk in and their palms are going to sweat and their heart's going to race. That's not productive for actually accomplishing the goals that we talked about. If you're like, “I want to support and develop this person.” Okay, why don't you talk to them they're having a panic attack. That'll be a great approach to take. That'll really help. You're going to crush it, go ahead. It doesn't make any sense. So do everything you can to not make this scary. And the other way you do that is by not telling them things they don't already know.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. So what's your third? You said three.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, so keep them four.

Stephanie Goss:
I've got a third.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, well, I mean, I'll have a four if I want.

Stephanie Goss:
So, well, the last big thing for me that we haven't talked about is for most people, the point of doing this is because there has to be some sort of scorekeeping. There has to be some sort of metric. And so, for me, when it comes to thinking about the questions and even just making it, looking back at the past, looking at the future state and the present state, the question for me is what kind of metrics am I going to use? How do I know what success looks like there?
And I mean, even if you have to use a scale, and I've been there where it's like you get one point for this thing. Then work together to figure out what that success looks like so that you can define a way for them to know what the scale is and how it applies to them. Because that is one of the biggest sources of anxiety when it comes to employee evaluations, is feeling like you don't actually know what the scale is. And whoever's giving you your evaluation is making up the rules as they go.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know, I love that.

Stephanie Goss:
So it's as simple as smart goal setting. If somebody says, “I want to become a licensed technician in the next year,” well, that's maybe not an attainable goal depending on where they are. But it's a great goal because you can absolutely work backwards from there and break it down into a smart goal format where it's time bound and you can measure it. Have they met or have they missed the mark for each one of those steps? And so, for me, that future facing is about, let's dream big, but then let's take some time. And I like to make them two separate meetings because then your point, you're not sitting in a super long meeting. It's like, okay, look, we're excited about these things. How are we going to get there? What is the actual goal going to look like?
And sometimes you have team members who come in right off the bat and they know how to do that on their own. And you're also going to have team members that have no idea how to make that actually actionable and make a plan. But for me, that focus, that excites me, that's my jam. I love sitting there and helping them figure out how are we going to do this? What is that going to look like? And how are we together going to measure this at the end of the time period next month when I ask you, “Hey, how's it going working towards the goal? What is the scale that you are going to grade yourself on and that you would be okay with me grading you on as well?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think that's great. Jumping back to the original question, there was how do we do these evaluations? What questions do you ask? Who should answer the questions? And I think the implication here is if you're trying to get a complete picture of someone in their performance, do you just ask that person or do you ask other people? And the last question is, should management get evaluated? And so, let's go ahead. I would take five minutes right here at the end, Stephanie Goss, should management get evaluated?

Stephanie Goss:
Oh my gosh, you're going to open up another soapbox at the end of the episode?

Dr. Andy Roark:
We're going to hammer this out in five minutes. I think another episode of how should leadership get evaluated? I think it's a whole episode, but let's just lay this down real fast. On the count of three, let's both say whether or not management should get evaluations. 1, 2, 3.

Stephanie Goss:
Hell yes!

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes. All right. Oh God, I didn't know how that was going to go. I was like, “This is going to be awkward.”

Stephanie Goss:
No.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No. The answer is hell yes. And why? Because go back to what I said. What's the point? If the point is to support this person and develop this person, I'm sorry. Would you like to have one of these mystery things that supports and develops? You would say Absolutely. And so, if this thing is meant to support you and develop you, then you would want one. And if you don't want one, I think that's a really interesting thing for you to stop and think about and be like, “I tell people I don't want an evaluation.” And I go, “Okay, well, maybe we should change the evaluation.” You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, anyway, so the answer is if you buy into what Steph and I have been saying about evaluations, first of all, I hate the name. But if you buy into a personal development plan meeting, a personal development checkup or whatever, if you buy into that, then it's more important that leaders get them than anybody. It's like, you need feedback just like the employees do. We're all human, we all have big blind spots. We're all doing our best, but we can't necessarily tell how we impact other people all the time. And so, yes, absolutely, leaders should have them.
And so, then the question becomes who should do them and how do we do them? And I think that that's a whole other episode. My basic thing is this, remember why we're doing this, right? Remember, it's about mentoring people and growing people. It's about getting feedback. It's about getting some guidance in how we develop basic things. If you want to pull in guidance from other people on your team to help get a more complete picture, you can do that. I have seen people blow their faces off doing this. And I'll tell you what you're not going to do-

Stephanie Goss:
The 360 anonymous review.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's exactly it. You are not going to do a 360 anonymous review. That's a terrible idea.

Stephanie Goss:
That's a horrible idea.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's a terrible idea. It's a great idea. It's a terrible, horrible, in practice reality thing. People, it is awful, we don't have time to get into it. It's awful, don't do it. And Stephanie, you've seen me ask for evaluation in our team, and you kind of know how I try to get that feedback and you can comment about how well it works or whatever. But one of my true beliefs is if you are going to get feedback on other people on your team from their coworkers, or if you are the leader and you are asking for feedback, you want to ask in a way that minimizes the chances of bad behavior and unfair analysis and things like that.
And so, one of the quick ways I'll say that I do is I'm a big fan of what I call stars and wishes. And so I'll say, “Hey guys, I'm looking for stars and wishes on Stephanie Goss.” And stars and wishes means a star is, tell me what she's great at. Tell me what she does that you appreciate. Tell me what she's wonderful about. And then a wish is, what would you like to see Stephanie work on in the future? And those are the two questions. Tell me, she's great at, tell me what you love about her. Tell me what you'd like to see her work on in the future. Do not tell me about what she did last week. Tell me about the time that she hurt your feelings. That that's it, just tell me that stuff. And honestly, I have never done anonymous evaluations just because God, I hope that my people trust-

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, I hope it's an awful…

Dr. Andy Roark:
… I hope my people trust enough to say, “Hey, this is a concern that I have,” and it's up to me to be a good steward of their trust. It's up to me. I hope that anyone on my team who had a problem with someone else would come to me and say, “Hey, I'm having this problem,” or “This is a concern that I'm having.” And if they wouldn't do that, I'm like, “Oh man, I have not been doing a good job as being a steward of the trust of my team and I need to work on that.” So anyway, that's in a nutshell, those are my big takeaways on those sorts of other-person reviews.

Stephanie Goss:
I think that that piece needs to be very targeted and very smart in the questions that you're asking because that is the most dangerous part of the evaluation process. It's where I see it blow up every single time where it's blown up on me as a manager, having used that framework and where it has blown up on me as a team member. Giving people an anonymous open-ended source to be able to just vent. “Don't do it. Don't blow your foot off.” That's all I'm going to say. But it is an area where it can be really useful. You have to choose the right questions. And so, asking about things that are objective is the key here. Because if you are asking questions that basically allow people to not be objective and to let their feelings and emotions weigh into it, it's going to get messy really quick.
And so, asking things that are truly objective and measuring, weighing it within the context of the relationship, I need to know. And that's why I hate it being anonymous, because I might have a kennel team member that has worked with me one day in a whole year. I want to be able to hear what they have to say, but weigh that differently than the feedback that might come from you, Andy, where we've worked together as doctor and technician side by side, three days a week for the last 12 months. I want that to be able to have weight, and I can't do that if it's an anonymous system.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree. All right, well, that's what we've got…

Stephanie Goss:
We've created four other podcast episodes for ourselves on this conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark:
A lot of ranting in this podcast. I hope that there were some good actual useful tips, I hope there was.

Stephanie Goss:
I have ideas for three different blogs.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We got that going for us and that's nice. All right, everybody.

Stephanie Goss:
Take care everybody. Have a fantastic week.

Dr. Andy Roark:
See you everybody. Bye.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mail bag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mail bag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.