It’s performance review season again…
And sometimes you hear the exact same feedback as last year.
Just before summer break, many organizations are in the midst of these rounds of discussions, the mid-year reviews.
Of course, you hear useful feedback, and there’s one specific category that comes up every year. These are the subtle, behavioral comments:
“You could speak up and make yourself more visible.”
“You should share your opinion more often.”
“You could be a bit more assertive.”
“You could filter a bit more before you respond.”
These are issues you’ve known about for a while. But it’s only during these conversations that you realize just how much of an impact they apparently have on how your manager or others view you.
How do you change this kind of behavior when certain colleagues, tensions, or situations keep triggering the same response in you over and over again?
The first instinct after such a performance review is often to simply “do better.” Yet that’s precisely when it often becomes clear just how stubborn some patterns can be. Especially within organizations where existing relationships and the culture unconsciously trigger the same automatic reactions time and again.
What does help, however, is understanding why certain situations keep triggering the same behavior in you. Why you make yourself small when you actually want to speak up. Why you hold back when you have ideas. Why you resort to pleasing others, avoiding the issue, or downplaying it when situations feel uncomfortable. Or why you immediately speak up and start pushing to be heard. Often, these are patterns that once made sense but now work against you in your current role. You’re paying too high a price for them now.
As a coach, I help people gain clarity on those patterns and break through them step by step. Coaching often creates the calm and space needed to see things differently, make different choices, and do your work with greater balance and confidence.
From reflex to response.
Do you find yourself running into a difficult or familiar issue this time around? Feel free to send me a message for a complimentary introductory session.
