As the mood for the appraisal season sets in, one can witness the surroundings suddenly getting sober and sad, it is almost as if we are about to witness few funerals around us!! It is hard to fathom why after slogging through the year, with a series of wins & several doses of appreciations, we are still not in a mood to celebrate but getting ready to mourn…

Feedback sessions have become a mechanism to share bad news, rather than a moment to pause to celebrate. Often, it is the feedback by managers which makes us believe we have not done enough, or we are somewhere in the center of the bell curve with lava boiling around us. So, the question arises why feedback conversations are not surrounded around celebrating our life (successes in the last one year) but mostly focus on mourning (what I didn’t do well, or what others have well, and I haven’t been able to do).

Gone are the days where one could motivate the team members by hurting their pride or making them believe they haven’t achieved their purpose and there is a long way to go. These tactics work only on a few, in this era of abundance or occasionally when the project deadline is near, or when we are in a war situation – mourning and hurting pride can’t be an annual ritual for ALL the employees across the organization.

So why do we fall into this trap of mourning the death and not celebrating the life which we have lived?

Well, here are some answers:

• Employees get defensive when they are told they are not good enough
• Bad news means shorter conversations
• Hurting your pride boosts my ego as a supervisor(Treat your team members as children and not competition)
• This is the way I was given feedback so I will pass on the same
• Appreciation leads to higher expectations, so mellow it down as bell curve is around the corner

It is important for HR and Line Managers to appreciate the need to have a change in our mindset. We cannot continue the legacy of mourning as a theme for feedback anymore. It is time we learn to celebrate the success, however small or insignificant it is. We need to teach and coach our employees to build on their strengths that lead to their success. We have all experienced in our lives that it takes a long time to build confidence and overcome our fears, but it takes just a few minutes to get dejected and slip back.

Some important initiatives which we can start in our organizations to change this mood are:

• Move away from the guilt that if someone is celebrating then it is at the cost of someone else. We are not in a war where someone can win provided someone loses
• Explain how the bell curve works to one and all
• Announce the bell curve before the appraisal process starts
• Coach and train managers on how to have healthy conversations and celebrations
• Build-in mechanisms where feedback and conversations are not the means to justify the ratings only

There comes a time for each generation where it is at a crossroads, this is the time for us, do we choose to continue the path of mourning, or do we choose a path of celebrations where we value each person’s contributions and thank them for being a part of our wonderful journey.