Dealing with unexpected responses
Featured in the Skills of Appraisal and Performance Review training manual
By Val Rowland & Ken Birkett
Category: Performance Management
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
A performance appraisal interview may be going well when, without warning, the appraisee responds in a totally unexpected way. Two people will often place a different emphasis on the same set of facts, but this time it is more than that. You may feel surprised, even dumbfounded, but still need to give a credible response. Being caught without a plausible reply is a concern of many people in an exposed situation. But there are effective steps to coping, and people like lecturers, sales staff and politicians learn them quickly. It is a matter of looking at the facts and feelings that may have prompted the remark (perhaps outburst), then seeing what the person has said within the context of the organisation and their place within it. Doing that points the way to control.
As an introduction to the training activity, the participants are advised that an effective exchange of information is vital to an appraisal interview, and that agreement can be derailed by unexpected responses from an interviewee. The participants consider a situation where the unexpected could arise, decide how best to react and analyse their reasoning. Working with a partner, they next look at some root causes of interviewees going off at a tangent. The participants are then introduced to a way of classifying unexpected remarks into subject areas. With the same partner as before, they categorise comments according to what seems the obvious category and what they feel is the real root cause. The final exercise is a case study bringing together the two aspects of coping with unexpected responses discussed in this training activity. The training activity closes with a summary of the important learning points in the form of a definition of unexpected responses and a diagram of the process for dealing with them.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with participants to analyse a case study and identify causes and solutions when dealing with unexpected responses.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:50:00 |
| No of Pages: | 27 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers for appraisal training. In addition, this training activity can be used as part of a communications course and in supervisor training. It covers one of the essential techniques used in performance appraisal interviews.
Download the training activity, Dealing with unexpected responses as featured in the Fenman training manual; Skills of Appraisal and Performance Review