Received really good but bad performance feedback

Question

I recently got my performance review and on paper it was glowing. It listed things like how I am passionate, drive teams and the organization to greatness. At my company, we have a manager who gives you feedback based on feedback from others and my actual boss is not the manager who writes the report. My report manager if you will did not collect feedback from my peers, my employees or my actual direct manager. He made it a big point that he said my personality is direct. He could not give me any examples. We did not talk goals and mostly about my personality. I have been at this Company for several years and I have worked at multiple companies over my 20 year career. My direct boss expects me to be the “bad cop” to get things done and appreciates everything I do however he was not at this meeting. The verbal comments are not in writing however it can affect my final rating at the end of the year. The awkward part of this is that my report manager is two levels below me. I actually give him technical direction. Before I left for the weekend , I learn that another manager who is also several levels below me thinks I could work on my “professional blind spots”. I haven’t interacted with this person for many years so the opinion seems biased or a snapshot in time.

At this point I am frustrated, lost and thinking about finding another job. I have worked at several places and never been given this type of feedback before.

Note that I am consistently rated as a top performer every year.

What is the best course of action here? I really enjoy the work that I do, but its extremely discouraging to be told I am doing a bad job and then not receive the "required" plan that is suppose to help/guide me. I feel like I am doing the exact same thing as I was last year(except for attempting to get better at the areas pointed out in the review), but with a new team lead.

Answer 1

I would drop all defense and offer improvement, even if you don't really believe you need it. There's nothing wrong with turning over a few rocks to finding some things that need fixed, and if you base it on feedback, you'll turn over the same rocks, and the problem you need to solve will become clear. Once the problem becomes clear, you can work out some way to solve it.

I'd recommend trying to get examples - if they're not being offered, or given directly, then you'll have to use personal skills to extract them from the people around you in a discreet and tactful manner.

Sometimes people won't tell you there's a problem, but they'll tell someone else. Maybe ask your boss to help you get feedback. Especially! the one that's criticizing you right now.

Answer 2

The awkward part of this is that my report manager is two levels below me.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Normally, Your performance review is your boss's responsibility and no one else's. Talk to you boss and ask him why the performance review system is the way it currently is. It's certainly NOT industry standard in any way form or shape, so there has to be a reason.

Tell your boss that you are more than happy to receive actionable feedback that's based on examples and actual data. But vague and undocumented feedback from someone that's only vaguely familiar with what you do is simply not helpful and can not be translated into something you can actually do.