Performance plans
A performance plan is a document before it is a conversation
Being put on a plan feels like a verdict. On paper it is something much more useful and much less final: a list of claims, each of which can be checked.
The first thing almost everybody does is reply in the meeting. You are told there are concerns about your work, you are handed two pages, and you start defending yourself out loud while still reading paragraph one. This is the worst possible moment to say anything at all.
What to say instead is one sentence: thank you, I would like to read this properly and come back to you on Thursday with a written response. Nobody refuses that. It buys you the only thing that helps.
Read it as a list of claims
Take a highlighter to it. Every sentence in a performance document is one of exactly three things, and they need completely different answers.
- A fact. "Three deliverables were late in Q2." Checkable. Go and check it - people are wrong about this more often than you would believe, because they are working from memory.
- A judgement. "Communication has been poor." Not checkable as written. Your job is to get it converted into something that is.
- An instruction. "Must attend the Monday planning call." Easy. Do it, and record that you did.
Most plans are about seventy per cent judgement, which is also why they feel so impossible to answer.
A judgement you cannot fail is also a judgement you cannot pass.
Turn judgements into instructions, in writing
For every judgement, reply with a question that offers an answer:
On communication - I want to make sure I hit what you are looking for. Would it meet the bar if I sent a written summary to the group every Friday, and flagged any slipping deadline the day I know rather than at the next check-in? If there is something else you have in mind I would rather do that instead.
Two things happen. Either you get a specific standard, which you can then demonstrably meet. Or you get vagueness in reply, in writing, which is itself worth having.
Keep the record without being strange about it
After every meeting, send a short mail: what was discussed, what you agreed to, what they agreed to. Warm, brief, no legal register. This is ordinary good practice and nobody blinks at it.
Do it from the first day, not from the day it starts going badly. Records that begin halfway through look exactly like what they are.
Be honest about which one this is
Some plans are genuine. Somebody wants you to improve and has written down how. Those are worth taking seriously and people do get through them.
Some are paperwork before an exit. The signs are reasonably clear: the targets are not measurable, the timeline is short, the check-ins keep getting cancelled, and nothing you do moves the assessment.
You usually know which one you have within a fortnight. The written approach is worth doing either way - it is what makes a real plan survivable, and it is what gives you something to point at if it turns out to be the other kind.