A Handy Post-Earnings Season Survival Guide + Lee’s take on IBM, CSCO, KFT, YHOO, PFE, WFC, GE, WMT, SHLD, JCP, VZ, DELL, HRL, AMAT and CAKE
 InvestorsObserver Featured Contributor
Lee M. Allen |
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As your typical red-blooded earnings seasons go, the one we just completed was not so bad. People I know who can actually read charts for stocks like International Business Machines (IBM), Cisco (CSCO), Kraft (KFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) have told me confidentially that investors did not lose 40% of their portfolios in the days and weeks after these companies reported like a year or so ago.
So, now that all the big guys have had their moments of truth to disclose their results, maybe it’s time to turn some attention to results that are a little closer to home. Your home…
I’m talking about your annual performance review and a few tips for how to survive it. Those of you who panicked, cried and fainted during your annual review know what I mean. The allegedly brave ones were probably napping through the one-on-one session.
So here are some insights that may help you make it through this year’s review and come out on the other end ahead…
Read on for Lee’s insights on improving your personal earnings …
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Perfect Job #234 – Deodorant Tester
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Perfect Job #312 – Zoo Summer Intern
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Whether you work for a three-person garage startup or a big company like Pfizer (PFE), Wells Fargo (WFC), or General Electric (GE), at some point in your career you will go through a performance review. Hopefully it will not be at a prison laundry.
If you’re retired, you may think your years of performance reviews are well behind you. Think again. If you volunteer, expect a little one-on-one at some point. That’s a performance review, even though it is hard to give a volunteer a pay raise. Maybe a few more donuts and another cup of coffee. And of course there are the countless one-on-one mini-reviews with your spouse or significant other. Always fun and enlightening. How many times can people complain about how you chew your food until they get the message that this is not going to change unless you modify your diet to be liquid only?
Suffice it to say, there are many benefits to being prepared for these uncomfortable annual review encounters. This is not just another day at the office. With unemployment running at all-time highs, this could be just the start of another round of layoffs. Your very career survival and those all-important perks could be at stake. I don’t mean to scare you, but these are trying times so you need to have a strategy going into your all-important annual performance review meetings.
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Some companies are very structured. Supervisors painstakingly document the entire process. This is usually followed by a stack of forms you will need to sign whether you read them or not. All this so your boss looks busy for a few weeks.
I don’t think there is an actual performance review season. It seems like right when you get comfortable again, some memo goes out that your review meeting has been scheduled. Usually with a person you have not talked with since your last annual review. If you think you have it bad, just remember these reviewers could be stuck doing unsavory meetings like this hundreds of times. You only need to do it once.
So… Here are Lee Allen’s patent pending annual review survival tactics…
1) Don’t go first
It’s best if you go as close to last as possible. By then your boss will be comparing you to all of your whiny, well below average, pathetic coworkers; so when you use the other tactics listed below, you will look brilliant and positively CEO-like.
2) Miss the first appointment
To underscore your true importance to the company, plan on missing the first review appointment. But you better have a good reason or you may not get a second chance and find two large security guards ready to escort you from the premises. Simply getting caught up in a round of Farmville is probably not good enough. Try this… Mention to your biggest customer that you might have a few ideas to help them cut costs by 25% and schedule a phone call for the exact time as your review. This way you can say you got stuck on a call with Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears (SHLD), or J.C. Penney (JCP). If these are not your customers yet, call the local store and ask someone to call you back. You can still say you got stuck on a call with Wal-Mart, Sears, or J.C. Penney’s.
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Perfect Job #402 – Target Practice Sign Holder
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3) Take the initiative right from the start and run with it
Once you get to the actual review session, the reviewer will probably start off with some type of throw away small talk before getting into the meat of things. Use this as your opportunity to take the meeting over. Put the reviewer on the defensive with a comment like, “What’s with the rumor that you’re leaving the company for one of our competitors?” After they wipe the surprised look off their face and deny it, say, “Oh, maybe you didn’t know about it.” That should put the reviewer on odd footing. When things start to calm down a bit, say, “The word is you are moving to Bulgaria…” At this point you own the room. Trust me. You can probably keep this going for half the meeting.
Perfect Job #422 – Quantum Physicist
With A Funny Mustache
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4) Get into maximum “kiss up” mode
After you have beaten down the reviewer with the stuff above, it’s the perfect time to slide into maximum “kiss up” mode. This is where you compliment everything about the company. How good the coffee is, your great coworkers, the wonderful tasks that fall into your lucky hands day after day. If there is no coffee, then praise how the company’s anti-caffeine policy is commendable and you are proud to work there. When all else fails, talk about how the founder is your personal role model and you plan on naming a child, car or pet after him or her. Lay it on as thick as you can. I did this once and when I saw the reviewers appraisal, it said, “Has excellent judgment.” My judgment is no better than basset hound that has to choose between Alpo or Dinty Moore Beef Stew – a product of Hormel (HRL). But lay on those compliments and even in a big company like Verizon (VZ), Dell (DELL), or Applied Materials (AMAT), your trip to a corner office, more perks, and a hot secretary could be mere days away.
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5) Summary of achievements
Just in case there is any time left, be sure you bring a detailed list of your achievements for the year. If you are like me, the list could be pretty short or include things like being able to finish an entire meal including appetizer and dessert at the Cheesecake Factory (CAKE). You may need to use a little imagination to expand your list. Look around and see what kind of wins the company has had over the last year and be sure you are in some way a part of all those wins. It may be as simple as making sure you get invited to a meeting, presentation, or victory party. If all else fails, go for something like how you parked farther away in the company lot so a valuable player would have a shorter, safer walk to the building. In fact, you could probably say you potentially saved that Vice President’s life. Other nearly sure-fire pseudo-achievements could be going to a store and moving your company’s products to a better shelf location, buying pizza for the people down in customer support, or working on your golf game so some day you can close a big sale on the golf course. When I have used this tactic, reviewers wrote this about me, “The actual essential glue that holds the organization together.”
As you ride off into the sunset after your annual review, confident of your boss’s adoration, you should feel safe in the knowledge that words like “has excellent judgment” will be forever associated with you and not that Alpo-eating basset hound.
If you have any more sure-fire ideas for doing well in annual performance reviews, email me at LeeAllen@InvestorsObserver.com
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Perfect Job #456 – Being Dwight
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