Majority of us are familiar with tiny area of our brains, called Amygdala, which is in charge of well-known fight or flight reaction. There is no need to expect a tiger attack in the office environment anymore, but this little worrier is not giving up and keep looking for the next danger – for example, performance review meeting.
And when amygdala is active, our thinking, analytical brain shuts down.
TIP OF THE DAY: Keep Amygdala quiet!
When you are going to conduct a performance review and you want an employee to feel safe, more open minded and cooperative try this:
1. Use small conference room or someone else’s office to have this meeting, so you both
will be guests in the space.
2. Smile, have a funny joke ready, have a small talk. It will put you both in better and more
relaxed mode.
3. Sit beside each other, not across the table. You are not enemies on the opposite sides of
the river, you are colleagues with very similar interests.
