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Marie is a workplace psychologist with more than 25 years of experience in coaching, human resources, and management. She is the author of “Secrets to Winning at Office Politics”, and her career advice has appeared in Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Canadian Business, and many other publications. Though her international coaching practice, Marie has worked with clients from more than 20 different countries.

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    Due to high volume, not all questions can be answered, but Marie will respond to as many as possible.

    Featured Question

    “My boss surprised me with a bad review!“

    After working with my manager, “Julia”, for eight years, I recently received my first negative performance review.  My previous appraisals have all been quite good, with no suggestions for improvement.

    Julia has said that she is planning to retire because she feels she has no future here.  Our business was recently acquired by another company, and the new management has a very different style. 

    If Julia is planning to leave soon, I don’t understand why she would give me a negative review now.  After she retires and I get a new boss, I’m afraid this appraisal will make a bad first impression.  What should I do about this?  

    Marie’s Answer:

    Your negative review is clearly a warning sign, so you should definitely try to find out more.  If Julia has always seemed satisfied with your work, this feedback might reflect someone else’s opinion.  Given the recent leadership change, it may actually have originated with higher management.

    Because Julia has had difficulty adjusting to the acquisition, perhaps she failed to explain how objectives have changed under the current executives.  As a result, you could have met her expectations but still fallen short of theirs.  

    To explore this possibility, ask Julia whether anyone else contributed to the negative feedback.  If so, try to talk with that person about how you might improve, then create a personal development plan and request that it be filed with your review.  Once Julia is replaced, you can explain the situation to your new boss and agree on an updated set of goals.

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