Why Some Managers Keep Asking About Your Past Instead of Your Future at Work

There are plenty of instances within organizations in the United States where people find themselves in meetings designed to shape future actions, but that end up spending considerable time justifying previous choices.

These discussions typically happen in the context of reviews, role transitions, or feedback sessions when people should be considering future plans, but they end up explaining previously made decisions.

Whereas management believes that they are being responsible by asking these kinds of questions, employees tend to perceive such interactions as very demanding. This process can ultimately change how employees feel about participating in such discussions.

Why managers focus on past performance

The use of past experiences by managers is also common since they give tangible examples that can be analyzed and judged. Reviewing past activities allows managers to gain insights into areas of strength, weakness, and trends that could possibly affect their future decision-making when it comes to job allocation.

Based on an academic article in PubMed, managers are also prone to anchoring their reviews on past events because it is objective, grounded in data, and thus provides justification for performance-related decisions in organizations.

The anchoring effect also emanates from work cultures where there is more emphasis on responsibility and measurable success, making people discuss past occurrences. The problem with focusing on past activities is that there are numerous elements that determine the performance of individuals.

How employees interpret these conversations

Employees rarely experience such discussions as impartial assessments, regardless of whether the manager intended the discussion to be so. Furthermore, frequent inquiries into the employee’s performance in the past may be experienced as an attack on their competence or reasoning.

Several studies have indicated that criticism focused on previous performance leads to self-serving bias among people. It implies that individuals defend themselves in the face of criticism by justifying their behavior or blaming the situation.

This does not necessarily mean that the employee wants to deflect attention from the problem. On the contrary, the individual experiences self-protection mechanisms. Such a reaction significantly decreases the value of the meeting because employees spend too much time defending their case.

The impact on motivation and engagement

Employees can feel that their future prospects have been ignored when their feedback meetings concentrate more on the negative aspects of the past than anything else, which results in frustration and a feeling of being stuck, as there has not been much talk about development.

As mentioned in the PubMed article, one of the downsides of retrospective feedback is that it makes employees less accepting of feedback and less likely to participate in development processes, as they will be more concerned with justifying themselves.

Motivation can ultimately be affected, as feedback sessions may start feeling like stressful situations to employees.

Why future-focused feedback works better

Talking about future goals will enable the manager to have a different effect on the employees by shifting their attention from where they currently are to where they need to be. This will make the employees feel like they are being encouraged instead of feeling criticized.

As indicated in the above article, future orientation will decrease employee defensiveness since it shifts the focus of the discussion from negative outcomes in the past to future possibilities that the employees should explore.

The discussion will also help the employee know what he or she needs to do in the future.

The role of training and communication

Today’s organizations realize that the way in which feedback is provided is equally important as the actual message conveyed. There have been some positive findings on the effectiveness of training managers to conduct forward-looking discussions, leading to better results for the employee and for organizational performance.

As found in PubMed literature, employees perceive their evaluations more positively when their managers have learned how to highlight development aspects of performance reviews.

It takes a great deal of effort to change managers' approach from evaluative to one that supports employees and motivates them to improve.

A small shift with a big impact

Although concentrating on previous achievements may sound sensible, this process may trigger some unforeseen psychological effects that prevent any further success. Staff members are going to be motivated to achieve their goals when they get information that shows them the way ahead, and not when they keep getting reminders about their past.

It is important to recognize that such an insight will allow organizations to improve their communication systems, with feedback becoming a means of development and not confrontation. Minor modifications in communication patterns can produce visible results.