As a leader, having impactful performance conversations with your employees and team is one of the most important responsibilities you have.

These conversations are essential for aligning everyone's goals, addressing any concerns, and setting clear expectations. However, it can be challenging to know how to approach these conversations and what questions to ask.

Real-time feedback is the key to improving performance and employee engagement.

It's not just about performance, though. It's also about motivation. With annual reviews, you have time to think about your strengths and weaknesses, but when something happens in real time--like a missed deadline or a mistake on an assignment--you're forced to react immediately because there's no time for reflection.

Culture within our teams and organizations happens whether we are intentional about it or not. “Norms” emerge and people begin to recognize how things get done or what is expected in how we perform and treat each other. Today, the quest for employee retention is a critical one and often a difficult one due to so many compounding factors in our world today.

Without prioritization you are contributing to your team’s burnout. If you consider where your company or department will be 2-3 years from now, the obvious choice is fewer goals achieved with depth and wild success as opposed to all goals started with few that met the desired outcome.