Some advice for your upcoming performance review

The unwritten rules nobody tells you

Great White Heron. Courtesy of the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, Montgomery County Audubon Collection, and Zebra Publishing

Performance review season is upon us, so I wanted to share a few pieces of advice. I have experienced the high highs and the low lows of performance reviews as both a recipient and a giver of the review, and generally think they are a broken concept and that most people never learn the unwritten rules that secretly govern them. Nonetheless, they persist, and so I am here to help.

I consider myself eminently practical, so over the years I've taken note of what works and how certain people seem to always land in the right place at the right time when it comes to promotions.

Today I want to share some immediate tactics for anyone who has a review this month (part 1), then I’ll share some thoughts on the long game (part 2).

Part 1: Taking control of the process

First, let's talk about how to handle the actual review process. Here's how it typically works:

1. You write a review

2. Your manager and peers write reviews

3. Reviews go into a secret chamber where leaders decide who gets promoted

4. Everything gets locked

5. Your manager shares your final review with you

This process works great for the company. For you? Not so much. By the time you're having that conversation with your manager, it's too late to influence anything. Plus it's stressful – you end up sitting around anxiously waiting for "the news" about your fate.

There’s got to be a better way!!

Instead, take matters into your own hands. But importantly, do it in a way that feels to your manager like you're making their life easier, not like you're trying to pressure them into promoting you.

Write your review early. Follow a structure like this, and remember—This isn't just about listing accomplishments – it's about showing how your work connects to broader team and company objectives:

1. Thesis statement about your impact (e.g. “my top strengths are x, y, and z, as demonstrated by initiatives I led including a, b, and c.”)

2. Strengths

   1. Identify 3 key strengths, with specific examples, impact metrics, and competencies for each

3. Growth areas:

   1. 1-2 known weakness and how you've worked to improve them

   2. An area you’re excited to grow into

4. A quantitative score that aligns with your company’s process (e.g. 4/5)

Then, get ahead of the game:

1. Ask your manager if they would be open to providing feedback on a draft of your self-review. Say you want to ensure that you are both on the same page before formal reviews kick off and to get their advice on positioning your work effectively.

2. Schedule time with your manager to review your draft. While sending it in advance shows preparation, offering time during the meeting for them to read it acknowledges their busy schedule. This approach demonstrates both initiative and consideration.

3. Ask questions from a place of curiosity and humility. If they feel like you are trying to convince them that you deserve a promotion when they aren’t so sure, they will disengage and you will not get helpful information. Ask questions like:

   1. Do you think any of your peers would disagree or take issue with anything here?

   2. Is this the strongest way to position myself?

   3. Is there anything that would make this case stronger to your boss, or to your peers?

   4. Based on what we've discussed, does a [rating] feel like an accurate reflection of my performance this period? I want to ensure my self-assessment aligns with your perspective.

   5. What do you think my expectations should be going into this review cycle?

4. If, and only if, you get positive signals, follow up in your next 1:1:

   1. "Thanks for your feedback on my review. I’m really proud of the year I’ve had and I really appreciate your mentorship throughout it. I know you can't promise anything, but I do want to say that I believe I am operating at the next level. If you feel comfortable championing me for a promotion, it would mean a lot. I don't need a yes or no – I just wanted to share that. And if there's anything I can do to make you feel more equipped to talk about my impact, I'm all ears."

I like this approach, as both a manager and someone who has a manager, because it:

1. Lets you make your case before your manager has to make any decisions

2. Helps you gauge whether a promotion is even on the table before you advocate for one

3. Gives you intel about potential roadblocks from their peers

4. Never forces your manager into awkward promises they can't keep

5. Makes their job easier by giving them clear documentation

BTW you can also do this for peer reviewers. Even if you don’t meet with them, you can and should send them notes about how you plan to position yourself in your own review. It makes their life 1000x easier, and it will result in a better peer review. This feels like cheating but it is not. It is a win win!

Part 2: The truth about promotions

Unfortunately, I must now share another truth about performance reviews: even crushing it for a year isn't enough to get promoted at higher levels. In many cases, there’s an unwritten rule that people who get promoted into leadership positions were already doing those jobs. This goes counter to many junior people’s instincts about how this works. Why? Because school taught them all the wrong lessons about how jobs work.

Why school is a bad mental model for work

Early in your career, you probably treat your job like school. Most people expect career growth to work like this—the “graduation” model:

1. Work hard and do what's asked

2. Time passes

3. Promotions arrive every 1-2 years

4. New opportunities come with the title

This is how school works. It's not how jobs work – at least not past your first couple promotions. If you're talented, you might get promoted this way a few times. Then you'll hit a ceiling. (And in our post-ZIRP era, there are way more ceilings than elevators.)

How senior promotions actually work

Around the Senior Manager level, promotion becomes a lagging indicator. You need to already be doing the next-level job to get promoted into it. And I don’t mean, like, “performing at the next level” based on some rubric. I mean you literally got the job already.

This is why approaching career growth as a series of conversations with your manager about the “gaps” you need to fill is not sufficient. It implies that you simply need to identify and then fill these perceived “gaps,” and then you will meet some mystical performance bar and the promotion will arrive. In reality, what usually happens is:

1. An opportunity emerges – maybe a leader leaves, a new initiative starts, or there's a reorganization

2. Your manager (or their manager) needs to give someone the reins

3. They ask themselves, "Who do I trust to knock this out of the park?" They may ask other leaders, as well

4. If they trust someone internally – someone who handles ambiguity well, drives results, and communicates clearly – that person gets "additional responsibilities." This may or may not be formally announced

5. That person does the new job for several months

6. If it goes well, they eventually get promoted and formally take on the role. If not... they don't

How to be in the right place at the right time

You can "check all the boxes" on your development plan and still miss these crucial opportunities. Here's how to actually get them (above and beyond doing your job well, which is obviously important):

1. Make your manager's job easier, not harder. Ask them, and their manager, and other leaders, how you can help, and then deliver. Prep them for important meetings, share useful context they might have missed, and anticipate what their stakeholders will ask.

2. Anticipate problems and provide clear solutions. Pay attention to emerging business challenges. Ask your manager what leadership is trying to figure out, then get ahead of it – write up a doc sharing your perspective, with concrete recommendations and sound evidence. The most valuable opportunities often go to people who spot needs early and start solving them before anyone asks.

3. Become the go-to person for answers. Handle leadership questions clearly and confidently. Anticipate what they'll ask ahead of meetings and prepare answers. If you whiff something in a meeting, get the answer that same day and follow up with a quick but thoughtful email.

4. Visibly accelerate velocity. Be the one updating public channels with progress and action items, driving clarity on who is doing what and by when, especially after meetings. Get important meetings on the calendar. Share results broadly, before anyone expects to see results, then share updated results the next day.

5. Crush every problem you take on, but do not take on every problem. Beware taking on too much – quality suffers, and people notice. Learn to focus and execute. Show that you understand and spend your time on what matters.

Do this consistently and be patient. Eventually, an opportunity will come along, and everyone will look to you as the indisputable best candidate for the job. It might happen around performance review season, but it can truly happen at any time.

It might seem like some people are always in the right place at the right time. But 'the right place' is actually just being the person everyone already trusts to solve hard problems, and 'the right time' happens any time someone quits, gets promoted, or starts a new initiative (so, like, every 6 months).

Best of luck to anyone hoping for good news from their overlords. I hope this helps you find some agency in a maddeningly opaque process, and I wish I could give you all raises.

xoxo,

Hilary