Streamlining Performance Review Processes

✨ New resource: a PM Performance Evaluation template Throughout my 15+ years as a PM, I’ve consistently felt that ladder-based PM performance evaluations seem broken, but I couldn’t quite find the words to describe why. Early on in my PM career, I was actually part of the problem — I happily created or co-created elaborate PM ladders in spreadsheets, calling out all sorts of nuances between what “Product Quality focus” looks like at the PM3 level vs. at the Sr. PM level. (looking back, it was a non-trivial amount of nonsense — and having seen several dozens of ladder spreadsheets at this point, I can confidently say this is the case for >90% of such ladder spreadsheets) So that led me to develop the Insight-Execution-Impact framework for PM Performance Evaluations, which you can see in the picture below. I then used this framework informally to guide performance conversations and performance feedback for PMs on my team at Stripe — and I have also shared this with a dozen founders who’ve adapted it for their own performance evaluations as they have established more formal performance systems at their startups. And now, you can access this framework as an easy to update & copy Coda doc (link in the comments). How to use this template as a manager? In a small company that hasn’t yet created the standard mess of elaborate spreadsheet-based career ladders, you might consider adopting this template as your standard way of evaluating and communication PM performance (and you can marry it with other sane frameworks such as PSHE by Shishir Mehrotra to decide when to promote a given PM to the next level e.g. GPM vs. Director vs. VP). In a larger company that already has a lot of legacy, habits, and tools around career ladders & perf, you might not be able to wholesale replace your existing system & tools like Workday. That is fine. If this framework resonates with you, I’d still recommend that you use it to actually have meaningful conversations with your team members around planning what to expect over the next 3 / 6 / 9 months and also to provide more meaningful context on their performance & rating. When I was at Stripe, we used Workday as our performance review tool, but I first wrote my feedback in the form of Insight - Execution - Impact (privately) and then pasted the relevant parts of my write-up into Workday. So that’s it from me. Again, the link to the template is in the comments. And if you want more of your colleagues to see the light, there’s even a video in that doc, in which I explain the problem and the core framework in more detail. I hope this is useful.

Maybe it’s time to start over One of the CEOs I’m coaching recently called me, exasperated. He’d just come out of another round of mid-year performance reviews. He described the ritual we all know too well: Goals set in January that everyone forgot by March. Feedback requests nobody wanted to give - or receive. Self-reviews that sounded like a mix of sales pitches and confessions. Calibration sessions behind closed doors where people who barely knew the work decided who was “exceeds,” “meets,” or “below.” Development plans destined to sit untouched in the HR system. “And then,” he said, “we all acted surprised that nothing has changed.” He paused. “Why are we still doing this?” It was the question that most leaders think but rarely voice. I asked him: “Do you believe this process is actually salvageable?” There was a long silence. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’ve tried everything - simplifying the form, shortening the cycle, training managers to be better coaches. It still feels broken.” Then he said something that made me sit up straight: “What if we just started over? Blow it up if we have to. Let’s build something that actually changes behavior, not just records it. Because honestly, when was the last time a performance review changed how you or I showed up the next day?” That’s when it clicked. This CEO didn’t care about performance reviews. He cared about performance. He cared about the conversations people actually need to have: The hard truths no one says out loud. The recognition people crave. The clarity on where they stand and how to grow. Making all their work visible - not just what someone remembers from last month. It’s about designing a performance culture where feedback is real-time, usable, and impactful, not an annual (or semi-annual) box-ticking exercise. So here’s my question for every leader reading this: Why do we keep pretending this broken system will suddenly start working? If you could start from scratch, what would you build instead? What if we designed something that: Made feedback an everyday habit, not an annual ritual. Valued growth as much as outcomes. Treated people like adults who want clarity, not just scores. Captured real-time data to truly see everyone’s impact. Tied pay to market value and role scope - instead of using flawed ratings to justify it. That CEO stopped tweaking around the edges. He’s building something new, and he’s given his HR team permission to rethink everything. It may be imperfect at first. But it will be built for how the business needs to excel. And that’s what matters in today's workplace - impact, not activity. If you’ve ever blown up your performance process, or even thought about it, I’d love to hear your story. Maybe this is the year we finally stop pretending that performance reviews actually drive performance.

Here is the final post on adaptive surveys where I cover technical integration and implementation steps. Interested in your thoughts! Technical Integration... 1. NLP & NLU: Utilize NLP and NLU capabilities of LLMs to interpret open-ended responses accurately. This includes sentiment analysis, keyword extraction, and contextual understanding. 2. Real-Time Processing Framework: Implement a robust real-time processing framework capable of handling the computational demands of LLMs, ensuring that the adaptive logic can operate without noticeable delays to the respondent. 3. Data Privacy and Security: Ensure all integrations adhere to the highest standards of data privacy and security, especially when handling sensitive respondent information and when using LLMs to process responses. Implementation Steps... 1. Objective Setting and Mapping: Define the survey based on your business objectives and map out potential adaptive pathways. This stage should involve a multidisciplinary team including survey designers, data scientists, and subject matter experts. 2. Question Bank Development: Develop an extensive question bank, categorized by themes, objectives, and potential follow-up pathways. This bank should be dynamic, allowing for updates based on learnings from existing survey responses. 3. Algorithm Design: Design the adaptive algorithm that will decide the next question based on previous answers. This algorithm should incorporate machine learning to improve its predictions over time. 4. Platform Integration: Integrate the adaptive survey logic with the chosen survey platform, ensuring that the platform can support the real-time computational needs and that it can seamlessly present and record adaptive questions and responses. 5. Testing and Iteration: Conduct thorough testing with a controlled group to ensure the adaptive logic operates as intended. Use this phase to collect data and refine the algorithm, question pathways, and overall survey flow. 6. Deployment and Monitoring: Deploy the survey to the target audience, closely monitoring performance for issues in real-time adaptation, respondent engagement, and data collection quality. 7. Analysis and Learning: Use insights and respondent feedback to continuously improve the question bank, adaptive logic, and overall survey design. This should be an ongoing process, leveraging the power of LLMs to refine and enhance the adaptive survey experience over time. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on: 1. Is this something you could see being successful in your company? 2. Is this something you think your company is ready for? 3. Who do you think would own implementation? DM me if you want to talk more about this. I don't pretend to have all of the answers, but I'm confident that, collectively, we can figure this out. #customerexperience #surveys #llm #ai #technology #surveys #nps

We all want to reward employees fairly, yet decades of research--and for many people, their lived experience--show that bias persists. In other words, for the same performance, people earn less or more due to managerial error. New research from researchers at our Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab shows that many interventions are only targeting half the problem. Bias shows up both in how managers describe (view) performance as well as how they reward (value) behaviors. Viewing biases often show up in how performance is described differently based on who is performing it. Men’s approach may be called “too soft,” thus “subtly faulting them for falling short of assertive masculine ideals.” Valuing biases can show up as the same behavior being rewarded when men perform it but not when women do. Examples from the research show that men benefitted when their project specifics were described, whereas women were not. So the same description and behaviors showed up in reviews, but they were only rewarded on men’s. What can be done to curb biases? ✅ Standardize specific guidelines for how managers should view employee behaviors and assign corresponding rewards when giving employees feedback and making decisions about their careers. ✅ Help managers catch bias in both viewing and valuing. ✅ Monitor these impacts from entry level to executive leadership. It turns out that as the criteria shift, so can the way these biases work. A key lesson from our research shows that the work takes discipline, consistency and accountability. These steps may seem like a lot of “extra” work, but at the end of the day, managers also benefit when they weed out biases and fairly promote the most talented employees. Article by Alison Wynn, Emily Carian, Sofia Kennedy and JoAnne Wehner, PhD published in Harvard Business Review. #diversityequityinclusion #performanceevaluation #managerialskills

After a decade of sitting in manager meetings, delivering reviews, and coaching others through them, I’ve learned what makes—or breaks—an annual review: Here are 7 practical things you can do right now: 1/ Make it easy for your manager to advocate for you. Don’t just list tasks. Show outcomes. Show business impact. Make the case clear and compelling. 2/ When asking for peer reviews, give them a purpose. Are you aiming for a promo? A stretch project? Let them know. It’ll help them speak to the right strengths that support your goals. 3/ Show how you’re already performing at the next level. As Webflow CEO Linda Tong shared with me in my book, leaders want to see you performing at the next level already. Highlight those moments where you took on leadership, strategic decisions, or tough projects. 4/ Cut the fluff. Don’t list every task you did. Focus on the 20% of projects that drove 80% of results. 5/ Ask your manager to pre-review it. I did this for my teams — help them advocate for themselves in the most impactful way possible. 6/ Anticipate challenges. If there’s a project that didn’t go well, address it. Share what you learned and how you’ve applied those lessons. It builds trust. 7/ Compare across quarters. Show how you’ve grown — not just what you did this cycle. We’re prone to the recency effect. Progress tells a powerful story. 𝗣.𝗦. It’s your career. Own your review.

Personality Traits Don’t Belong in Performance Reviews Performance reviews should focus on skills, outcomes, and behaviors—not personality traits. An article by Suzanne Lucas for Inc. Magazine highlights a troubling finding from Textio: ✅ 88% of high-performing women receive feedback on their personality compared to only 12% of men. When men do get personality-related feedback, the descriptions differ significantly: Women: "Collaborative," "nice," or "abrasive" Men: "Confident," "ambitious" This disconnect reflects stereotypes that don’t help anyone grow. What NOT to do in performance reviews: ❌ Describe someone as "introverted" (personality-based language). ❌ Focus on general traits like "nice" or "helpful" without linking them to outcomes. What TO do instead: ✅ Address observable behaviors and impact: Instead of: "You're too quiet." Say: "I noticed you didn’t contribute in meetings; your ideas could add value if shared." ✅ Focus on outcomes: Highlight measurable results, goals, and areas for development tied to skills. ✅ Offer actionable feedback: Provide steps to improve performance, like asking someone to prepare discussion points to engage more actively. By focusing on behaviors, outcomes, and skills, reviews can help employees grow without reinforcing unhelpful biases. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gWTeTw5a What do you think? How does this impact women of color? How can we improve feedback processes to create fairer, more -actionable- reviews? #LeadershipDevelopment #PerformanceManagement #InclusiveLeadership

In my 18 years at Amazon, I've seen more careers transformed by the next 2 weeks than by the other 50 weeks of the year combined. It's performance review season. Most people rush through it like a chore, seeing it as an interruption to their "real work." The smartest people I know do the opposite: they treat these upcoming weeks as their highest-leverage opportunity of the year. After handling over fifty feedback requests, self-reviews, and upward feedback 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 for nearly two decades, I've learned this isn't just another corporate exercise. This is when careers pivot, accelerate, or stall. Your feedback directly impacts compensation, career trajectories, and professional growth. Your self-assessment frames how leadership views your entire year's work. This isn't busywork—it's career-defining work, but we treat it with as much enthusiasm as taking out trash. Here's how to make the most of it: 𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁 - Ask yourself: "What perspective am I uniquely positioned to share?" Everyone will comment on the obvious wins and challenges. Your job is to provide insights others miss, making your feedback instantly invaluable. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀 - I keep a living document for every person I work with. When something feedback-worthy happens—good or challenging—it goes in immediately. No more scrambling to remember projects from months ago. This ensures specific, timely examples when needed. 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 - Don't just list tasks—craft a narrative. Lead with behaviors that drove impact. Show your growth in handling complex situations, influencing across teams, and making difficult trade-offs. Demonstrate self-awareness by acknowledging areas where you're actively improving. 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 - They receive little feedback all year. Focus on how they help you succeed and specific ways they could support you better. Make it dense with information—this might be their only chance to learn how to serve their team better. 𝗢𝗻 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 - The difference between criticism and valuable input is showing you genuinely want the other person to succeed. When that intention shines through, you don't need to walk on eggshells. Be specific about the behavior, its impact, and how it could improve. 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 - Good constructive feedback often feels like an insult at first. But here's the mindset shift that changed everything for me: feedback is a gift. It's direct guidance on improvement from those who work closest with you. When you feel that defensive instinct rise, pause and focus on understanding instead. Here's your challenge: This year, treat performance review season like the most important work you'll do. Because in terms of long-term impact on careers—both yours and others'—it just might be.

If someone is surprised by the feedback they receive, this is a management failure. After witnessing multiple instances of this failure at Amazon, we realized our feedback mechanism was deeply flawed. So, we fixed it. In order for the organization to perform at its highest, employees need to know not only what is expected of them, but also how those expectations will be measured. Too often, managers assume that capable people will simply “figure things out,” but this is difficult and destined to fail without explicit expectations and continuous feedback. I remember the experience of an employee we can call “Melinda.” She had been a strong performer for two years before she transitioned into a new role on another team. She attacked the new opportunity with enthusiasm, working long hours and believing she was on the right track. Then, her manager expressed concerns about her performance and the criticism came as a shock. The feedback was vague, and there had been no regular check-ins or early signs to help her course-correct. This caused her motivation to suffer and her performance declined significantly. Eventually, she left the company. Afterward, we conducted a full review and we discovered that Melinda’s manager had never clearly articulated the expectations of the new role. Worse, her previous achievements had been disregarded in her evaluation. The system had failed her. This incident was not isolated. It illustrated a pattern. It revealed broader gaps in how we managed performance transitions and feedback loops. So, in response, we developed and deployed new mechanisms to ensure clarity from day one. We began requiring managers to explicitly define role expectations and conduct structured check-ins during an employee’s first 90 days in a new position. We also reinforced the cultural norm that feedback must be timely, specific, and actionable. These changes were rooted in a core principle of leadership: you have to make others successful too. Good management does not involve catching people off guard or putting them in “sink or swim” situations. When employees fail because expectations were unclear, that failure belongs to the manager. The best thing to do when you see those failures is to treat them as systems to improve. That’s how you build a culture of high performance.

Teams with continuous feedback programs show 23% higher profitability and 18% greater productivity than those relying on outdated annual performance reviews. AI ALPI research has uncovered a critical shift in top-performing HR departments. While 76% of organizations still rely on annual reviews, market leaders are leveraging technology-enabled continuous feedback loops that drive real business outcomes. → Weekly micro-feedback sessions are replacing quarterly or annual reviews, creating psychological safety and real-time course correction ↳ This approach reduces employee anxiety and creates 3x more actionable insights than traditional methods → AI-powered tools now enable performance tracking without the administrative burden ↳ HR leaders implementing these systems report 42% reduction in management time spent on performance administration → Human-centered leadership training has become a critical enabler ↳ Organizations investing in empathy-driven feedback skills see 37% higher retention rates among high performers Companies that implemented continuous feedback systems initially saw a temporary 15% drop in satisfaction as managers adjusted to more frequent, meaningful conversations. By month three, both engagement and productivity metrics surpassed previous levels by significant margins. 🔥 Want more breakdowns like this? Follow along for insights on: → Getting started with AI in HR teams → Scaling AI adoption across HR functions → Building AI competency in HR departments → Taking HR AI platforms to enterprise market → Developing HR AI products that solve real problems #ContinuousFeedback #HRTech #FutureOfWork #LeadershipDevelopment #PerformanceManagement

It's performance review season at Apple. Years ago early in my time at Apple, my self-assessments were vague and modest. I assumed my manager already knew my contributions, big mistake. We all suffer from recency bias. My ratings were average because leadership couldn't see the full picture of my impact. Then, I changed my approach: I built a structured framework that clearly highlighted outcomes, leadership, and feedback. Of course, it all starts with great work but equally important is clearly articulating that impact. The results: better ratings, increased visibility, and accelerated career growth. Now I consistently earn top ratings. Here is how I approach my self assessments now. → 𝑫𝒐 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒌 Bulletproof your results with clear and quantifiable impact. → 𝑨𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝑮𝒐𝒂𝒍𝒔 Map your contributions directly to your team’s OKRs or strategic priorities. Show how you moved the needle. → 𝑹𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑’𝒔 𝑽𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 Listen to what your senior leaders praise in All-Hands, town halls, and emails. These are your signals. If you contributed to those priorities, your impact becomes indisputable. → 𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔 Clearly document how you supported peers, mentored teammates, and collaborated cross-functionally. → 𝑮𝒐 𝑩𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑱𝒐𝒃 Highlight extra initiatives like mentoring, hiring, onboarding, or culture-building. → 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒍𝒆 𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒅𝒆 Know the bar and beat the bar. Understanding what is expected is very important to exceed the expectations. → 𝑯𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒚 𝑨𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 Don’t oversell. Don’t underplay. Acknowledge challenges and how you addressed them. → 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝑰𝒕 𝑬𝒂𝒔𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒓 Provide clear, concise, and copy-paste-ready statements to simplify your manager’s job in justifying your top rating. Full post https://lnkd.in/gd6bwk6X I’d love to learn from you too; please share your best practices and thoughts in the comments.