The (only) 3 aspects of a great performance review
Stop trying to recap their year, and give them a few pieces of feedback they’ll actually use.
👋 Hi, it’s Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on how to make high-stakes professional and personal decisions in your 30s.
At this point, I’ve probably given over 300 performance reviews. Most managers phone them in (I have in the past). They always come up faster than we want, and they can be overwhelming to write alongside your standard day-to-day (especially if you have a lot of direct reports).
But because of this, giving a good one is a really easy way to stand out as a boss.
The secret: less is more. Don’t give them a laundry list of accomplishments and things to fix. Give them three pieces of feedback they’ll actually use.
Your direct report should walk out of a review knowing three things:
The 1 thing they do better than everyone else
The 1 thing holding them back
The 1 thing they can do this year to add value to the business
It can be tempting to add more to the list, especially if you’re nervous about giving critical feedback and want to pad it with compliments. Don’t give into this impulse (we’re not in not grade school). Your report will forget everything you say if you say too much.
Focus on getting these three right. Here’s how to do it.
Greg
3 things to tell your direct report in their review
1. The 1 thing they do better than everyone else (aka - their superpower). A superpower is a strength your direct report has that most other people do not have.
In other words, it’s NOT a “table stakes” skill like collaboration, organization, or even creativity. It’s a unique way of thinking/working that helps them get to a better outcome than others on the team. Greg’s is the ability to look around corners and anticipate what will matter in 2-3 years; Taylor’s is her ability to get enough (but not too much) data to build a plan and quickly stand up a V1.
Your direct report probably can’t identify this skill on their own, so if you get it right, it should be revelatory (and memorable). It’ll also get you on the same page about the projects they should own (because they leverage this superpower), where they can 10x their impact, and how to offset their weaknesses. To identify it, think about:
What types of problems do you immediately go to this person with?
Which tasks do you think, “[Name] will be great at that”?
What do you find yourself noticing consistently in their work?
Are other members of the team emulating this superpower?
Where do they struggle? (Superpowers are often, though not always, the flip side of someone’s weaknesses)
2. The 1 thing holding them back from the top 5%. Don’t create a laundry list of things they can improve. Instead, be honest with them – what is the single BIGGEST behavior they could change that’s holding them back from the next step.
Maybe they can’t articulate their ideas in a way that executives understand, or struggle to maintain their high quality standards while also delegating to others.
For example, in Taylor’s last review, Greg said: “You’re naturally collaborative, but you need to develop the sense of when NOT to be collaborative – when to tell people what’s important, get them aligned, and go.” This is a behavior that can hold Taylor back as a COO, but it’s also engrained in her working style and how she’s been successful, so will take time to fix.
Focus on quality over quantity here. It’s better to choose the highest impact behavior holding someone back then give them a list of five areas of improvement.
3. The 1 highest-value thing they could do for the business this coming year. Most reviews focus on what the person did in the last year, which makes the review feel out-of-date and hard to act on (your report can’t fix a mistake they made 6 months ago). Instead, spend 90% of the review looking forward.
Start by giving some context on the biggest challenges or opportunities facing the business or team in the next year, then identify one specific way this person can impact that challenge. For example, your business might need to operate more leanly than in year’s past, and your employee is great at building and documenting processes and workflows for efficiency (a superpower). So you might tell them: “We have a huge opportunity to leverage AI on the marketing team to work more efficiently with a smaller team that won’t grow this year. I want you to own this project.”
Our advice
If you’re having trouble coming up with the “three things” for someone, don’t underestimate the power of a shitty first draft of the review.
Before we write the final version of a review, both of us do a shitty first draft. We jot down everything we like (and don’t like) about working with the person. Then we take those thoughts and polish them into our three takeaways.
Remember – most managers will not do this. They’ll write the review the night before, and list a bunch of “strengths and opportunities” (platitudes).
People remember (and want to work for) managers who see and articulate what’s special about them: both the positive and the negative. Writing a great review is an easy way to stand out and accelerate someone else’s career.
To the next 10 years,
Greg & Taylor