A cool breeze. The changing color of the leaves. Fading sunlight. Nay, not the fall. It’s performance review season! Ohhhhhhhh YEAH.

It’s that time of year where human managers turn into synonym hunting mechanical turks just to save themselves from typing leadership, efficiency or growth one more goddamn time.

Is there anyone in the entire universe that enjoys compiling, writing, and delivering performance reviews? If so, please send them over so they can be studied…and then locked away from society. The road to the holidays is long and dark, that much is for sure. May these three organizing exercises shine a light on thee…

360 Degree Perspective:

The most effective review programs tend to converge around the following format:

1. Self Reflection
2. Peer Reviews
3. Manager Review

Ideally the Manager Review is 40-60% already written by the information from the team member & their peer feedback. In best cases, 80% written. They’ve pre-identified their strengths and weaknesses and their peers agree. Great!

In both the mostly pre-written and barely pre-written scenarios, begin grouping themes from the Self Reflection & Peer Reviews:

• Wins vs. Challenges
• Positive vs. Negative Feedback
• Strengths vs. Weaknesses

Copy & paste examples into the different groupings. Themes should begin to emerge. Now consolidate & wrap that up with supporting examples to make sure the narrative reflects the designated areas to be addressed. Play to strengths and avoid surprises. They’re already nervous walking into the room to hear their fate.

Nail the Scale:

Reviews are as much about reviewing the team holistically than each individual team member. Are you finding yourself putting the majority of the team in the exceeds bucket? Well, your scale stinks.

Allow me to explain. If there are six folks on the team and the majority (4) of the team is exceeding, one could argue those four are resetting the scale and meeting the expectations set by their peers. The other two are potentially underperforming. Nothing wrong with raising the median expectation in a growing organization.

Before giving out individual scores, try to approximate buckets. These won’t be shown to anyone necessarily, but have a ranking. At least for fun:

• 0-20% – Does Not Meet Expectations
• 40-60% – Meets Expectations
• 20-40% – Exceeds Expectations

Rankings are difficult and likely in flux on any given day. Yet, understanding and communicating what truly “meets expectations” will help flex the performance muscles of the team and continue to raise the collective bar.

Next Year > This Year:

A critical takeaway of the whole review exercise is to set up the year ahead. Use the past to inform the present. Wins, losses, highlights, challenges from the prior year of course. But, the review really lays the groundwork for expectations or a potential promotion ahead. Enter, development plans:

• OKRs
• GROW Model
• Custom plan to their needs

Development plans can be a springboard or roadmap for the coming year. Introduce them as a blank canvas to be authored and owned by your team member. Then, help edit them. Make them actionable. Hold them to it each quarter.

Now go write your self review. That one probably needs more work.