Performance Review in Strategy

If your feedback isn't changing behavior, you're not giving feedback—you're just complaining. After 25 years of coaching leaders through difficult conversations, I've learned that most feedback fails because it focuses on making the giver feel better rather than making the receiver better. Why most feedback doesn't work: ↳ It's delivered months after the fact ↳ It attacks personality instead of addressing behavior ↳ It assumes the person knows what to do differently ↳ It's given when emotions are high ↳ It lacks specific examples or clear direction The feedback framework that actually changes behavior: TIMING: Soon, not eventually. Give feedback within 48 hours when possible Don't save it all for annual reviews. Address issues while they're still relevant. INTENT: Lead with purpose and use statements like - "I'm sharing this because I want to see you succeed" or "This feedback comes from a place of support." Make your positive intent explicit. STRUCTURE: Use the SBI Model. ↳Situation: When and where it happened ↳Behavior: What you observed (facts, not interpretations) ↳Impact: The effect on results, relationships, or culture COLLABORATION: Solve together by using statements such as - ↳"What's your perspective on this?" ↳"What would help you succeed in this area?" ↳"How can I better support you moving forward?" Great feedback is a gift that keeps giving. When people trust your feedback, they seek it out. When they implement it successfully, they become advocates for your leadership. Your feedback skills significantly impact your leadership effectiveness. Coaching can help; let's chat. | Joshua Miller What's the best feedback tip/advice, and what made it effective? #executivecoaching #communication #leadership #performance

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.

Are You Really Future-Proofing Your Team—or Just Reviewing Performance? Let’s be honest: annual performance reviews often feel like a checkbox activity. Most leaders have stared at a list of “solid contributors” but still wondered—who is actually future-fit for where we’re headed? Here’s an approach that forces real honesty and gets everyone thinking about what the organization truly needs for tomorrow: For every person in your org (full-time, contractor—everyone), ask just two questions: 1. Would you hire them today, knowing what you know now? 2. How critical are they for the future? (Critical / Not Critical) How do you make this actionable? Plot everyone on a simple 2x2 chart like the one below: • The X-axis is “Would Hire Today?” (Yes/No) • The Y-axis is “Critical for the Future?” (Critical/Not Critical) This creates four groups: • A: Yes, Critical – Invest in, develop, and retain these team members. • B: Yes, Not Critical – Maintain, and consider reskilling or redeployment. • C: No, Critical – Urgently upgrade, develop, or put a succession plan in place. • D: No, Not Critical – Plan for exit or transition. This isn’t just a performance review—it’s a future-fit checkup. In today’s fast-changing world, we need to build for what’s next, not just reward what worked last year. My recommendations: • Don’t wait for a crisis to do this. Make it a regular leadership habit—at least once a year. • Be brutally honest (no “everyone’s critical” allowed). • Align with your leadership team and have a clear action plan, or this will simply drag on. Trust me, it’s uncomfortable at first—but nothing is worse than realizing too late that you don’t have the team you need for what’s ahead. Curious—has anyone else tried a similar approach? What worked (or didn’t) for you? Zinnov

Are your programs making the impact you envision or are they costing more than they give back? A few years ago, I worked with an organization grappling with a tough question: Which programs should we keep, grow, or let go? They felt stretched thin, with some initiatives thriving and others barely holding on. It was clear they needed a clearer strategy to align their programs with their long-term goals. We introduced a tool that breaks programs into four categories: Heart, Star, Stop Sign, and Money Tree each with its strategic path. -Heart: These programs deliver immense value but come with high costs. The team asked, Can we achieve the same impact with a leaner approach? They restructured staffing and reduced overhead, preserving the program's impact while cutting costs by 15%. -Star: High impact and high revenue programs that beg for investment. The team explored expanding partnerships for a standout program and saw a 30% increase in revenue within two years. -Stop Sign: Programs that drain resources without delivering results. One initiative had consistently low engagement. They gave it a six-month review period but ultimately decided to phase it out, freeing resources for more promising efforts. -Money Tree: The revenue generating champions. Here, the focus was on growth investing in marketing and improving operations to double their margin within a year. This structured approach led to more confident decision-making and, most importantly, brought them closer to their goal of sustainable success. According to a report by Bain & Company, organizations that regularly assess program performance against strategic priorities see a 40% increase in efficiency and long-term viability. Yet, many teams shy away from the hard conversations this requires. The lesson? Every program doesn’t need to stay. Evaluating them through a thoughtful lens of impact and profitability ensures you’re investing where it matters most. What’s a program in your organization that could benefit from this kind of review?

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

Career advice I’d give my younger self: Keep a record of your wins Document your accomplishments as you go - not just what you did, but the real impact. (Keep this in a personal repository, not at work.) Most of us move from project to project, thinking we’ll remember the details when we need them. Then, when it’s time for a job search or a performance review, we struggle to articulate our impact. Instead, whenever you start a new project, ask yourself: “How will my future self talk about this?” Think in terms of a story - a problem worth solving, a difficult and challenging solution, and a meaningful transformation. You don’t have to wait until the project is finished to start writing it. Step 1: The problem What problem are you solving? A (business) problem worth solving has the problem itself, which lead to symptoms that, if they aren't addressed, can lead to disaster. For example, you might be replacing a legacy workflow. The old workflow is slow and includes manual steps. This results in errors and customer dissatisfaction, which leads to financial risk (due to errors) and churn, resulting in stagnant revenue and declining market share. You'll get more insight over time, but just start at the start. Write down what you know. Step 2: Document the outcomes you (or your leadership) are expecting or hoping for You may not know the final impact yet, but you have a hypothesis. What will change if your project succeeds? More revenue? Higher efficiency? Customer satisfaction improvements? Write that down. The transformation is often the opposite of the problem: if revenue is stagnant, the goal is growth. If churn is rising, the goal is retention. Define the ideal outcome early. Step 3: Capture the key components of the solution As technologists, we naturally document what we built. That’s fine, but remember—hiring managers and execs care less about features and more about impact. And how you collaborated and persuaded stakeholders to create and keep alignment. Step 4: Update your story as you go As your project progresses, go back and update: ✔ What you learned about the real problem ✔ Changes in your approach ✔ The actual results once customers started using your solution Often, the results blossom in unexpected ways - leading to social proof like customer stories, awards, or internal recognition. Capture those. These stories become the basis of a resume that gets interviews and they're great for performance reviews.

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

Most leaders don’t struggle to give feedback because they lack good intentions, they struggle because they lack the right frameworks. We say things like: 🗣 “This wasn’t good enough.” 🗣 “You need to speak up more.” 🗣 “That project could’ve been tighter.” But vague feedback isn’t helpful, it’s confusing. And often, it demoralizes more than it motivates. That’s why I love this visual from Rachel Turner (VC Talent Lab). It lays out four highly actionable, research-backed frameworks for giving better feedback: → The 3 Ps Model: Praise → Problem → Potential. Start by recognizing what worked. Then gently raise what didn’t. End with a suggestion for how things could improve. → The SBI Model: Situation → Behavior → Impact. This strips out judgment and makes feedback objective. Instead of “You’re too aggressive in meetings,” it becomes: “In yesterday’s meeting (Situation), you spoke over colleagues multiple times (Behavior), which made some feel unable to share (Impact).” → Harvard’s HEAR Framework: A powerful structure for disagreement. Hedge claims. Emphasize agreement. Acknowledge their point. Reframe to solutions. → General Feedback Tips: – Be timely. – Be specific. – Focus on behavior, not identity. – Reinforce the positive (and remember the 5:1 rule). Here’s what I tell senior FMCG leaders all the time: Good feedback builds performance. Great feedback builds culture. The best feedback builds trust, and that’s what retains your best people. So next time you hesitate before giving hard feedback? Remember this: → You’re not there to criticize. → You’re there to build capacity. Save this as your cheat sheet. Share it with your teams. Let’s make feedback a tool for growth, not fear. #Leadership #FMCG #TalentDevelopment #PerformanceCulture #FeedbackMatters #ExecutiveDevelop

It's mid-year, which means many leaders are conducting employee performance reviews. That's good—delaying until year-end is too late. More frequently is better, yet if you're not giving feedback the right way, it's pointless! Too often, reviews are unhelpful and vague, lacking concrete examples or clear explanations of how employees' work impacts customers. It creates confusion, low morale, and turnover. Research indicates: Only 31% of U.S. employees are engaged at work—the lowest in a decade (Gallup, 2025). 24% of employees would quit their jobs because of ineffective performance appraisals (Folkshr, 2025). The good news: You can turn it around at your company. Here are examples that benefit both individuals and those they serve. ✖️ Instead of: “You’re doing great.” ✔️ Say: “You took direct customer complaints and brought them into our weekly meeting. Because of that, we fixed an onboarding error that caused 40% of new users to call support in their first week.” ✖️ Instead of: “You’re a team player.” ✔️ Say: “You supported the product managers by sharing relevant customer feedback they didn’t have. That collaboration saved time—and solved the issue faster.” These are real examples. I’ve led hundreds of performance reviews—and been on the receiving end, too. I know how easy it is to get it wrong. And how powerful it is when you get it right. Want more actionable strategies? Message and follow me on LinkedIn + subscribe to my newsletter. What are your views? Comment below. #DoingCXRight #customerexperience #leadership

If the only metric your exec team cares about is pipeline created, Then they’re not seeing the full picture. C-level dashboards do tell a story. I agree, But usually the wrong one, at the wrong resolution, with the wrong cause-and-effect logic. And then... they ask Marketing Ops to “make the numbers better.” → Without changing the inputs. → Without cleaning the data. → Without aligning the teams. Here’s what you should be tracking instead → Not just pipeline velocity—pipeline quality → Not just cost per lead—cost per aligned buyer → Not just attribution—contribution clarity 3 Metrics Marketing Ops Should Own (And Execs Need to Learn How to Interpret): 1. Lag-to-Lead Time How long does it take from first lead capture to actual opportunity creation? If it’s bloated, no campaign will fix it. → Root cause: CRM architecture, scoring logic, lack of sales follow-up rhythm. 2. Operational Win Rate Forget sales win rate. Measure the qualified ops-to-closed ratio for GTM feedback. This tells you: Are we targeting the right personas? Are we delivering them in the right stage of readiness? 3. System Hygiene Score This isn’t sexy, but it saves millions in burn: % of contacts with missing data % of workflows with broken logic % of platforms not integrated with the source of truth Ops shouldn’t just report on performance. We should report on the system that delivers performance. You can’t scale what you can’t explain. And you can’t explain what you refuse to measure. It’s time we stop dumbing down dashboards and start training up leadership. #MarketingOps #RevOps #MetricsThatMatter #GTMStrategy #OpsLeadership #ExecutiveReporting