Performance Management
Goal-setting, feedback systems, ratings vs. continuous performance, and reviews people don’t dread.
For: Managers, HR, founders
Performance Reviews People Don’t Dread
The system around the review matters more than the review itself. A modern approach to goals, feedback, calibration, and the conversation.
Career Ladders That Don’t Trap People
How to design IC and management ladders that give people a real path, hold a consistent bar, and avoid becoming a filing system for politics.
Goal-Setting Frameworks: OKRs vs MBOs vs SMART — Which Fits Your Team
OKRs, MBOs, and SMART goals look interchangeable on the surface and produce different behaviour in practice. A practitioner's guide to when each frame works…
Continuous Performance vs Annual Ratings: The Honest Trade-Off
The 2010s 'kill the annual review' movement promised continuous feedback would replace ratings. A decade of evidence shows the picture is more nuanced — most…
Calibration Sessions Run Well: The Hidden Operating Layer of Performance Management
Calibration is the meeting that decides whose ratings are real. Done well, it removes manager bias and produces defensible decisions on pay, promotion, and…
The PIP that doesn't feel like a trap: scripts, milestones, paper trail
Most PIPs are exit documents in disguise. Here's how to design and deliver one that's actually defensible — 30/60/90 milestones, documented check-ins, and the…
Feedback to a senior engineer who thinks they're irreplaceable: a scenario playbook
The 10x engineer who's also tanking team morale is every engineering leader's hardest call. A step-by-step script for the conversation, the 60-day decision…
Calibration prep for a manager who's never done it before: a 5-day worksheet
Walk into your first calibration session with a defensible stack-rank, anchored ratings, and the three sentences you need ready for each report.
Skip-level conversations: what to ask, what to do with the answers
Most skip-levels are awkward small talk that surfaces nothing. A tight question set, a clear contract on confidentiality, and a follow-through ritual that…
The promotion process: nominations, packets, committee, and decision
Promotions get political when the process is informal. Here's the end-to-end design — nomination, packet, committee, decision, communication — that holds up…
Designing a leveling rubric that survives growth
Leveling rubrics rot at scale. Here's the design pattern — common dimensions, function-specific examples, and the calibration discipline — that keeps the bar…
Performance management 101: what it is, what it isn't, and where to start
Performance management isn't the annual review. It's the weekly conversation that makes the annual review feel like a confirmation.
The manager effectiveness scorecard: what to measure and how often
Most companies promote managers and then never measure them. A scorecard makes managing visible — five dimensions, mixed evidence, reviewed twice a year, and…
Calibration sessions: the facilitator's guide
Calibration is the highest-leverage 3 hours in your performance cycle. Run it badly and you institutionalise unfairness.
Locke & Latham's goal-setting theory — the science behind (and against) OKRs
Half a century of research, 1,000+ studies, one robust finding: specific, difficult goals beat 'do your best' — with conditions.
Case study — GE's vitality curve, 1981–2015 (and why every imitation failed)
Jack Welch's 20-70-10 forced-ranking system at GE became the most copied — and most misapplied — performance system in corporate history.