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Happy to help with intros!

This week I got a question around how to navigate performance reviews when you are trying to position yourself for a promotion, so let’s dig into it!

Most people treat performance reviews like a formality. I know I am guilty of this, and when they pop up, I am scrambling to remember everything that happened over the last six months.

But if you're trying to get promoted in the next few months, you need to make sure that your performance review makes a case for why you are ready for the next step.

Pull up your calendar and scroll back to January. Go week by week and ask yourself: What did I ship, solve, or move forward?

Don't just focus on the big stuff. A lot of meaningful work lives in the middle: the cross-functional problem you helped untangle, the process you quietly improved, the colleague you mentored through something hard. And often, some of the bigger wins could stem from some of these small moments

As you go, jot things down in whatever format you'll actually use — a running doc, a notes app, a spreadsheet.

Pro tip: you can actually use AI to do a lot of the work, especially if you have it connected to your Slack and email so that it actually has line of sight into a lot of what you've done over the last six months (and then you can build an automation to capture and document these wins weekly like I shared here)!

Most companies don't care about all the things you did or the meetings that you attended. They care about the impact that you had on the business. if you're missing your goals, your inputs become a lot more important. But if you're actually able to achieve strong results with fewer inputs, most employers are going to see that as a success and as readiness to take on more, which is one of the key things you need to show them in order to earn a promotion

The difference between activity and impact is usually answering the question of "so what?"

"I led the Q1 onboarding redesign" is activity.
"I led the Q1 onboarding redesign, which cut ramp time for new hires by three weeks, allowing us to deploy 17% more quota and leading us to hit our revenue targets for Q2.” shows impact.

For each thing on your list, push yourself to answer the "so what." Who benefited? What would have happened if you hadn't done it? Is there a number attached (revenue, time saved, error rate reduction, team retention increases)? You don't need metrics for everything, but the places where you have them will help bring your impact to life.

Nothing in the review should be a surprise

I keep this in mind as a manager - I never give feedback for the first time in a performance review. And the same should be true for you.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is treating the review itself as the moment to make their case. But by then, your manager has already formed an opinion and written your review.

So ideally, you should be keeping your manager looped in on an ongoing basis before the formal process starts. And if you haven’t started this already, you can start it now!

This can look like a simple comment in your 1:1s like, "I wanted to flag something I'm proud of from this week: the client escalation I handled, because I think it's a good example of how I've been growing into the senior scope we talked about in January."

Your manager isn’t in the details so this is how you help them see how you’re evolving and acting on feedback, and how you give your manager the examples they need to advocate for you.

If you're hoping for a promotion out of this cycle, and you haven't had an explicit conversation about it yet, have it AHEAD of your review.

Ask your manager: "I'd love to be considered for promotion in this cycle. Can we talk about what that would take and whether you think I'm on track?"

That conversation does three things:

If you wait until the review, it’s likely too late for this cycle and depending on your company policies, you may be waiting another 6 months. Having the conversation now will give you a chance to be considered OR give you more time so that when the next promotion cycle roles around, you’ll be ready.

I know a lot of my readers are in management roles themselves, so I hope this post is a reminder that your team may not know how to navigate performance reviews or promotion processes. Consider sharing some of these suggestions or bringing up a reflection space in an upcoming performance review. That way, they’ll feel set up for success (and it’ll make things much easier for you as well!)

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