Four Steps to a Thoughtful Self-Review
It's finally the end of the half. It feels like you've done so much (yet nothing at all), and now it's time again to write your self-review and request peer feedback. Woe is me!
Your self-review is an important exercise in advocating for yourself; you're telling the story about why you met expectations, exceeded them, or perhaps deserve a promotion. No big deal, right? To add insult to injury, you have to do so within the guidelines of "2-3 accomplishments" and a specific character count. There are many ways you can approach this. I'm offering one way in these four steps:
Brainstorm a list of what you've done
Merge your list with your career ladder
Create a narrative about what you've enabled
Ask peers to give you targeted feedback.
Step 1: Brainstorm a list of what you've done
The first step is to compile a list of things you've done. Get it all out of your head. For those of you who are freakishly organized, you keep up with this throughout the year. For the rest of you (myself included), seek inspiration from completed Asana tasks, Sketch files, calendar history, and the UX research repository - wherever artifacts of your work ends up. Make some notes about how you did it as well. The purpose of this step is to generate ideas - there's no right or wrong way to do it. That is, unless you make things up, and that would make you a filthy liar. No one likes a filthy liar.
Great! you have starting list. I bet many of you stop here, submit this list to your manager, and hope you get recognized for all of your hard work. Unfortunately, this is like sending a paper boat filled with your hopes and dreams out to sea. You can imagine the outcome.
At the end of Step 1, you should have a healthy list of what you did and how you did those things. Luckily, this isn't a contest. Longer lists don't secure promotions.
Step 2: Merge your list with your career ladder
Yay! You have successfully completed Step 1. It's now time to dust off the trusty old career ladders. Many companies, but not all, offer guidance for what career progression looks like within a role (e.g., IC3 - IC8+). I’m specifically writing about my experiences at Facebook and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where we career ladders do exist.
😮BUT WAIT! There's so much wrong with the ladders! They are too vague! They don't tell me exactly how my career will unfold or what I need to do in order to get promoted! (<- common feedback)
Here’s the thing: our ladders may never perfectly provide you a checklist for your career, and they’re only one input into evaluating our performance. They are purposefully ambiguous at times because everyone is a unique snowflake and impact can manifest in lots of different ways across our projects and initiatives. As a manager, I want my team to chart their own course. The ladder provides general guidelines based on what we know now. Think of each cell in the spreadsheet as a different pair of glasses, lenses through which you can look at your work. In what ways have you been operating at your level or the level above you? To your advantage, there's room for interpretation. It’s a good idea to calibrate with your manager about what each level means.
Cross-reference your list. Where does your list of things you've done fit into the career ladder? Use the ladder to help you generate things you may have missed. I like to merge the ladder with my list. Some categories are about what you did and other categories are about how you did them.
Phew. Now you're halfway done. Note that it might be helpful for your manager to see this in addition to your self-review.
Step 3: Create a narrative about what you've enabled.
Pay attention to this next step; it's important.
Taking a look at your list, consider: what did you enable by doing these things? Did you enable a feature to launch successfully and on schedule? Did your research enable a team to design a solution for a problem that no one knew about? Did your code enable better platform performance (bonus points for measuring this!). Did your collaboration enable cross-org alignment around an important project?
THIS is the part that tells your manager why what you have done and how you've done it is important. That is, it's the impact that you've had.
Come up with the 2-3 things that you've enabled (psst, these are your 2-3 accomplishments). Support each accomplishment with: what you did, how you did it, and the levels at which you were performing. You likely have more, but pick your strongest ones. Your strongest ones should help support why/how you met expectations, exceeded them, or deserve a promotion.
As a manager, this is a gift. This now means that I do not have to read your tea leaves (i.e., determine how a list of what you've done maps to the ladder). You may think that this is your manager’s job, and your manager may think that it’s their job too. To me, the understanding of where your impact falls on the ladder needs to be co-created between you and your manager. Leaving it only up to your manager introduces the opportunity for them to make a mistake, miscommunicate, and potentially crush your dreams. Remember the fate of the paper boat? By following the steps, you’re taking a stance, advocating for yourself, and actively engaging in the conversation.
Doesn’t that sound powerful? You are powerful.
If you're not sure whether your 2-3 accomplishments are the "right" ones, then I urge you to have that conversation with your manager.
Here’s an admittedly vague example:
Accomplishment #1 description (i.e., what you enabled, your impact)
Description of what you did (IC5)
Description of how you did (IC5)
Anything else that you think is important
Accomplishment #2 description (i.e., what you enabled, your impact)
Description of what you did (IC5)
Description of how you did (IC4)
Anything else that you think is important
Step 4: Ask peers to give you targeted feedback
Almost done! This last part is easy. You've asked people to write you peer feedback. You now also know what your 2-3 accomplishments are. Ask them to give you targeted feedback on those accomplishments. With their help, you're able to build a stronger case.
Hey, Marie! Thank you for agreeing to give me feedback. This half, we worked together on the roadmapping process. Would you mind providing me feedback specifically about that?
Thank you + love you always,
Paul
Put yourself in your peer’s shoes. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write feedback on, so you make an informed (or uninformed) guess. If you provide your peer some guidance, then you’re being clear about what you’d like feedback on. In the words of Brené Brown, “Clear is kind; unclear is unkind.” Be kind.
This also works in the opposite direction. When someone requests peer feedback from you, ask them what they’d specifically like feedback on.
