Back when I was a young PM, one of my managers altered the trajectory of my career. It was my second year at Airbnb. I was doing okay, but not great. My new manager, 

, had taken over, just as the project I was overseeing had gotten delayed by weeks. He wasn’t impressed. Although he helped me get it back on track, and we got it out the door, I knew that when performance review season rolled around, it was going to be rough. When the time came, I did indeed get a less-than-stellar rating. Vlad flagged a number of important development areas for me to focus on, including being more communicative about status, and getting more aggressive about prioritizing. While I could have left dejected, I instead ended that performance conversation feeling more clear, motivated, and excited than I had ever been.

Here’s why: Vlad had a simple yet powerful performance review system. The clarity of his feedback, the care in his delivery, and the simple organization of his framework all came together to create a career development experience unlike any I’d ever had before. This set me on a course that catapulted me from a newly-minted IC PM to a manager of a half-dozen PMs, tackling everything from marketplace quality to growth, most recently building out and leading a cross-functional 80-person team driving 

Over the years, as I transitioned into management, took on a handful of direct reports, and conducted over 50 performance reviews, I adopted and expanded his system into 

an end-to-end performance management framework that has enabled me to systematically grow junior ICs into star performers, to turn big trouble spots into super-strengths, and build one of the best performing teams at Airbnb.

Figuring that other managers might similarly find this system useful, below I’ll dive into why performance reviews typically suck, how we can fix them, and then walk through this framework in step-by-step detail. Whether you’re a first-time manager looking for guidance on handling your first review, an experienced manager hoping to uplevel yourself from good to kickass, or an early-stage founder trying to put a company performance review system in place, the templates, tactics and real-world examples you’ll find here are yours for the taking.

MANAGERS, AVOID THESE COMMON PERFORMANCE REVIEW MISTAKES

It’s rare that one meeting, once or twice a year, has such a tremendous impact on the morale, performance and trajectory of an employee. Unfortunately, performance reviews are severely underutilized, and often done badly. From the perspective of direct reports, they are more likely to spark dread than hope. On the part of managers, they’re treated more as a chore than an opportunity. 

Done well, performance reviews improve performance, align expectations and accelerate your report’s career. Done poorly, they accelerate their departure.

Below are the six most common mistakes managers make with performance reviews:

•1. Not spending enough time preparing.

 Performance conversations directly impact your direct reports’ long-term career prospects, morale, and often their identity. If you spend more time filling out expense reports than you do preparing for your performance reviews, you’re doing it wrong. I recommend spending at least three (ideally five) hours per direct report preparing for performance review conversations, every six months.

•2. Relying too much on peer feedback. 

Some of the highest performers I’ve worked with ruffle feathers on occasion to deliver the right outcome — which can lead to negative peer feedback come performance review season. (This is especially true in leadership roles.) Here’s why over-indexing on peer feedback is dangerous: If you’re judged solely based on peer feedback, you’ll optimize for what’s expected, not what’s right. As a manager, you need to have your own point of view on how the direct report performed, using the peer feedback as just one input, not the driver of your performance conversation.

•3. Not providing substantive feedback. 

Your reports are hungry for feedback. They’re looking at every morsel of information you share with them to figure where they should spend their time. Don’t waste this opportunity.

 Too often, managers simply tell direct reports what they think, what to do, and leave too little space for conversation. Leaders want to look strong, and are often insecure about showing any sign of being wrong. An effective performance development process is a mutual commitment to growth and learning, which requires two-way communication and accountability.

Most managers have a performance conversation, say their piece, and then expect their direct report to retain and act on everything they heard. When they revisit these topics at the next performance review, they’re often shocked there wasn’t much progress, and fall back on blaming the report for a lack of improvement. It’s not their fault — it’s yours.

There’s a school of thought that says that companies shouldn’t have performance reviews, that feedback should be an ongoing and ever-present. Why wait six months to give feedback, they say, when you can give it regularly and in the moment? The truth is that this rarely works out in practice (i.e. you get no feedback), and more critically, it’s actually a false dichotomy. You should absolutely provide feedback regularly, have consistent weekly 1:1s, and engage in ongoing career conversations. Alongside that ongoing work, however, a regular performance review cadence makes an incredible impact on the trajectory of an employee’s career.

If you can’t find a dozen hours to focus on your report’s career throughout the year, that generally means you have too many reports — or that you shouldn’t be a manager.

FOLLOW THIS THREE-STEP PERFORMANCE REVIEW SYSTEM

As an antidote to the common missteps from above, the system I’ve come to rely on is made up of three equally important parts:

This template forms the foundation of the system, and we’ll walk through each section in detail below. 

Here’s the Google Doc version of the template for your own easy use.

This is where the bulk of your time should be spent, as it sets up the steps that follow. Start by gathering data on how your direct report did, both by seeking input from your report’s peers and a self-assessment from the individual directly. You want to get as much signal as possible at this stage, ideally as early on in the process as you can (I typically start at least a month before a scheduled performance chat, since it often takes a while to get everyone’s responses). There are many ways to do this, and most companies have their own system for gathering feedback, but you can always take a lightweight approach over email.

First, work with your direct report to identify five to eight people who’d be able to provide input. Then fire off emails (bcc’ing everyone) asking 

In an effort to help Jane level up in her career, I’m gathering peer feedback from people she works most closely with. I would really love your input. If you can find 5-10 minutes in the next few days to answer these questions, I would truly appreciate it (and so will Jane):

1. What are 2-3 things Jane should start doing? Why?
2. What are 2-3 things Jane should continue doing? Why?
3. What are 2-3 things Jane should stop doing? Why?

I will keep your answers anonymous, unless you tell me otherwise. Please be honest and candid, as that’s what’ll help me give Jane the best support in her career. And, if there’s anything else you’d like to share, good or bad, I’d love to hear it.

In parallel, ask your report to do self-review, with an email such as:

Ahead of our upcoming performance conversation, I would love to get your perspective on how things went. Could you please answer these three questions, along with anything else you’d like to share, and get back to me by X/X?

1. What were your top five accomplishments in this cycle?
2. What 2-3 areas do you want to focus on developmenting over the next cycle?
3. What are your goals for your career over the next two years?

While you’re waiting for the feedback, I strongly recommend you start crystalizing your opinion on how your report performed. What did they do well? What is keeping them back? What are the one or two most critical development areas for them to focus on over the next cycle? This is a key step to reducing bias and avoiding being completely swayed by what peers say.

As you begin to gather your thinking, and as peer feedback begins to roll in, start to flesh out 

 referenced above, which you’ll eventually share with your report. Let’s walk through each section:

Detail the person’s accomplishments over the course of the period. Collect these from the report’s self-review, peer feedback, and your own notes that you’ve been keeping throughout the year. Each item here should be significant and meaty. For example, write “Hit team’s goals” and “Shipped project X on time and under budget," not “Held a great meeting” or “Went to three conferences." In this same section, I also like to include a sampling of the best positive peer feedback I’ve collected, ideally three to five of the best quotes about the person (anonymized of course).

Most performance reviews over-index on development areas. The reality is that an individual will have just as much impact (if not more) on an organization if they flex what they are really good at, instead of just trying to improve on the areas they’re struggling with. Here, you have a chance to highlight that. Describe their biggest superpower, and how they can flex it further. A few examples of superpowers that I’ve highlighted in the past include a special knack for storytelling, execution, or galvanizing a team. There’s a lot of 

 that shows focusing on strengths is much more effective than obsessing over weaknesses. Note that it’s important to watch for bias here, since many of us unconsciously describe the same behavior by men as a strength and as a weakness by a woman. (You can read more on this topic 

 Next, I take a step back and summarize the report’s performance in a short narrative, about four to six sentences. I try to make a simple story arc, starting by describing how far they’ve come, then a sentence or two about how they did this cycle, and ending on a high-level overview of what they need to focus on next.

Identify one to two development areas to focus on for the next cycle, and put them in the middle column (see the screenshot below). This part is core to the performance review, so selecting these with care is absolutely critical. A few specific suggestions for how to nail these down:

 holding the person back from the next level? If your company has a leveling system, leverage it to explain your thinking. 

•Do any clear themes emerge from the peer feedback or self-review?

•If your company does calibration, is there a key issue you’re hearing from other managers? Even if it’s not something you agree with, it’s something you’ll need to address.

•Make sure you still identify important development areas for even the highest of performers. No matter how amazing someone is, there’s almost always something they can focus on to get to the next level.

A few examples of potential development areas include reliable execution, increasing code quality, and more succinct verbal communication. Don’t worry so much about making the descriptions super comprehensive here, as the details will be filled into the next column. A common mistake here is including 

 development areas (more than two makes it very hard to make meaningful progress on  any), or not making the development opportunities concrete enough (where your direct reports are left guessing at what you really mean).

Filling in the details within each development area: 

This right-hand column is where most of the content — and eventually most of the in-person conversation — goes. The goal here is to make it very clear

 to concretely improve at it. I often find myself refining this section up until the last minute.

describing the development opportunity. Here’s an example: 

“Your team has lacked a clear strategy for the past six months. Without a strategy, it’s unclear to your team how all of the work they’re doing fits together, and it makes it hard for anyone outside of your team to understand why you’re prioritizing the things you’re prioritizing.”

•Concrete examples of this not going well. 

Include quotes from peer feedback that support those points, and any examples you can recall where this caused a problem, led to a complaint, or came up in a meeting. Build a habit to note these instances throughout the year.

This is where you share your wisdom and experience in leveling up at this skill. What do you suggest they concretely do to significantly improve at this skill? Be direct, ambitious and constructive. Eventually this will inform action items that you’ll work with your report on. I often include articles and books to read, people to talk to, and things to experiment with. As much as possible, leverage the superpower noted above, along with any other strengths you recognize, to level up in this area. For example, if their development area is around verbal communication, a suggestion could be “Take a public speaking workshop.” If their development area is around improving execution,”  a suggestion could be “Have a weekly check-in with your team where everyone reviews timelines, blockers, and priorities.” If their development area is around hitting deadlines, a suggestion could be “For the next five projects, spend extra time estimating the work.”

Don’t underestimate your reports by letting them settle for good enough. Work backwards from what the perfect next six to 12 months would look like, and describe that in this section. Don’t expect anyone to achieve this, but give people space — and inspiration — to stretch. 

Ambitious people want to know not just how to get better, but how to blow it out of the water. Paint that picture for your direct reports — what would “killing it” look like by the next performance review?

Finally, leave your report with a sense of how far they are from the next “level.” Even if you don’t have 

 at your company, include a meaningful milestone for your report to be excited about reaching (such as becoming a manager, expanding scope, or a title change). There are three common archetypes of situations here:

 These people are right on the edge but didn’t quite make it. I use an estimate of six to 12 months (assuming you meet every six months to evaluate performance), and when appropriate verbally share that it’s likely much closer to six months.

These people are not too worried about reaching the next level, so be super realistic about how long it’ll likely take. I normally say 12 to 18 months.

This is the most common case, and it’s generally going to be six to 12 months.

There’s a lot more to performance reviews than simply sharing the rating, development areas, and change in comp – 

 it’s delivered, and the conversation that it sparks, is a vital part of making change happen. I’ve had performance reviews where I received a low rating, but I left energized and motivated. I’ve also had reviews where I got an amazing rating but left unsure about my future. That’s because people want context, clarity, and most of all, next steps.

How you message the feedback — and how your direct report feels afterwards — is often more important than the actual content itself.

Here are a few tips for prepping yourself to deliver the performance review:

 I book 45 minutes on my direct report’s calendar for the performance conversation. I’ve tried 30 minute and 60 minutes, but there’s something about 45 that seems to work particularly well. Put it on the calendar as soon as you can, partly to let your report know it’s coming, and partly to create a forcing function for yourself. I generally book an extra 30 minutes for myself before the meeting to prep (whether that’s printing out copies, reviewing the key points, or rehearsing the flow).

Either in your notes or in your head, script out how you’re going to walk through the review. I have a few suggestions below for how to kick things off and the sequence to follow, but figure out what works best for you. Don’t show up without at least thinking through your intro and the sequence of key points — “winging it” is not a good strategy here.

On the day of the chat, I generally email the doc a few hours prior to the meeting. I find this gives the person time to process the content, instead of reacting real-time in the moment. It also usually leads to a richer discussion during the meeting. I’ll caveat that this isn’t always a great idea, particularly if the report will be very surprised or disappointed with the review, so do what feels right for your situation.

This is a small thing, but I’ve found it to be very impactful. I print out two copies of this doc, one for me and one for my report. I bring them to the meeting, along with a highlighter, which I use to highlight important points that come out of our discussion. The physicality of the paper adds an important dimension, keeping the conversation focused and grounded in the facts. 

With that prep work taken care of, here’s how I generally sequence the conversation in the room:

I start each conversation by lightening the mood and checking in with how the person is doing. Everyone is going to be on edge — find a way to make it feel a little less intense. Then share some context about the chat:

•Make it clear this is very much a conversation, and that it’s okay to fire off questions and thoughts as you’re going through it together.

•Remind them how seriously you take these opportunities to talk about career development, highlighting how much time and effort you’ve put into it.

•Share a brief agenda of the meeting, touching on how you’ll walk through the review, share any compensation updates, and leave plenty of time for Q&A.

 for reports to get a concrete sense of where they are, so if you don’t have this yet at your org consider introducing it by the next cycle. I try to share the person’s rating as early as possible in the conversation. 

This is the most immediate thing on people’s mind and I find people don’t fully pay attention until they know how they “officially” did. 

If it’s not an amazing rating, address that, but don’t dwell on it for too long. Instead move forward, so that you can spend time talking through the opportunities to level up. As much as possible, make sure the performance rating doesn’t come as a total surprise. Your report should generally know how they’re doing through regular chats throughout the year. If the rating is really problematic, this part takes special care and attention, and often involves working closely with HR.

Walk through the doc. If you sent it ahead of time, and the person read it, then just hit the big points. Pause along the way and ask if everything makes sense or if they disagree with anything. Make sure you’re watching the time, and spend at least two-thirds of the meeting on the details within the development areas. When you get to tough stuff, I’d encourage you to be open and vulnerable. When possible, share personal experiences of when you yourself worked on these very same development areas, what struggles you had, and how you overcame them. The more this feels like you are on their side and there to help them succeed (instead of judging or berating them), the more likely they’ll accept the feedback.

A few common reactions to watch out for during the conversation:

 If you notice this, hear them out and truly listen to their point. There’s always a chance you missed or misinterpreted something. Even if you didn’t, you want to give them a chance to share their perspective. If it starts going in circles though, try to zoom out and move on to the next point. Don’t get stuck on one issue. If it’s still a problem at the end of the conversation, and you haven’t been swayed, stand behind your opinion. Make it clear that it’s okay if you disagree. Talk about next steps, and agree to see how things go over the next six to 12 months.

This is the most typical reaction. The review is a lot of information to take in at once, so most people are in listening and processing mode, which is fine. But, if it feels too quiet, simply point it out, e.g. “I’m noticing you’re really quiet, I just want to make sure this is all making sense? Any thoughts or questions before we keep going?”

 This sometimes happens when you have way too much information to share, or the review is negative. In these cases, slow down. Keep checking in. I sometimes stop the review conversation and pivot to a heart-to-heart. Find out what’s going on with the person. Sometimes they take it much harder than they need to. Sometimes they have other stuff going on in their life that’s showing up here. Come back to the human-to-human connection and don’t worry about getting through every nuance and detail of the review.

Share compensation updates (if there are any): 

Finally, share any compensation updates. This normally ends things on a happy note. Keep it simple, share the facts, and congratulate the person on the achievement. It’s easy for employees to take a raise for granted and not treat it as a big deal, so use it as an opportunity to remind them how much you value their great work.

Then, open it up to any remaining questions and thoughts. Is there anything your report disagrees with? Is there anything they want to dive into further? Is there any more clarity you can give around expectations for the next cycle? Try to give this at least five minutes. That being said, I try not to linger here too long if there isn’t anything pressing, especially if things seem to be in a good place. Often folks need time to process and think about everything they’ve heard, and you can follow up on it in future 1:1s.

 Finally, turn this discussion into an action plan (you’ll find guidance on how to do this below). This will allow you to channel all of the ideas, motivation, and momentum into an ongoing structured discussion that holds both of you accountable to making change. 

Find a way to wrap it up end on a positive note. Remind them how valuable they are to the company (if they are), how much you enjoy working with them (if you do), and how much potential they have at your company (if they do). And last but not least, let them know that if anything comes up until you chat next, to not hesitate to ping you.

As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 

We want to believe our carefully-chosen words of wisdom are interpreted correctly and seared into the minds of our reports. It’s safer to assume they aren’t. 

Early in my management career, I had a report that was underperforming. I put hours into preparing for our performance chat. I identified development areas, included numerous examples, and shared tons of suggestions. I talked through it in our hour-long meeting. I felt like I made a real impact. A month later, I revisited our discussion and it felt as though it never happened. My direct report had vague memories of a few points I had mentioned, and a clear desire to improve, but 95% of the message was lost.

In that moment I learned two lessons. One, it’s my fault as a manager if my report doesn't remember what development areas to be focusing on. Two, 

I was treating the performance conversation as the end, when it’s really only the beginning of the performance development process. 

The solution to both of these problems is simple — set aside dedicated time to check in, and hold each other accountable. Here’s how you make this happen:

Building off the performance review document, at the end of your conversation (see above), ask your report to list five to seven concrete actions they want to work on over the next six months and add them into a super simple spreadsheet. Give them a week to do this, while it’s still fresh in their minds. 

Alongside this list, make sure they also include what they need from 

 in order to be successful. It’s important that your report owns this process and chooses the items (with input from you) because they’ll need to be motivated to actually work on these things. The list should be made up of concrete suggestions you noted in their performance review, things your report personally wants to work on, and things that your report needs from 

in order to be successful. Put a status color next to each item, and update it every month.

Put this meeting on the calendar immediately. I call it “Monthly Career Coaching,” to distinguish it from our weekly 1:1s. The focus of these meetings is to step back from the day-to-day and focus on career and performance development. No talk of how a project is going, upcoming deadlines, or blockers (that’s for the 1:1s). Remind your report ahead of each meeting to update their spreadsheet with a status and any new discussion items they’d like to make time for.

•1. Check in to see how your report is making progress on their development areas.

•2. Make sure they have everything they need to in order to move the ball forward.

•3. Ensure the list of action items they’re focusing on is still the right list.

Lenny-Rachitsky_164RT.jpg

Performance reviews are key to accelerating your report's career. A former Airbnb Product Lead shares the conversation template that he's used to build high-performing teams and motivate growth all year long.

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

Some of the most popular advice we've ever given on First Round Review concerns feedback. There's a reason why 

' has been shared 150K+ times — and has since been turned into a 

. It's because people want to do exactly what its subtite describes: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. For managers both new and experienced, this can feel like threading a needle — giving people the constructive feedback they need to grow in their careers without making them feel badly about where they've failed or come up short.

We've heard from a number of people — founders, executives, managers, and ICs alike — that giving constructive feedback is painful, uncomfortable, and even frightening. No wonder many go far too long without doing it, or sugar coat their words past the point of clarity. They worry that what they say will cause more damage, or make people disengage. They worry that what they need to communicate won't come out quite right or be well received. So they sit in silence — which ends up feeling far worse when people around them continue to make the same mistakes, underperform, and gradually get managed out. All of which might have been prevented had someone just intervened.

Whether you're a manager or not, you don't have to let this happen to high-potential people around you. Instead of dreading the impact of your feedback, think about its power to transform someone's trajectory for the better. This collection of articles is a good place to start. We haven't included Radical Candor here, because that one goes without saying (

). What follows are the best pieces of advice we've ever published on the tricky task of giving truly great feedback. We hope it helps.

Managers, take responsibility for the best and the worst.

This piece from First Round Partner Phin Barnes

 is chock full of gems for giving good feedback in a variety of scenarios (23 of them to be exact). But the two pieces of advice that have stood out most for folks are these: 

Managers need to take responsibility for building a strong foundation of confidence and certainty from the start, and 

managers need to take full responsibility for the emergence and repair of bad interpersonal dynamics with their reports.

To instill tremendous good will and confidence, work this into the first conversations you ever have with the people you hire:

"Hey, you’re in this job, which means you jumped over a pretty high bar. I’ve looked at your background. I sat in on the hiring process. I know you’re amazing. I know you’re capable and will work hard. I’m here to maximize your potential. And I'm grateful for the opportunity."

Managers have a tendency to kick off working relationships with a laundry list of expectations. Even if they're friendly and welcoming, this can still be intimidating. 

As an employee, it’s extremely helpful to be reminded of your talents, and know that your manager already believes in you. 

This establishes trust really quickly, and then any feedback you give from then on will be heard as guidance from someone invested in their individual success. Think of it like building a house. If you create a solid, sturdy foundation, then everything that comes after builds upward. Don't miss this chance.

When bad performance and dynamics emerge, don't shirk your role in the whole thing, emphasize it: 

Giving feedback is a delicate matter, and it can easily derail relationships. This is especially true when a power dynamic is involved. Barnes has seen a number of managers who are completely oblivious to a direct report’s anxiety or concerns. Bad communication is always at the root.

When you're a manager, don’t just take some of the responsibility for this — you take all of the responsibility. 100%. There may be two people in the room, but you have the authority. You determine how often you communicate, where, what you talk about. So if you feel a relationship going sour, the first questions you have to answer are: 

•What don’t I understand about this person? 

Blaming yourself can be a healthy way forward. When you’re repairing things with someone, don’t just point out that you feel like something isn’t quite right. Frame the problem in terms of what you could be doing: "I feel like I’m not motivating you as well as I could," or "I feel like I’m not supporting you in the ways you need." Tell them straight out, "Being a good manager is important to me, and I could use your help improving."

Put it out there: I know you are talented and that our relationship is in your way.

If you have someone reporting to you that is clearly intimidated or doesn’t feel comfortable expressing how they feel, say something vulnerable. You might tell them that you’re scared of missing out on all the benefits that they could bring to the table. Try to mirror what they are feeling. 

More from Barnes on giving feedback that matters here

Practice your delivery, even if it feels silly or unnecessary.

 knows a lot about how to give harsh criticism in ways that will be embraced. After all, she's the creator of 

, which is responsible for creating one of the highest-expecation/hardest-charing environments in all of tech. Her key assertions: 

 People get used to immediate and pointed feedback when you create a culture that demands it, values it, and makes it a celebrated habit. 

 It's absolutely 100% vital that managers not hold back on feedback because it puts undue pressure on the boss to provide cover (i.e. they end up doing way more work and taking way more heat) and cheats the employee out of the chance to improve.

Her top advice for making feedback go smoothly? 

The people giving it need to practice, practice, and practice some more. Netflix invested a lot of resources in coaching managers to be good at this, and part of this was not skimping on 

A lot of the time, McCord would let managers with employee issues vent, loudly and passionately. They'd recite in detail all the bad behavior of the person they were annoyed with. Then she would ask, "What did she say when you told her that?" Typically, the person complaining would say, "I can't say this to her!" She'd push back, "But you said it to me, didn't you?" and they'd look sheepish, realizing it wasn't right to unload behind the person's back.

Then she and the manager would practice the same conversation without the emotion.

 They'd discuss the importance of giving specific examples of the problematic behavior and proposing solutions. Following those rules makes such conversations actually constructive.

Practice is crucial for honing your delivery style. You can do it in front of a mirror or with your spouse or a friend. Actually rehearsing what you'll say, out loud, allows you to hear the tone of your voice. You might even want to record yourself. 

It's also important to think about your body language, which can speak louder than words. We're often totally unaware of how emphatically it's sending a negative message.

A friend told McCord that when she went for coaching about how to talk to her boss — who was so difficult that her whole team had trouble communicating with her — the coach had her friend do some roleplay showing how she typically talked to her boss. The coach exclaimed, "Well, I'm sure she knows how annoyed you are with her!" Her hand gestures had spoken volumes. The coach told her to sit on her hands during meetings with her boss, and that dramatically improved their conversations.

The most important thing about giving feedback is that it must be about behavior, rather than some essentializing characterization of a person, like "You're unfocused." It also must be actionable. The person receiving it has to understand the specific changes in their actions that are being requested.

The comment, "You're making a great effort, but you're not getting enough done" is essentially meaningless. An action version would be, "I can see how hard you're working, and I really appreciate that, but I've noticed that there are some things you're spending too much time on at the expense of others that are more important." You would then establish better prioritization with the person.

Many people feel hesitant to speak so openly, but the truth is that most people really appreciate the opportunity to get a better understanding of their behavior and how it's being perceived, as long as the tone of delivery isn't hostile or condescending. 

More from McCord on how feedback fits into building high-performance cultures here

Be the force that helps employees zoom out.

's primary job has been to give helpful, specific, and transformative feedback. Today, she's VP of Design at Lyft,  but before that was Director of Experience Design at Airbnb, and a Creative Director at Project Frog. She's been in hundreds if not thousands of design reviews during that time — meetings carved out for the express purpose of being critical and not pulling punches.

, she focuses on how to run great design reviews in particular, but also how those same principles can be applied to help people get better at anything. One of the most powerful roles critique can play, she says, is 

helping people who are too close to their work zoom out and see the broader picture, and then zoom back in to see the role they play in that picture with fresh eyes.

When people are very close to their work, they have a hard time getting enough perspective to see where they are falling short or what they should change. “When you’re the critic coming in to offer a second opinion, you have he chance to zoom out and look at the forest for the trees and think about the system as a whole,” she says.

Does their work fit in with what the rest of the team and company are doing coherently?

 Can you draw a through-line from how they spend their day-to-day to the ultimate success of your mission? You want to establish this clearly. Show them the impact their work has the potential to make on the whole.

Do the different journeys and experiences that have been mapped out make intuitive sense given the audience? 

Have their actions and decisions historically been the right ones for the users you're trying to reach or the stakeholders in their project? Point out the ripple effects of their work and how they have been positive or negative when viewed from 50,000 feet. A lot of people have a hard time visualizing the second or third-order consequences of their work.

“Then zoom down into the details,” says Dill. “Are all the little pixels along the way helping convey the message they are trying to? Is everything there for a reason?” In the context of a manager-report relationship, this means walking through all of the granular work on a person's plate to make sure their time is being used wisely and everything they do is purpose-driven.

Zooming in and zooming out is your opportunity to give someone a whole new perspective on their work.

More from Dill on running excellent critique sessions here

Don't just give feedback — have 'Career Conversations.'

 has gone beyond helping his reports build better skills and professional habits — he's helped them make leaps and bounds in their careers. Currently VP of People at Qualtrics, this former Twitter VP and Google Director, doesn't wait to give feedback in the frame of performance reviews or underperformance. He proactively holds 

three different types of Career Conversations

 that allow his reports to better visualize what they want out of their work lives and understand what they need to do differently or better to get there. This ends up increasing performance more than any other type of intervention. Here, briefly, are these three conversations: 

Be their Barbara Walters. Take an hour to get to know your employees — deeply.

Starting with kindergarten, tell me about your life.

Then probe with more questions when they talk about pivots in their lives.

Laraway took this tactic with a direct report, who mentioned switching from cheerleading to swimming while in high school. “I became curious about why she liked swimming so much better than cheerleading. ‘What was it about swimming?’ She said, ‘I never really thought about it, but when we worked hard and we spent a lot of time in that pool, we had tangible outcomes on the backend. We reduced our times or maybe even got to the podium,’” says Laraway. “It became really clear through that story, and others like it throughout her life, that she deeply valued hard work leading to tangible outcomes. It was so clear to both of us because of the story.”

Look for the patterns over the course of your people's lives that give you strong signal and just write them down. “In this case of the cheerleader-turned-swimmer, I wrote, ‘Hard work leads to tangible outcomes.’ Then I wrote down the story, ‘Cheerleader to swimmer,’” Laraway says. “It’s not rocket science. I had pages of notes that yielded a list of 5-10 values and motivators that helped us have a shared, textured understanding of what she cared about and what brought her to this point."

Spot their lighthouse and bring it into focus. Articulating a clear vision for an employee’s future is the most important step. 

“Maybe we're a little skeptical that a lot of our millennials, for example, will know what they want to be when they grow up. In fact, some of you are thinking that you don't even know what you want to be when you grow up. That's common skepticism,” Laraway concedes, but he continues, “I've run this process hundreds of times, and never had a person who couldn't tell me about their dreams.”

“The idea is to try to get employees to start to talk to you about their dreams, or three to five of them if they don't really want to commit to one idea. None of it should be time-bound — no 10-year plans. Ask what this person would be doing at the pinnacle of his or her career — when they’re feeling challenged, engaged and not wanting anything else.”

“What we have now is a blurry, fuzzy lighthouse out in the distance. The goal is to try to bring that lighthouse into focus. We want to see the paint chips. We want to see the red tiles on top. We want to see the seagull perched on it. We've got to ask a few more questions,” Laraway says. He suggests the following three questions for focusing the vision only after you both understand the dream:

•What size company do you imagine working for?

•Do you want to be in a very senior individual contributor type role or very senior management type role?

Laraway had an employee, Jane, who articulated this vision: Own and operate my own spirulina farm.

This woman had also noted in her life story conversation that the happiest she ever was in her career was when she “built something from nothing” at a former employer, so this vision was aligned with what she valued most. Knowing her wildest dreams helped Laraway place her in a position that would deliver experiences that would compound and prepare her for where she was headed — even if she was in a different industry currently. “We were working in digital ads at the time at Google. Together, we were able to take the right actions given her vision, and advocate for her to get training that would be valuable for her as an entrepreneur,” Laraway says. “We were both extremely happy with the investment we made in her. She stayed at Google longer than I did, and continues to grow in the digital ad space at Facebook. The spirulina farm is still the lighthouse in the distance, and that’s ok.”

Armed with a shared and textured understanding of your employees’ key motivators, and a clear articulation of their own envisioned future, now you’re ready for the next step: crafting a detailed action plan. These will map out — in great detail — exactly how your employee is going to reach that vision for themselves. Think of it as a roadmap to self-actualization.

“Now we've got it: We've got an understanding of the person’s origin, path taken to this point, what they care about and what drives them. Now we've got a clear idea of this lighthouse in the distance. We know their dreams — what lights them up. We know how they envision their future,” says Laraway. “That arms us with all we need to take relevant action right now and start to build the career action plan.”

four steps to create a compelling career action plan

 and other advice for giving impactful feedback in the form of career coaching.

Avoid Performance Improvement Plans with this advice from Slack's VP Engineering.

As one of the most elite engineering leaders in the business, 

 has handled many different performance issues. He's built incredible teams at Slack, Pinterest, Palantir, and Apple. But that didn't happen without letting a few people go along the way. At a past First Round CEO Summit, 

he had the hard task of walking entrepreneurs through the best way to fire someone

. But the most important wisdom he shared was actually about preventing that conversation in the first place — particularly, how to make the dreaded Performance Improvement Plan (or PIP) less common and more effective.

PIP is one of the worst and most-feared acronyms out there. It usually takes the form of an official, written agreement drafted and overseen by HR that outlines exactly how an employee needs to very quickly get better at their job in order to keep it. They may be more common at large corporations than startups, 

but even new companies should be familiar with PIP principles to keep their staff on track, especially as they enter rapid growth

. Lopp recognizes the need, but hates how they’re used: too often as a last-ditch, half-hearted effort to save someone’s job.

“There are two problems with how PIPs are used. 

 is that you should want to fix something as soon as you see it go wrong, not at the very end of a long, slow decline. 

, you can’t just throw a switch and fix everything. It’s not just one conversation. It’s a lot of little things that need to be addressed over months, every day, every hour." 

If you’re thinking about putting someone on a PIP, your first question should be what could you have done earlier?

 — essentially an agreement made between a manager and employee to improve performance without signing anything with an unspoken “or else” at the end of it. This is even easier to implement at a startup that doesn’t have a formal PIP process. Here’s what the pre-PIP route looks like:

 As soon as someone steps off the path or veers into dangerous territory, let them know. Ideally during the first 90 days, give people “an exorbitant amount of feedback,” Lopp says. “Just think, you could have fixed it six or nine months earlier by pulling the person aside and saying, hey you really frustrated people in that last meeting because you weren’t listening.”

 Give granular examples of the mistake the person is making and how things would look different if they changed their behavior.

Have the person repeat it back to you until what they're saying matches what you mean.

 Too often people think they know what is expected of them, but still fail to meet expectations.

 One of the worst things about performance improvement plans is that they’re surrounded by an air of doom. This causes people to either push back and have a bad attitude, or feel hopeless and unable to put in their best effort. Address this candidly to help calm their fears. Don't let them go unspoken.

 Even though this isn’t an official PIP filed with HR, it should be quantified and codified. “You should write a well-defined list of things that you can measure. The person should be able to see for themself that they are succeeding. You should be able to see the changes that result from this process.” Even if there’s something subjective the person should improve, try to put something quantifiable around it.

 “Changing behavior is a lot of work. A lot of people assume it’s impossible. But by investing in feedback and giving your leads the ability to have hard conversations, you can do it, and it's often worth it.”

Always transition the conversation from critical feedback to possible solutions.

 People naturally cling to the negative, so ending on a positive note could make the difference between motivating the person and convincing them to give up.

When Lopp was there, Pre-PIP training was a key component of Palantir’s bootcamp for team leads. The company even retained an external coach that came in and trained people to give constructive feedback. There’s no time to be intimidated. 

If you're prepping for performance reviews:

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

Our 6 Must Reads for Managers to Give Feedback That Helps People Grow

Betterment Tested Three Performance Management Systems So You Don't Have To

A People Ops Veteran on Navigating the Gnarliest Conversations

How Does Your Leadership Team Rate?

AltSchool's CEO Rebuilt Google's Performance Review System to Work for Startups — Here It Is

One Rubric Changed Box's Engineering Performance — Here's How

The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: "You're Fired"