What’s Missing From Your Annual Review?
This is the time of year when many people have their annual conversation with their boss. Yes, these annual performance reviews still exist, despite what we hear about continuous feedback, progress conversations, and regular check-ins. In many organisations, the “annual” version still carries real weight, whether we like it or not.
And if you’re not exactly looking forward to it, you’re not alone.
Most managers and employees don’t look forward to these conversations. Not because they don’t care, but because most people were never trained to have them well. So we walk in with good intentions and a bit of tension, hoping it goes smoothly.
Then we add tiredness, time pressure, stress and the natural biases we all carry. The result is what the late Daniel Kahneman called “noise”, meaning inconsistency in human judgement. In plain language: your appraisal can vary widely depending on who your boss is, how they interpret performance, what they notice, what they value, and even what kind of day they’re having.
The good news is that while you can’t eliminate bias or noise entirely, you can reduce it with better training, clearer criteria, and a more structured process.
That variation doesn’t go unnoticed inside organisations. People compare notes. They see the inconsistencies.
I certainly did. In my early career, I don’t think I ever had the same type of appraisal twice. Different boss, different focus. Different standards. Different conclusions. Sometimes it felt fair. Sometimes it felt brutal.
The process itself tends to follow a familiar pattern. HR chases. Boxes get ticked. The conversation revolves around what you achieved, how you’re performing, and what you’re going to achieve next year. If you’re entitled to a bonus, you find out whether you’re going to get one.
Some conversations will go well. Others won’t.
Unrealistic goals or OKRs will be set. People will nod. Stress will rise quietly over the months that follow. Some will start scanning for a new job. A few will get promoted. This is how the story goes.
But I keep wondering something. What's missing?
How many of these conversations will centre on self-leadership before they centre on targets?
Because it’s relatively easy to set goals for another person. It’s much harder for that person to achieve them if the goals aren’t meaningful, if they require changing habits, or if the culture makes success harder than anyone wants to admit.
And managers sit on both sides of this. You might be delivering appraisals to your team this week and then sitting in your own appraisal next week. Self-awareness matters twice. It shapes how you deliver the conversation, and it shapes how you receive it.
My own experience as a young employee was that I often had big aspirations, but not enough self-awareness to recognise my real starting point, the steps I needed to take, and the blind spots I would repeatedly trip over. It wasn’t helped by working in successful organisations that seemed to believe these things magically materialise, even when one of them was a leading training company.
And then there was the career path question.
I simply didn’t know how to answer, “What’s the next step for you?” I used to beat myself up about that, because I thought I should know. It looked like some people did know. They often got promoted, even when they performed no better, or sometimes worse than others.
I see now how much of that is structural. In many organisations, there still aren’t real career paths laid out. Progress often depends on how well connected your boss is, how much freedom they have to shape their part of the organisation, and whether they’re willing to sponsor you into something else.
It also creates a dilemma that rarely gets said out loud. If your boss values you, they may not want to lose you. Yet they can’t always promote you or reward you if you stay put. So the annual review becomes a strange mix of ambition, constraints, and unspoken politics.
No wonder these conversations are fraught with tension.
Over time, I’ve come to appreciate the value of focusing on self-awareness and self-leadership before setting lofty goals. I’ve also learned that “less is more” is often the most realistic principle of all.
That’s why three Leading People conversations come to mind at appraisal season. Not because they give you a perfect script, but because they shine a light on what these conversations often miss: self-awareness, realistic development, and the career story sitting underneath the targets.
I’ll link to each episode below, as usual.
Self-awareness isn’t a trait, it’s a practice
Dr Julia Carden PhD, PCC, FCIPD challenges a common assumption. Many leaders think self-awareness is something you either have or you don’t. In reality, it’s something you practise and refresh, especially under pressure.
Appraisals are a pressure moment, even when everyone is being polite. People are interpreting tone, intent, status, and fairness. If self-awareness is missing, “noise” increases. You can unintentionally deliver a message very differently from how it lands.
Practical takeaway for managers:
Before the conversation, ask yourself two questions:
- What am I likely to over-emphasise today, based on my preferences or mood?
- What might the other person be experiencing in this conversation that I’m not seeing?
“Self-awareness isn’t something you achieve once. It’s something you keep coming back to.”
The career question underneath the appraisal
Caroline Dowd-Higgins - Dynamic Public Speaker makes a point I wish someone had made explicit to me earlier: career progress is not only about performance. It’s also about alignment.
She suggests a deceptively simple question: “Is this the place where I can do my best work?” And she highlights signals that suggest the answer may be no, even if you’re working hard. Values misalignment. Role misfit. A pattern of burnout. A slow loss of energy.
In appraisal season, that’s a useful reframe. Sometimes the development conversation shouldn’t start with “How do we fix you?” It should start with, “How do we put you in a context where your strengths can actually flourish?”
Practical takeaway for managers:
When you discuss development, include one question that addresses direction, not just performance:
“What kind of work brings out your best, and what’s currently getting in the way?”
“Career decisions get easier when you ask, ‘Where can I do my best work?’”
Less is more, especially with development goals
Pat Hutchinson’s lens is refreshingly practical. She is sceptical of lofty, vague development plans that sound impressive and then quietly disappear.
That matters in appraisal season because development goals often become a list. Ten goals. Five competencies. A big stretch target. Then real work hits and nothing changes.
Pat’s reminder is simple. If you want real development, make it usable. Make it specific. Make it small enough to stick.
Practical takeaway for managers:
Choose one development focus, not five. Then translate it into an observable behaviour and one real scenario where the person will practise it.
Instead of a goal of “Improve stakeholder management”, try:
“In the next 4 weeks, book two short stakeholder check-ins before issues escalate, and ask questions to test your assumptions.”
“Simplicity is not lowering the standard. It’s increasing the chance actions take place.”
https://leadingpeople.buzzsprout.com/1496338/episodes/8439895-how-to-help-leaders-get-real-insights
A simple way to reduce “noise” in appraisal conversations
Here is a small structure that helps, whether you’re the manager or the employee.
Part 1: State your purpose in one sentence
“This conversation is about performance and development, but also about what will make success realistic and sustainable.”
Part 2: Separate three topics, so they don’t blur your evaluation
- Results: what happened
- Behaviours: how it happened
- Conditions: what helped or hindered
When conditions are ignored, appraisals become unfair. When behaviours are ignored, development becomes vague. When results are ignored, the conversation loses credibility.
Part 3: Set development goals that actually stick
Use this formula:
- One focus area
- One behaviour you will practise
- One real work situation you will practise it in
- One check-in date
That is “less is more” in action.
One small experiment for this week
If you are a manager, open the appraisal conversation with this question:
“What would make this conversation genuinely useful for you?”
Then, before you set any goals, ask:
“What do you need more of, less of, or different from me to make any goals we set achievable?”
If you are an employee, ask:
“Can we choose one development focus we both believe is realistic, and define how we’ll measure progress in behaviour, not just results?”
Two reflection questions:
- Where might I be adding “noise” to my judgement because of mood, time pressure, or assumptions?
- What one development goal would create real personal growth without becoming an unrealistic load?
Want to explore this further?
If appraisal season is creating tension in your team, you may not need another form. You may simply need better conversations, or better development tools.
At Wide Circle, we help leaders and organisations build practical capability in three areas:
- Talent Insights
- Performance Leadership
- Collaborative Capacity
If you’d like support to improve appraisal conversations, goal-setting quality, and learning transfer, feel free to message me.
Let’s start a conversation
What’s the biggest source of “noise” you see in appraisal conversations?
And what’s one simple practice that has made performance and development conversations more useful in your organisation?
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