# Performance Review Writing > Performance reviews are not new information — they are synthesis. The cardinal rule is "no surprises": anything that appears in a written review should already have been said in a one-on-one. Parent: [Writing and Documentation](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/writing-and-documentation/) · 16 facets · 51 facts · page: https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/ ## Overview - Performance reviews are not new information - they are synthesis. The cardinal rule is "no surprises": anything that appears in a written review should already have been said in a one-on-one. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#overview) ## 1. The "no surprises" rule - If a written performance review contains feedback the employee is hearing for the first time, the manager has failed earlier in the year. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#1-the-no-surprises-rule) ## 2. SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) — Center for Creative Leadership - Situation - When and where the behavior occurred. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#2-sbi-situation-behavior-impact-center-for-creative-leadership) - Behavior - What the person actually did. Observable, factual, non-interpretive. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#2-sbi-situation-behavior-impact-center-for-creative-leadership) - Impact - What followed from the behavior. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#2-sbi-situation-behavior-impact-center-for-creative-leadership) - Example (negative): > Situation: In the design review for the refund system on March 12. Behavior: You interrupted the junior engineer three times. Impact: She stopped contributing to the discussion, and we lost her input on the rollback design. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#2-sbi-situation-behavior-impact-center-for-creative-leadership) - Example (positive): > Situation: During the Q2 incident on April 8. Behavior: You took on the comms role within five minutes. Impact: The CSMs were able to respond to customers without paging engineers. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#2-sbi-situation-behavior-impact-center-for-creative-leadership) ## 3. The "behavior + impact + recommendation" structure for review bullets - Weak: "Sarah is a great team player and is always willing to help." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#3-the-behavior-impact-recommendation-structure-for-review-bullets) - Strong: "Sarah led the cross-team migration of the billing service in Q2, partnering with three teams and coordinating four deployment windows; the migration shipped two weeks ahead of plan with zero customer-visible incidents. Next step: I'd like to see Sarah take on a bigger system design role in Q4." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#3-the-behavior-impact-recommendation-structure-for-review-bullets) ## 4. Growth-area framing (not "weakness") - Weakness phrasing (avoid): "Tom is too quiet in meetings." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#4-growth-area-framing-not-weakness) - Growth-area phrasing (use): "In larger forums (5+ people), Tom contributes less than I think he could. He has the strongest understanding of the search service on the team, but in the Q3 architecture reviews his ideas often landed in the followup chat rather than in the meeting itself. Growth focus for next cycle: Tom and I have agreed he'll lead two of the next four architecture reviews." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#4-growth-area-framing-not-weakness) ## 5. Radical Candor — Kim Scott - Two axes: how much you care personally about the person, and how directly you challenge them. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#5-radical-candor-kim-scott) - Radical Candor: Care + Challenge. The target. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#5-radical-candor-kim-scott) - Ruinous Empathy: Care without challenge. Soft, vague, no real feedback. The most common manager failure mode. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#5-radical-candor-kim-scott) - Obnoxious Aggression: Challenge without care. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#5-radical-candor-kim-scott) - The failure mode in writing is almost always Ruinous Empathy - burying real feedback in praise sandwich. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#5-radical-candor-kim-scott) ## 6. Camille Fournier's patterns - Lead with strengths, not weaknesses. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#6-camille-fourniers-patterns) - Use concrete examples or cut the point. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#6-camille-fourniers-patterns) - Negative feedback goes in private. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#6-camille-fourniers-patterns) - Most of your time should go to talents and achievements. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#6-camille-fourniers-patterns) ## 7. Evidence-based claims with concrete examples - Every assertion should be tied to a specific example. Sweeping claims without examples are the single biggest source of perceived unfairness. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#7-evidence-based-claims-with-concrete-examples) - Weak: "She has strong communication skills." Strong: "When the platform migration ran into the dependency issue on the search team, she wrote the four-paragraph summary that unblocked the cross-team decision." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#7-evidence-based-claims-with-concrete-examples) ## 8. Self-review traps - False-modesty traps: — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#8-self-review-traps) - Hedging with "I tried to" and "I worked on" instead of "I led" and "I shipped." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#8-self-review-traps) - Crediting the team for outcomes you personally drove. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#8-self-review-traps) - Listing the work without claiming the result. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#8-self-review-traps) - The fix: "I led the migration; the team of four shipped it" beats both "I migrated the system" (overclaim) and "We migrated the system" (underclaim). — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#8-self-review-traps) ## 9. Bias-checking before submission - Are claims tied to behaviors and outcomes, or to personality? — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#9-bias-checking-before-submission) - Have I used different language for different people on the same team for the same observed behavior? — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#9-bias-checking-before-submission) - Have I disproportionately commented on style versus substance? — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#9-bias-checking-before-submission) ## Anti-example: the "praise sandwich" - Don't write: > "Maria is a wonderful teammate and a hard worker. She sometimes can be a bit late on deliverables but overall she's been a great addition to the team." — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#anti-example-the-praise-sandwich) - The real feedback ("late on deliverables") is buried in vague praise, has no specific example, and gives Maria no idea what to change. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#anti-example-the-praise-sandwich) ## References - Radical Candor - Our Approach (Kim Scott) — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#references) - Camille Fournier - The Manager's Path (O'Reilly, 2017) — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#references) - Center for Creative Leadership - SBI Feedback Model — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing/#references) ## Where this helps - Writing a review for a report whose year included a real performance issue that needs to land clearly instead of vanishing into a praise sandwich. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Coaching a manager who defaults to Ruinous Empathy — soft, vague reviews that avoid real challenge — toward Radical Candor's care-plus-challenge target. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Reviewing a self-review draft that hedges every accomplishment and needs to be tightened into ownable, specific claims. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Auditing a batch of reviews across a team for bias before submission — checking whether the same behavior gets described differently depending on who exhibited it. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* ## How to apply this - Draft every negative or growth-area point as SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) before writing the review prose, so the point stays observable and factual instead of drifting into personality judgment. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Before submitting a review, run the bias-check questions across every report on the team at once, comparing language used for the same behavior across different people, not just proofreading one review in isolation. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Rewrite every sweeping claim by attaching the one specific example that proves it, or cut the claim entirely if no example exists. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Apply the "no surprises" rule as a mid-cycle check, not just at review time — if a point can't be traced back to something already said in a one-on-one, say it in the next one-on-one before it goes in writing. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* ## Antipatterns - Burying real, actionable feedback inside a praise sandwich — vague positive statements wrapped around one buried negative point that gives the person no idea what to actually change. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Writing a review point the employee is hearing for the first time — a written review is synthesis of things already said, not a venue for new information. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Labeling a growth area as a fixed trait or "weakness" instead of describing the specific, situational behavior and a concrete next step. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - In a self-review, crediting the team for an outcome you personally drove, or hedging with "I tried to" instead of "I led" — both underclaim and overclaim distort the record. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* ## Limitations - SBI describes what happened and its effect, but it doesn't by itself resolve whether the behavior was actually within the person's control or driven by a structural or team problem. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - The "no surprises" rule assumes a manager has been running real one-on-ones with real feedback throughout the cycle — applied to a manager who hasn't done that groundwork, it mainly reveals the manager's own gap. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Bias-checking by comparing language across reports on the same team catches inconsistent phrasing, but it can't catch bias in which behaviors get noticed or documented in the first place. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* - Radical Candor's care-plus-challenge framing describes a target, not a formula — the same direct language that reads as caring challenge from a manager with an established trust relationship can land as pure aggression from one who hasn't built that trust yet. — [source](https://llms-explorer.com/tree/performance-review-writing/) *(AI-suggested, synthesized from this pack's existing facts — not extracted from a source document.)* ## Context files - [Performance Review Writing](https://llms-explorer.com/downloads/sources/mdb-context-hub/performance-review-writing.md)