Performance review seasons can be tough for people managers. At some point in our career, we will face the unpleasant task of telling someone they do not meet the expectations to be promoted or even worse, that they do but there isn’t an available position. How do you articulate an answer to the question “what do I do to get promoted” when the odds are not fully in your hands? Why do our managers’ answers to these questions never seem satisfactory?

Because the truth is, no matter how we try to articulate it, there is no checklist to be promoted to the next level. At best, you have a benchmark of peers you can look to to gauge the expectations of your role and that of the next level. This works best in organizations where skills are largely homogenous across (consulting firms are an example). At worst, there is no peer reference point and your performance is subject to the whim of a manager with little useful feedback.

A large startup in China adopts an altogether different approach: keep titles and organization structures opaque even within the company. The intention behind this may have been to remove hierarchy and encourage fair participation and debates from all. In reality, there may be two outcomes for employees: they either fall into an anxiety trap about performance or just perform to the best of their abilities and thrive. The latter requires a lot of self-reflection and confidence.

The source of our obsessions with the corporate rat race could have stemmed from the pyramidal structure of most organizations - there just aren’t enough spots at the top to accommodate everyone. An early-stage organization in rapid growth could in theory create space for all who qualify to ascend to higher positions but even then, there is a point at which the growth in number of promotions outpaces growth in scope of work available at that level. [1][2]

At the core of it, performance ratings and promotions are just recognitions of a person’s readiness to take on more responsibilities, checkpoints on a long journey of growth. Promotion and rating-related questions are relevant when money is introduced into the equation (salary increments and higher bonuses). But if you take money out of the equation, promotion becomes a trivial “end” to chase after (unless you crave power, which on its own can be a big motivating factor). Living to constantly impress others and to an external expectation is a failure of the current workplace model.

The traditional rewards structure could have adverse effects on a company’s long-term success too. Much like an algorithm gone wrong, it creates agents (employees) who are extrinsically motivated by short term incentives not necessarily aligned with long-term company growth (which is a function of employee growth). Thus, we see behaviours like politicking to get additional visibility and prioritizing short-term more visible projects at the expense of potentially longer-term higher value but less “sexy” projects. Could a rewards structure be designed rather to augment the innate curious nature of humans?

In hindsight, the ones doing the best work among us are often not the ones who work purely towards an externally-defined goal, but rather ones who seem driven by an intrinsic desire to just grow. This may not be causal however. To do your best work for an intrinsic reason, you would have to care deeply, and even enjoy, the work you do. External sources like role models paint what we can aspire to while good managers can be effective coaches on how we can do better.

Anyone can be better at a capability after enough years spent working in an area. But growth in leadership, maturity and resilience, skills which arguably make for good leaders, require deep self-reflection and consciousness to be able to reach an internal “epiphany” on what has to change within and why. Many naturally move up the ranks of an organization from experience and expertise in a topic, but few truly grow to be leaders. Obsessing over short-term ratings and promotions may get us to a position of power and money faster, but it does little for long-term personal growth.

So then our work here is two-fold: to figure out an “end” we want to strive towards, and consistently, intensely reflect on our performance and whether we are getting closer. Perhaps this is too idealistic a notion to entertain, especially when money weighs so heavily in the equation. But if everyone embodies a mindset of personal growth rather than allowing external structures to dictate our “ends”, we may have more leaders all of us can truly look up to.

[1] An exception to this are industries where output is constrained by the number of staff - consulting firms can afford to continuously hire and promote talent to grow the business. [2] An interesting conflict at work: as an organization grows, increasing hierarchy is a natural outcome. Andy Grove recommended in “High Output Management” that a manager has a maximum of six reports. Even if we stretch this number, an organization cannot grow horizontally without compromising on effective management - the only way to grow is by adding more layers.