Everyone deserves a voice in their performance review

Most performance reviews, and most performance scores, are decided by one person or a group of people. Your superiors. Who are set for life and sometimes just want to keep you down because they can.

They decide in their little meetings, where you can't defend yourself, what position you occupy in their performance metrics. They change your true score because they don't like you, because "in the first year you can't have a better score," or simply because "not everyone in your team can be a great performer."

And then you are stuck. Stuck in a function you are no longer learning, that doesn't challenge you, that you have outgrown. Only your team knows how you perform. No other team, no other company, no other manager knows your real value. So you are stuck — to your function, your job, your salary, your bonus. To the version of you that one group of people decided on, in a room you weren't allowed in.

The working world deserves better than these theatrical performances the review cycle has become. Reviews that aim to give you a single score instead of helping you actually improve. Reviews built around the fear that you'll get better and want more.

I think the truth about how you work, how you show up, how you treat people, what you're actually capable of, belongs to you. Not to one company's politics. The colleagues who actually know you should have a way to say so, honestly, and that record should travel with you when you go.

You don't have to wait for the system to fix itself. You can take charge of how you're known.