How To Master Your Performance Reviews

Performance reviews feel like a 'whack-a-mole' game - you fix one development need, another pops up. That's because consultants don't have a solid approach. Learn to improve that.

In my first review, I received feedback to improve my top-down communication.

I religiously worked on that skill. I communicated everything in a top-down manner.

In the next review, this feedback disappeared. But structuring feedback popped up. I structured the hell out of everything.

But, in the following review, the old feedback on top-down communication reappeared.

What!? I thought I had fixed that. The feedback seemed so random. Is it even mine?

The reason it happens is that people don’t know you well enough. They provide generic feedback without putting sufficient thought into that.

I also made other mistakes, shooting myself in the foot.

For example, I shared all my challenges with my evaluator, who I thought was my mentor. Then, I saw all my challenges transferred verbatim into my evaluation papers.

I also held this naive belief that if I worked very hard, leadership would recognize my work fairly. So, I did not proactively discuss my performance with leadership. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

For a long time, I thought that if I did what managers and partners told me to do, then I would be alright.

This is what I was taught in the industry for many years. But nobody told me this would get me only an Average rating.

People kept saying that the Average rating was already an outstanding achievement. The bar is so high. I should be proud of myself.

They haven’t told me that for an Average rating, I would get average treatment and average opportunities, as well as average experience, self-esteem, and career trajectory.

Another frustrating thing was that the work expectations were too vague.

What one person perceived as high-quality work, another might see as subpar. This creates a perfect environment for confusion and double standards.

This was incredibly challenging for someone with an engineering background. I craved a more structured approach.

Although they try to make the review process as objective as possible, people have biases, emotions, and perceptions. They heavily influence reviews and, by extension, career trajectories.

You can fight the imperfect system or understand and play it in your favor.

One day, I was lucky to meet people who explained how performance reviews worked. Later, when I became a member of review committees, I witnessed it myself.

Let’s learn what consultants can do to improve their chances.

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If you are an MBB consultant and want to achieve high performance, book a free 1-1 consultation to discuss how exactly I can help you. There is no commitment, and you can ask me any burning questions you might have.

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How The Review Process Works

Let me explain how the performance review process works in McKinsey. BCG and Bain have slightly different systems, but the same principles apply.

First, you will be assigned an evaluator when you join the firm.

This person's role is to collect feedback and present your case to the review committee.

Typically, your evaluator is assigned for a long time. Changing them will be challenging, so if you are stuck with a bad one, this can be a severe problem.

Evaluations occur twice a year. The mid-year is more of a pulse check, providing developmental feedback. The year-end review is the most important, as this is when you receive a formal rating.

Before each review, you submit an exposure list of people you worked with during the last cycle.

The evaluator collects feedback from your project leadership and writes a report detailing your strengths and development needs. They also suggest a rating and a designation, if applicable.

Then, on a day of review, the committee evaluates your case and votes on a decision.

What Can Go Wrong

Correct! Everything!

First, the impact of your evaluator is hard to underestimate.

Too many times, I've seen evaluators come with poorly prepared cases. Then, the committee wonders whether the case lacks merit or the evaluator is unprepared.

More often, a consultant, not an evaluator, will be penalized by receiving a lower rating for doing a poor job.

Another problem is when leaders don't know consultants enough to provide quality feedback. Then, the feedback comes across as flat and superficial.

Sometimes, professional development managers and evaluators may forget about designation windows. I witnessed a consultant not getting her manager's promotion for this exact reason. They just forgot. It delayed her career trajectory by six months.

Finally, committee discussions create all sorts of randomness. The way discussions are conducted can heavily influence voting. Good cases got derailed because of a random question or a minor noise in the feedback.

Useful Mindset Trick

Later in my career, I came up with a useful mindset trick on how to think about performance reviews.

Think about performance reviews as an NPS survey—a vote of confidence in you as a consultant (Net Promoter Score: https://www.netpromoter.com/know/).

Imagine that in your next review, your leadership will be asked just one question: “How likely is it that they will recommend you to their friends?”

Then, responses are categorized based on their scores: Promoters (9-10), Neutrals (7-8), and Detractors (0-6).

Subtract the percentage of Detractors from Promoters and get an NPS. If the number is positive, you are doing well; if it is negative, not so much.

We are social beings and can feel what people think of us. At least you should be able to tell if a person is a Promoter or a Detractor.

Let’s imagine a colleague rates you a five score. They likely don't know you well enough to provide enthusiastic feedback.

But that person cannot say that to your evaluator. They don't want to look unprofessional.

Instead, that person will give tenure-appropriate feedback, such as top-down comms and structuring. They will feel safe giving that feedback as it is hard to get it wrong.

As a result, consultants receive feedback that is too generic and not very actionable. They will be working on symptoms, not root causes. And next time, they will get another random feedback because partners still don’t know them well enough.

That is what happened to me in that frustrating sequence I described initially.

Ideally, you should retain your Promoters and move your Neutrals into Promoters. The marketing wisdom suggests that it is almost impossible to change Detractors' minds. You may try in the short term, but in the long term, you should avoid working with them.

With this new perspective, you start asking yourself different questions. What are your leadership needs? Do they know you well? Do they have enough evidence to be excited about you?

Then, you can craft and execute your actionable plan in advance, not when it is too late. In many cases, this makes a big difference.

Getting An Uptick Is Tough

There is a natural resistance to awarding a rating uptick. The committee will be extra diligent and seek solid evidence of higher performance.

They will ask an evaluator why you should get an uptick. What materially changed? What is the evidence? And your evaluator needs to communicate it clearly and with a high conviction.

You need to craft a story that shows you have improved significantly. Any form of noise will most likely spoil that case. Your supporters should unanimously say that you are a higher performer.

The key differentiator will be the level of enthusiasm from your colleagues. And the breadth and depth of feedback (one project won’t be enough for the committee). Getting the uptick may take a few reviews, but sustaining it will be much easier.

Tips and tricks

Here, I describe some tips and tricks you can employ to improve your chances of getting a higher rating.

The Level Of Enthusiasm Is The Key Success Factor

First, your colleagues’ enthusiasm is the critical differentiator for your successful case. The key here is to build relationships with your colleagues so they will advocate and pound the table for you.

Some consultants know this intuitively and build excellent relationships with their leaders, while others (like me) are more introverted and don’t realize the importance of this factor, however obvious it sounds.

So, I am spelling this out for people like me who need to learn this the hard way.

Choose Great Evaluator

Choosing the right evaluator can be impactful for your career. Sometimes, new hires are given a choice to select an evaluator. But the problem is that they are new and don’t know who is good.

Consult with more experienced colleagues, and then approach the evaluator you want. Tell them why you want them. If they agree, inform your professional development manager. They'll likely confirm.

Again, I risk being the ‘captain obvious’ here, but many people underestimate this factor or don’t do anything about it. Typically, a more experienced evaluator is much better than a new one. Also, a more successful and respected partner is much better than someone who is not that respected. There will be a moment when the weight of your evaluator will help your case.

Frame And Prep Your Evaluator

Evaluators are people and quite swamped. They typically forget your context and what you need in your cycle.

That is why you need to control your review process.

Set up a time with your evaluator before they collect feedback.

Provide your context; tell them what projects you have done, what impact you created, how you addressed your previous feedback, and who the most important people are they need to talk to. This is your opportunity to frame and prepare them properly.

And don’t give them negative ammunition by telling them about your challenges, as I did wrongly in my early days. You should have other risk-free people to do that.

Coach Your Evaluator

If evaluators are sloppy, consultants almost always let it slide. They are afraid to spoil the relationship they have, even if it is a superficial one. However, you can be more demanding than others. Asking your evaluators to be more specific in their feedback, make sure it is actionable, and provide examples.

In that way, you condition them to prepare well because you will give them a hard time again the next time. They will be more diligent and careful. This will also be translated into your evaluation papers; the committee will have better evidence.

If you can do it in a non-combative, constructive way, it can improve your chances and keep the relationship intact. Your evaluator may respect you more for this.

Frame And Prep Your Leadership

When you start a project, frame your leadership and tell them your goals this cycle. It is even more essential if you are gunning for a promotion or a higher rating. If you have a promotion window, generally, people will rally to support you if you are doing your job well. They all have been in this situation, and others rallied to support them in their critical moments. So they know what to do, and they need to be aware of it.

Also, during your project, conduct a few feedback sessions and use them as opportunities to remind them of your goals, what you are doing to meet them, and what impact you are creating for clients and partners.

If you do it in a nice, non-cringy way, this will make a big difference. Partners forget things, but if you regularly tell them what you need, they will remember and tell you the right things at the right moment.

Written Feedback Is Better

Very often, an evaluator gets on a call with your leadership to collect feedback. The conversation is brief; they speak on the spot and don’t have the depth and richness you need. Also, the evaluator loses things in translation, and everything becomes superficial.

Then, when the committee asks why they believe you are an excellent consultant, they can’t say it with conviction. It happens all the time, more often than it should.

It is much better when a manager or a partner writes comprehensive feedback. It is much harder to be high-level and bullshit on a paper than on a phone call. If you have friendly and supportive leadership, ask them to write feedback and send it to the evaluators.

Evaluators are most likely busy. They will copy-paste that feedback verbatim into your evaluation paper; nothing will be lost in translation. This is how you can mitigate the situation when you do not have a super diligent and articulative evaluator.

Control Your Exposure List And Narrative

Sometimes, I see consultants who submit an exposure list of 15 people. They add everyone they barely interacted with. Naturally, many have no idea what to say when I contact them. So consultants water down their cases, adding some random people.

At least one manager and partner for each project is the bare minimum. But above that, you can be purposeful and control your narrative. Having 3-5 solid people in your exposure list is better than 15 random people.

Make Your Impact Visible

One of the most important activities you can do through your project is to make your impact visible to your leadership through purposeful and well-planned touchpoints. Ensure they are diverse, impactful, and memorable. There are multiple things you can do.

Internal meetings. You can agree with your manager that you will present your content to your leadership at the next team discussion. And if you do that, please prepare well, know all your facts, and anticipate potential questions. Try even a dry run with your manager to help you prepare.

The most common mistake I see is that when a partner visits a team room, the manager does most of the talking, almost to the level of entertaining partners. Consultants sit with their laptops open, doing something else. This is the most significant missed opportunity to get great exposure and be remembered by your leadership.

Stand up, participate in the conversation, ask intelligent, provocative questions, and show that you are thoughtful, engaged, and can contribute to the overall success. If you do this even as a junior consultant, you will stand out from the crowd immediately.

Client presentation. If you present your content to clients in front of your leadership, this will be the best exposure touchpoint. This is highly dependent on your client's situation. Prepare well, rehearse a few times, and maximize this opportunity.

Written. Sometimes, leadership is not present and available for consultants. But even in these difficult circumstances, you can make yourself visible. For example, if you have achieved a significant milestone or a win in your workstream, you can email your leadership about that or ask your manager to do that. Please coordinate with your manager to not overstep them; they don’t like it.

For example, when an impressive consultant leaves one of my projects, I always make them write an end-of-project email and send it to the senior leadership group. In this email, they write concisely about the problem they were solving, what they have done, what impact it created, and where to find critical artifacts and deliverables.

Informal. The most neglected lever is building informal relationships with your leaders. We are all people, and we remember how people make us feel. If you can connect with leadership on a personal level, it will help you big time when the time comes for staffing or feedback. Nothing special; try to click on a personal level, ask what people are interested in, something about their family or hobbies, and maybe ask for personal advice. People like to be helpful.

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P.S.

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Book a Free 1-1 Consultation to discuss whether I can help you through my unique coaching program and playbook. There is no commitment, and you can ask me any burning questions you might have.

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