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Whether you are getting a raise/promotion or not is determined by your manager during the year and finalized behind closed doors in calibration meetings. A handful of paragraphs in your performance review at the end of the year aren't really going to change that outcome.
Those paragraphs aren't going to change what your manager thinks of you, but they are usually important in convincing the other managers in the calibration meeting that you deserve the rating your manager wants to give you.
There's a few reasons for it:
* Your manager may want to advocate for you, but didn't actually do a good job of putting their thinking into words. And gets slaughtered during cross-examination (calibration).
* They serve as a reminder of all the important things you've done. Your manager may have forgotten some of them. (He's got a million balls to juggle, it's his job to remember, but people forget/make mistakes/prioritise the wrong things.)
* They are a good prompt for your peers, when they provide peer reviews. (There's nothing I hate more than writing a peer review for someone who won't write anything about themselves.)
In a perfect world where your manager has a photographic memory and an infallable ability to put what he knows about you into words, you wouldn't need to advocate for yourself, but we don't live in a perfect world.
> They serve as a reminder of all the important things you've done. Your manager may have forgotten some of them.
I regularly give this tip to employees, but it applies to managers too: when you (or in this case one of your reports) accomplishes something notable, jot it down. For ICs this is great for resumes, performance reviews, compensation discussions, but it's also great for managers in most of the same areas. The only thing that tells your employees you see what they do and value them more than actually being able to discuss specifically what they've done and how it helped...is paying them more.
Nobody reads everything that was written, but someone will always read some part of it. There's a reason perf and promo and calibrations take forever, and it's not because all the managers lock themselves into meeting rooms for a few weeks to twiddle their thumbs and pick their noses.
And if someone raises any red flags, your manager will really want to be able to point at something that addresses them.
It's unlikely anything would address the objections. The objections are made after the stuff is written, so it's not like you can form a cogent argument against an unknown attack. Especially considering the asymmetrical power dynamic.
The attack isn't unknown, neither you nor your manager were born yesterday, you should have some semblance of how your work meets/fails to meet the expectations for your role.
Writing also has a magical power, where people believe it more than spoken words. The reason it has this magical power is because it commits you to a particular story, as opposed to one that changes with the winds.
Also, just to clarify - are you making your claims from experience (I am, for promotion), or based on what you think takes place in perf/promotion meetings?
> Whether you are getting a raise/promotion or not is determined by your manager during the year and finalized behind closed doors in calibration meetings. A handful of paragraphs in your performance review at the end of the year aren't really going to change that outcome.
Those paragraphs aren't going to change what your manager thinks of you, but they are usually important in convincing the other managers in the calibration meeting that you deserve the rating your manager wants to give you.
There's a few reasons for it:
* Your manager may want to advocate for you, but didn't actually do a good job of putting their thinking into words. And gets slaughtered during cross-examination (calibration).
* They serve as a reminder of all the important things you've done. Your manager may have forgotten some of them. (He's got a million balls to juggle, it's his job to remember, but people forget/make mistakes/prioritise the wrong things.)
* They are a good prompt for your peers, when they provide peer reviews. (There's nothing I hate more than writing a peer review for someone who won't write anything about themselves.)
In a perfect world where your manager has a photographic memory and an infallable ability to put what he knows about you into words, you wouldn't need to advocate for yourself, but we don't live in a perfect world.