For your next meeting
Simple worksheets
Choose a situation. Work through it on screen, then print it or save it as a PDF and take it into the room.
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Set goals that add up
For the meeting where next year's goals are written.
Bring the goals of three teams that have to work together. Put them side by side, in the words their people actually read.
Our position. Keep goal setting where it works, at the level of a person and a piece of work. Spend the design effort on who reconciles conflicting commitments, and on what travels back up.
Where a goal can break
Five questions
- What result are we really trying to produce?
- Where do our goals pull against each other?
- Who settles that, and how long does it take today?
- What does the front line know that has not reached us?
- What are we measuring because it is easy to measure?
Write it down
| The goal | Who else has to deliver | Who settles a clash, and by when |
|---|---|---|
Goals work for one person when they are specific, hard enough, owned and fed by feedback. That they add up to an organization is an assumption, not a finding.
Where to read more
- Targets are met and the shared result still suffers: Do individual goals add up to organizational performance?
- People cannot say which work matters most: Expectations, KPIs, KRAs, OKRs
- You are deciding what to keep, change or drop: What should we retain, redesign, or remove?
proofweight.com · From the article “Do individual goals add up to organizational performance?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Say what you actually mean
For the meeting where someone proposes a new goal format.
Take one person's goals from this year and sort each line into one of the four.
Our position. Do not change the label. Write the existing goals better: one priority, what good looks like in a sentence, and a date to revisit.
Four things people confuse
| Word | What it actually is | Ours, written out |
|---|---|---|
| Responsibility | Work the role owns all year | |
| Measure | What we watch to tell how it is going | |
| Target | The number we are committing to | |
| Expectation | What good work looks like here |
Five questions
- What problem do we expect the new format to solve?
- What would count as good work here, in one sentence?
- What does this ask the person to stop doing?
- How could someone hit this number without doing the work?
- What will we still argue about after the change?
Write it down
| The line as written | Which of the four it is | Rewritten in one sentence |
|---|---|---|
What the research supports sits under every label: specific, difficult, owned, with feedback. No study shows one format beating another.
Where to read more
- Individual targets are met and the result still suffers: Do individual goals add up to organizational performance?
- The score causes argument but little clarity: Do ratings actually improve performance?
proofweight.com · From the article “Expectations, KPIs, KRAs, OKRs: does the label change anything?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Have a better conversation
For a conversation about work that keeps hitting the same obstacle.
Take one obstacle that has come up in three conversations running. Start there, not with the calendar.
Our position. Talk more often, and judge the conversation by what it ends with. A quarterly conversation that resolves an obstacle beats a weekly one that sympathizes with it.
Where the loop leaks
Five questions
- What has changed since we last talked about this?
- What is getting in the way, in one sentence?
- Who can remove it?
- What am I saying that you have already heard three times?
- What will be different by the next one?
Write it down
| What is in the way | Who can remove it | When we look again |
|---|---|---|
Feedback lifts performance on average and lowers it in about a third of cases. What decides the direction is whether attention lands on the work or on the person.
Where to read more
- The score causes argument but little clarity: Do ratings actually improve performance?
- Targets are met and the shared result still suffers: Do individual goals add up to organizational performance?
proofweight.com · From the article “Does more frequent feedback produce better work?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Put the rating to work
For the meeting where the score is defended, changed or dropped.
Bring three ratings from the last cycle and the decision that followed each one. Fill the last column as you go.
Our position. Keep a rating if you need to allocate pay and compare people across a large organization, and stop claiming it improves performance. Separate the judgment from the reward decision.
The decision map
| The decision | What it needs to be made well | Ours, from the last cycle |
|---|---|---|
| Improve the next piece of work | A specific gap, one action, and the support for it | |
| Recognize contribution | Results, how the work was done, and the context | |
| Allocate pay | Contribution, plus the reward rules and the budget | |
| Decide a promotion | Evidence about the next role, not only this one | |
| Address a persistent difficulty | Expectations, support given, and a record of what happened |
Five questions
- Which decision was this score meant to improve?
- What did the score tell us that we did not already know?
- Where did the number come from, and where did the budget come in?
- If pay were decided separately, what would the rating say instead?
- What are we scoring because we always have?
Write it down
| The rating | The decision it drove | What we would say to the person |
|---|---|---|
Training managers against a shared standard can make judgments more accurate. Nothing shows that the annual score itself raises performance.
Where to read more
- Judgements change in a meeting with no clear reason: Does calibration make performance decisions fairer?
- Removing the score made decisions harder to explain: What actually happens when organizations remove ratings?
- You are deciding what to keep, change or drop: What should we retain, redesign, or remove?
proofweight.com · From the article “Do ratings actually improve performance?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Before the calibration meeting
For the room where judgments get compared.
Bring the evidence for each person, not only the rating. Ask the questions before the first name is read out.
Our position. Keep calibration, and spend the effort on what managers bring into the room. Require evidence for the top and bottom calls, and write the reason you would give the person.
Five questions
- What are we in this room to decide?
- What do we each mean by our top word?
- What moved because of the argument rather than the work?
- Could we explain each change to the person it affects?
- What did we learn about our standard, rather than about our people?
Write it down
| Initials | What changed | The reason we would give them |
|---|---|---|
Calibration can add information. In one company it also produced uneven adjustments and strategic sharing. Agreement is not accuracy.
Where to read more
- The score causes argument but little clarity: Do ratings actually improve performance?
- Removing the score made decisions harder to explain: What actually happens when organizations remove ratings?
proofweight.com · From the article “Does calibration make performance decisions fairer?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Replace the rating
For the meeting where someone proposes dropping the score.
List every decision that currently uses the rating, including the talent grid, then check what the replacement has to cover.
Our position. Do not remove the rating until you have built its replacement, in writing. If the judgment will still be made in a talent room, removal has only made it invisible.
Five questions
- What do we want to be true once the score is gone?
- Where will the judgment live instead?
- Who explains a pay decision, and in what words?
- What travels into the talent room, and who can contest it?
- What would make us bring it back?
Write it down
| Decision that used the score | Where it goes now | Who explains it |
|---|---|---|
The fullest account of a large removal is the company's own. Evaluation did not stop. It moved.
Where to read more
- Judgements change in a meeting with no clear reason: Does calibration make performance decisions fairer?
- The score causes argument but little clarity: Do ratings actually improve performance?
proofweight.com · From the article “What actually happens when organizations remove ratings?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
Retain, redesign, remove
For the meeting where you decide what to do about the whole system.
Bring three decisions from the last cycle: one routine, one that caused an argument, one where the rating changed.
Our position. Pick one decision that has to get better, change the smallest thing that could move it, and write down in advance what would make you reverse it.
What decides the right system for us
| Variable | The question to answer | Ours |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome | Ambition, reliability, or defensibility? | |
| Underperformance | Do we develop, act on evidence, or not carry it past a quarter? | |
| Manager capability | What share of our managers can hold a straight conversation? | |
| Sector | How much does documentation actually matter here? | |
| Interdependence | Do results come from individuals or from teams? | |
| Growth stage | Do standards have to transfer to managers who never meet? |
Five questions
- What triggered this now?
- What is working, and what is not?
- What does this process assume about our people?
- Can it identify who is adding least value, in a way that fits what we say we value?
- What are we avoiding?
Write it down
| The difficulty | What we will try | What would tell us we were wrong |
|---|---|---|
Most of the research points one way: what managers do through the year matters more than the design of the form.
Where to read more
- Targets are met and the shared result still suffers: Do individual goals add up to organizational performance?
- The same obstacle returns at every check-in: Does more frequent feedback produce better work?
- Judgements change in a meeting with no clear reason: Does calibration make performance decisions fairer?
proofweight.com · From the article “What should we retain, redesign, or remove?” · Written to start the conversation, not to settle it.
A discussion aid, not a validated assessment or an automatic recommendation. Record reasons, constraints and what would change your decision.