A bi-weekly roundup of eerily similar performance reviews
February 22 - March 7

Where Do You Fall On The Tech Bell Curve?

There's a bell curve in terms of technology adoption:

Innovators
Early Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Laggards

This curve doesn't only represent whether someone uses a technology or not, but also how they use it. When computers first launched there was a bell curve in terms of who knew they existed, then a bell curve of who had a home PC, then a bell curve of people who used computers to send emails, and today there's a bell curve in how people use AI.

ChatGPT launched in 2022, blew everyone's minds, and now in March 2025, the AI market is valued at $196 billion. Whether you like it or not, AI is big, it's everywhere, and you're on that AI utilization bell curve...somewhere.

My 83 year old father is on the AI bandwagon.

If you've never used ChatGPT, then you're probably an AI Laggard.

Later this month, I'm going to be hosting a webinar looking at a particular work practice- performance reviews- and the different ways the AI adoption bell curve has transformed how people are doing them.

It shouldn't be a shock- people are using AI for performance reviews- and as I assemble my research, I'd love to hear from you:

How do you use AI for performance reviews?

Share Your AI Performance Review Hacks

As newsletter subscribers, you get special access to step into the workshop and hear some early examples of how people TODAY are using AI to make performance reviews harder, better, faster, stronger. I've been conducting a litmus test on how AI is being used right now (especially as many organizations are coming out of their performance review season) and here's what people have said so far:

Individual Contributors

Unofficially, I write the basic outline of my performance review and then use AI to make it sound polished and constructive

I used AI to help me write my performance review. I input everything I worked on in the last half, plus all of my goals for the upcoming year, and it helped me put together a robust and comprehensive review.

Unofficially at my job, several people admitted of using AI to improve and generate concise reviews. And I think that’s fine. If we allow our code, which is a very important asset, to be written with the assistance of AI tools, performance reviews could fit in that bucket too.

Managers

I have found it especially helpful for 'hard conversations.' I use it frequently to help me clarify my thinking before a conversation."

A few of my direct reports used Copilot to rephrase/improve their self reviews (and told me about it). That doesn’t bother me, as they described work I was already quite familiar with and it basically just seemed to punch up the phrasing. My use of LLMs for writing is limited to 'whole-sentence thesaurus' kinds of tasks.

I wouldn’t say we explicitly encourage it, but a lot of people here talk about it. I think it particularly helps our ESL (English as a Second Language) folks.

HR Leaders

We encouraged managers to use Gemini (vs. CultureAmp, the tool we use) to help them craft feedback that is objective and sends the tone / message they want to send. e.g., 'Gemini, here is my draft, can you point out where it may be murky or need more objective data?'

I worked on our performance management process and one thing we did was create a GPT that employees and managers could use to quickly find answers to their performance-related questions. In some of our materials for the performance review season, we highlighted how to simply and effectively utilize AI in your performance reviews. We emphasized the importance of using quality inputs and checking the 'final product' that AI gives you.

Company-wide, we encourage all employees to utilize AI in what they’re doing, especially administrative stuff that will save time for all of us to focus more on the strategic side of what we do. However, I would agree that for performance reviews AI should be used more as a writing assistant for this purpose than a performance management advisor: this is where the inputs really matter. If you have a specific tracker or document to give it, that could be helpful to enrich the writing.

Business Leadership

We already had pretty high completely of our performance reviews (thank you leadership team who leads by example), but I do think overall reviews looked more robust this year compared to previous years.

There is a need and desire amongst employees for greater guidance and guardrails on how to use AI, when to use it, etc but that guidance doesn't exist and thus we end up all over the place. HR leadership desires guidance too but the widespread adoption of AI has been so rushed and expansive it's hard to wheel it in.

We realized AI was being used for performance reviews by managers after senior leaders noticed the feedback and language was eerily similar across candidates. When leaders asked, folks did admit that AI helped them do their reviews faster. The overall consensus was that the quality dipped, but they also admitted there wasn't any guidance given from HR on how to use it, let alone how to use it for reviews.

Listen, everyone's on a different journey in a different context and I'm not intending for these twelve anecdotes to make you feel "ahead" or "behind." Instead, I want you to recognize that you, your employees, and the world you live in is getting forced on the AI rollercoaster ride and you can sit in the front, the middle, or the back, but you can't pretend that you're not on it.

My vote? You should CHOOSE to sit near the front. Get inspired. Try something. Get uncomfortable. Make a mistake. Don't sweat getting on the early access list for the next Claude model to drop, but try using Claude with an email this week.

If you're at a small marketing agency, this is the time to scooch a few seats closer towards the front. The marketing space is innovating faster than many other industries, a smaller organization can pilot and adopt new tech much faster, and martech vendors are shoving AI features into every hole their engineers can find. You're on the faster track- get with it.

Pencil into your diary March 27th at 12pm EST for that upcoming webinar. Stay tuned!

A TL;DR from the CRO

I checked with AI and your performance this year has been a little snooty.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

A TL;DR from our sponsors

A TL;DR from the Archive- 10 Things I Hate About Remote Work

Later this month, 10 Things I Hate About You will celebrate its 26th anniversary. Revisit our guide on navigating remote work, as seen through the eyes of Kat Stratford and heartthrob Patrick Verona as they begrudgingly collaborate and end up falling in love...with their headsets and sweatpants.

Read Part 1 Of the Remote Work Guide

My friend group has been using BoardGameArena a lot this winter. This website, where you can play hundreds of board games virtually, feels anachronistic:

For most games, it's free. Like, free. The paid tier is unbelievably cheap: $3/month
Some board games have been ported particularly well- shoutout to Caverna- and some...not so much. It's like the mid-2010s where there's more raw/unpolished experiences that you simply discover.
There are no ads. What was the last free video game you played that DIDN'T have ads? I forgot how it felt to not be targeted.
It works REALLY well for friends who can't physically get in the same space for several hours but want to banter about bad dice rolls.

What I've discovered is that I can emotionally only handle one virtual board game at a time. Sure, my playtime is about 5 minutes and then I have to wait until everyone else takes their turn, but it's constantly occupying my mindshare:

What if Jake picks the red six die? I'll have to rethink my whole next turn.
What if Mike figures out I'm trying to capture his fortress? What's my backup plan?
What if Jen and Brian take the last two spaces? I can see their virtual playmats- I think they have to take those last slots- unless...

Some of the top BGA players are juggling dozens of different games at the same time.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Theorycrafting my next move for hours,

Dan from Learn to Scale

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PS. These kittens serving burgers and fries in McDonalds should really be wearing gloves.