I’m in the middle of writing 15(!) year-end performance reviews. Each one takes about an hour and I don’t use ChatGPT at all. And worst of all, I don’t even write any during the actual workday because just two of these drain most of the focus energy that I have on a single day.
Some may call me antiquated for not having developed a workflow to feed in all pull requests, code reviews, Slack messages and design documents into ChatGPT and calling it a day. If I do all that though, at what point do I use my brain to reflect on what I really value about this individual’s contribution to the team and to the company? I’d love to develop a way to help me do this process faster, but I’m not sure it would be more effective.
I would have to feed in all the times an IC joined a meeting and lit up the whole room, brightening everyone’s days. I’d have to detail all the effort someone put in to organize a fun and thoughtful goodbye event to show that we genuinely appreciate people beyond the lines of code they write. I’d have to tell the chatbot about all the other new grads I’ve hired and overseen and how this person’s agency and ability to seek out answers is exceptional.
Not using ChatGPT is a forcing function for me to think critically about a person’s career. In the performance conversation, I will be able to speak genuinely about how they are contributing to the company and to their own career trajectory. If I did this with ChatGPT, I think it would feel soulless to my direct report. At that point, why even bother writing the review? At that point, why even have people managers?
Originally posted on LinkedIn.