Always be at the top of your game.
Performance across teams always tends to increase as review season comes around. Individuals know that they are about to be evaluated by their manager and, consciously or unconsciously, they ramp up their output. I see it as an attempt to put their best foot forward and a chance to capitalize on recency bias. All in all, it is a very smart move.
But it is not a smart move. You need to be at the top of your game, always.
Opportunity is a random process. You never know when the unexpected will happen and a previously satisfied business need is now a business need unsatisfied. If that happens during review season, and your stats are up, then what an amazing coincidence. If it happens outside of review season, and your stats are off, then you have missed an opportunity.
Like many, I have often thought of career progression as a linear march. You continuously move in a straightforward fashion toward the next level, occasionally getting promoted. With more experience, I now see career progression as a kind of punctuated equilibrium. Things are relatively stable until such time as they are not and dramatic change can happen very quickly. The goal, your goal, is to always be well-positioned for those periods of change.
I feel this is important because this randomness has shaped, and perhaps defined, my personal career. The first time I became a software manager was when my then-current supervisor decided to leave the company for a new gig at Apple. He went to the CEO’s office and tendered his resignation. After some discussion, and an attempt to retain him, the CEO asked “how should we handle your replacement?”. My supervisor responded that “Craig has been really crushing it lately and has relevant experience”. The rest is history.
Anticipating your question, no, this was well after that year’s review season.
Time and again I have observed people who have missed opportunities because they weren’t positioning themselves to be prepared for it. There is a lot of power in acting like you belong at the next level because you never know when that opening will appear.
You will always have a down day here and there where nothing seems to click. That is natural and can’t be avoided. Don’t let off the gas though, even if it looks like opportunities are sparse. As Robert Abelson famously said “chance is lumpy”.
Photo: Lightning strikes the Santa Ynez mountains north of Santa Barbara, California.