OG Tuesday Issue #304

📚 Help managers make confident, compliant employment decisions with practical, real-world training.

⚡ Drowning in repetitive Microsoft tasks? Power Automate, explained simply for total beginners.

📚 Adding these 12 must-read summer books to the beach bag.

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A performance review should never be the first time someone hears they’re falling short. If the feedback lands as a surprise, the problem started long before the meeting. Most of us are on both sides of that table this season, so take what you need from each.

If you’re giving the review

Your job is to make the formal review boring, because you’ve already said all of it in real time. Managers drive 70% of the variance in how teams perform, and one in two people have left a job just to escape a bad one, so the tone of the whole thing is yours to set.

Give feedback in the moment, when it’s still fresh and fixable, so no one on your team walks in surprised. When you flag a problem, bring what you’d want from your own boss: specifics and a clear path they can act on. And keep your own record of their wins, so you can go to bat for them the way you’d want someone going to bat for you.

If you’re getting reviewed

Don’t wait for the formal sit-down to learn where you stand. Book a 15-minute check-in this month and ask straight out: “What’s one thing I could do better, and am I on track for where you want me by year-end?” Whether you’re an IC gunning for a promotion or a director eyeing the next rung, the move is the same: pull the feedback forward while you can still act on it.

If what you hear is rough, don’t spiral. A hard review stings, but it’s information you can use. Skip defending yourself in the room and ask for specifics and a path instead: “What would ‘exceeding’ look like next quarter?” Then come back with receipts, and keep a running wins doc so the story of your work isn’t left to memory. And if the goalposts keep moving or you’re graded on things nobody flagged, pay attention: sometimes a brutal review says more about your manager than your work.

This is the short version; the full guide goes deeper: the in-the-room scripts, why feedback keeps coming back vague, and two AI prompts that do the prep for you.

Want it all in one place? Grab our free Know Your Worth kit.

Come review season, it’s just a check-in nobody dreads, from either chair.

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“My biggest challenge is learning to say no when asked to take on additional work when my plate is already too full.” — Julie V.

The reason no is so hard for a lot of us is a little embarrassing: yes has always been how we prove we’re reliable. So the plate fills with everyone else’s priorities, and none of your own.

So let’s make no easier, and let’s make it cost you less.

A yes is always a trade

Every time you say yes to new work on a full plate, you say no to something already on it. Name the trade out loud. When your boss can see what a new task would push aside, “no” becomes a conversation about priorities. If holding that line doesn’t come naturally, our guide to being assertive at work breaks down how to do it without feeling like the bad guy.

Who is asking?

Now, it can depend on who is asking you to take on more. Is it your direct boss? A cross-department request? A lazy or incompetent coworker?  If it’s your boss, you can highlight your priorities for the quarter and use it as an opportunity to flag any obstacles or additionally needed resources to help offset some of your workload. If it’s a non-supervisor person asking, and it’s not feasible, it’s okay to say no.

Have the words ready

The hardest part is doing it live, so borrow language you can reuse:

• “I’d love to help. I’m at capacity with X and Y this week, so which would you like me to move?”
• “I can get to this Thursday, or hand it to someone sooner. Which works better for you?”
• “That’s not something I can take on right now, but here’s who might be able to.”

Want a bigger arsenal? Steal our full set of burnout scripts for the moments your plate is already past full.

Watch what you keep saying yes to

This is the part with teeth for your career. Women get asked more often to take on non-promotable work: the office-housework tasks that keep things running but never show up in a promotion case, and we say yes more often when we’re asked. Every yes to the party planning and the note-taking is time not spent on the work that gets you paid and promoted. Saying no to the invisible tasks is how you protect the visible ones.

The fallout is smaller than you think

The fear underneath people-pleasing is that no will cost you the relationship, but it rarely does. When researchers looked at how people actually react to being turned down, they found we badly overestimate how upset people get. The person asking usually just moves to their next option. The disaster you’re bracing for mostly lives in your head, and knowing that makes the word easier to say.

Saying no doesn’t make you less valuable. The woman who can be trusted to deliver what she takes on is worth far more than the one who says yes to everything and drowns. Start with one no this week, and watch how little the sky falls.

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 Work Wisdom of the Week:

“Observe, don’t absorb. Take the ‘sacred pause’, that intentional moment between a trigger and your response. It’s okay to take a beat to think, regulate, and choose how to show up.” — Sami P. (Head of People & Chief of Staff)

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