The year-end decisions about who moves feel like they happen in the room, in the calibration, in the review. They do not.
By the time those conversations happen, the people in them arrive with a settled read of you, and the meeting mostly confirms it.
The decision was built earlier, in the ordinary weeks when nobody felt anything was being decided.
That is why “prepare hard for your review” is late advice. The review is downstream of a read that formed in September and October. Preparing for the meeting polishes a conclusion the room already reached.
Below, where the read forms in the next eight weeks before calibration season starts, and what to do about each, so the read is right before anyone sits down to decide.
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