Mid-year reviews should tell you nothing new about your performance. At least, the review part shouldn’t. In fact, mid-year reviews should be boring. The review should merely encapsulate the conversations you’ve already had in one-on-ones and informal feedback throughout your regular workflow. Nothing more.

There should be no surprises.

If that’s true, the mid-year review should be a quick, easy meeting. Which means it should leave plenty of time to plan and focus on growth for the second half of the year.

If you manage people and you’re dreading mid-year reviews, start by looking inward. What haven’t you told your team about their performance that you’ve known for months? What conversations did you avoid or punt to this meeting? What took precedence over giving your people real, timely feedback during the first half of the year?

You know the answer.

As leaders and managers, we cannot get too busy to develop our people as part of our regular workflow. In a growing business, neglecting this makes you the bottleneck. It also turns otherwise routine meetings like mid-year reviews into high-stress, high-anxiety events for you and your direct reports alike.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Maintain your one-on-ones. Have the uncomfortable conversations before they become the difficult ones. You’ll improve performance in real time, and you’ll turn reviews into what they should be: a look forward, not a reckoning with the past.