Sarah Chen

Used AI to prep for a difficult performance review conversation and it went way better than expected

Bit of context — I had to give feedback to someone on my team who had been underperforming and was also going through some personal stuff. I was dreading it. I sat down with Claude the night before and basically just typed out the whole situation. What the performance issues were, what I knew about their personal circumstances, what outcome I was hoping for. I asked it to help me think through what I wanted to say and how to say it without being either too soft (which would mean nothing changes) or too blunt (which could make things worse). What came back was actually really thoughtful. It helped me structure the conversation into three parts — acknowledge what's been hard, be specific about what needs to change, and make it clear I'm in their corner. It also flagged something I hadn't thought about: that I should ask open questions first rather than leading with my assessment. Let them tell me how they think things are going. The conversation was hard but it went well. They actually thanked me afterwards. I've given feedback before that did NOT go like that, so I'm crediting the prep.