Communication
performance review phrases

Explains complex work to people outside the team without losing them and without talking down to them.

Writes updates people actually read: the decision at the top, the reasoning under it, the ask at the end.

Raised the resourcing risk in week two with the numbers attached, which is why we had options rather than a crisis.

The written work is strong enough to be the team's template. Worth asking them to run a short session on how they structure an update.

Ready to carry harder conversations. Give them the next stakeholder escalation with you in the room rather than leading it.

I rewrote our status reporting so the decision sits at the top, and the leadership team now reads it before the meeting instead of during it.

I raised the delivery risk early and with evidence, which gave us a month to act rather than a week.

Keeps their manager and their team informed without having to be chased for it.

Asks clarifying questions early rather than guessing and reworking later.

Handles routine client conversations independently and escalates the right ones.

Communicates well inside the team. The next step is upward: the same clarity, shorter, written for people who were not in the room.

Strong in writing and quieter in meetings. Worth agreeing one meeting a fortnight where they bring the update themselves.

I kept stakeholders across changes as they happened rather than at the end, which cut the number of surprise questions.

I have got better at asking the question in the meeting instead of working around the ambiguity afterwards.

Updates tend to arrive after a decision has been made rather than in time to inform it.

Written work often opens with background and buries what the reader is being asked to do.

Tends to answer the question they expected rather than the one that was asked.

Try leading every update with the decision or the ask, then the reasoning. If the reader stops after two lines they should still have what they need.

Worth agreeing a standing check-in so information moves on a schedule rather than when somebody remembers to ask for it.

Practise saying the difficult part first. The wind-up before the point tends to soften it until it disappears.

I know my updates run long. I am working on leading with the decision and keeping the detail for people who ask.

I avoided a couple of conversations this year that would have been cheaper to have early.

Significant issues have reached me from other people rather than from them, more than once this year.

Stakeholders have raised that they are not being kept informed, and the pattern has continued since we discussed it in [month].

Meeting commitments are not being recorded or followed up, so the same decisions are made twice.

We need a written communication plan with dates: who hears what, how often, starting this week, reviewed in six weeks.

The gap here is consistency rather than skill, and it is now costing other people time. That is the part that has to change first.

I have not kept people informed consistently this year and I have seen the effect on trust. I want a set cadence rather than relying on my own judgement about when to update.