Performance Philosophy
Our approach to performance
Our highly flexible and non-linear environment empowers individuals with significant autonomy, trusting you to direct your own work. With this independence comes the expectation of true mastery in your craft and the personal drive to consistently achieve exceptional performance. This environment is designed for those committed to continuous growth and meaningful impact — independent professionals who together form a legendary team.
Maximum autonomy → shared mastery → legendary impact
Why do we need a Performance Philosophy?
We want to ensure there is a clear understanding and expectation company-wide that our amazing flexibility comes with great responsibility. We believe that each Doister’s performance fuels Doist’s growth, innovation, and market leadership directly.
We also believe that consistent, sustainable performance shouldn't come at the expense of a life outside of work. When we work smarter and iterate continuously, we create more room for the things that matter beyond the job. We celebrate people who find better ways of doing things, not just people who work the most hours, to ensure we achieve the impact in alignment with our mission and company goals.
What do we mean by "impact?"
Our performance reviews assess a Doister's overall impact for the cycle. The impact rating is a holistic assessment derived from three core components:
Alignment to Our Core Values and Mission: This evaluates how well a Doister's actions and contributions embody Doist's foundational principles and contribute to the overarching company mission.
Alignment to Expectations in Your Level and Role: This measures how consistently a Doister meets or exceeds the defined responsibilities, competencies, and performance standards for their specific role and level.
Ability to Adapt to Change at Doist: This assesses how effectively a Doister responds to evolving priorities, processes, or organizational shifts.
The rating scale gives us a shared language for assessing impact, but the written feedback is where the real value lives. Those qualitative notes support your growth and create meaningful alignment between you and your leader.
How do we rate impact?
To quantify and standardize the assessment of impact, we utilize a 4-point rating scale:
1 = Not enough Impact
2 = Inconsistent/developmental Impact
3 = Consistent Impact
4 = Transformational Impact
Not enough Impact (1)
Your contributions fall short of expectations and do not adequately advance team or company objectives.
Key Characteristics:
Work frequently requires significant revision or often needs to be completed by others due to incomplete or insufficient output.
Consistently falls short of established expectations across multiple responsibilities.
Examples:
Work frequently requires significant revision or completion by others.
Requires frequent manager, peer, or squad guidance to complete standard job responsibilities.
Actively resists company-wide shifts to new processes or tools, causing significant project delays.
Routinely ignores feedback from quality reviews, leading to outputs that do not meet standards and require others to fix.
Inconsistent Impact (2)
Your work demonstrates capability, but its quality and consistency vary, resulting in mixed results.
Key characteristics:
Achieves mixed results across different responsibilities, with some tasks performed well and others falling short.
Work quality varies and is sometimes inconsistent, indicating a lack of uniform performance.
Examples:
Delivers strong results on some projects while missing deadlines or quality standards on others.
Shows excellent skills in certain areas but struggles with consistency in planning or communication.
Struggles to adapt effectively when a project's requirements change mid-cycle, which leads to delays in deliverables.
Delivers strong results on urgent, high-visibility tasks but struggles to consistently manage core responsibilities, which leads to backlogs.
Consistent Impact (3)
You reliably meet or exceed expectations, delivering quality work that supports team and company goals.
Key Characteristics:
Always meets established targets and deadlines.
Work produced consistently requires minimal revision, indicating high accuracy and completeness.
Examples:
Always meets deadlines and delivers work that requires minimal revision.
Maintains positive stakeholder feedback and completes assigned responsibilities reliably, without needing to be prompted.
Successfully integrates new requirements into existing processes within the required timeframe.
Consistently produces high-quality work that aligns with company standards and strategic goals.
Transformational Impact (4)
You create meaningful change and results that elevate outcomes beyond expectations. Your work drives lasting improvements that advance Doist's mission and inspire others to build upon your contributions.
Key Characteristics:
Work influences outcomes and strategies beyond their immediate scope of responsibility.
Enduring impact and influence on future work.
Squad, Team or Cross-functional impact that elevates our goals, values or mission.
Examples:
Going above and beyond to increase efficiency in the team or squad.
Going above and beyond to measurably increase squad or team collaboration, communication and goal completion.
Takes initiative beyond their role to drive significant improvements.
Creates positive change that extends beyond their immediate responsibilities.
How we think about feedback
Performance reviews aren't the only place feedback should happen. Leads, Heads, and CXOs are expected to use our Feedback Compass to share feedback consistently throughout the year. The performance review cycle is a company-wide moment to reflect and realign, not the first time a Doister hears how they're doing.
We also don't compare Doisters to each other. Reviews are about your growth over time, measured against the expectations of your role and level.
For details on how the review cycle works in practice, see the Performance Review Cycle Guide . For answers to common questions, see Performance FAQ and Support Resources .