A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

Chapter 6. The Daryl Meeting

Review season. You start your career thinking that the review is the most important milestone of the year, but as an individual, you see only part of the picture.

Everyone cares about the compensation (base salary, bonus, and stock). That’s the data they care about, but where did this pile of compensation come from? Who decided how big it is? And how is it allocated? The answers are part of a complicated process that began over a year ago.

And as a senior leader, it’s your job to figure it out.

The Most Important Milestone

I’m going to work backward because we’re all—correctly—focused on compensation. Before I do, here’s one thing to hold on to, because it’s the thing that trips everyone up: in any given summer, two budgets are moving at once. One is being spent—the money for this year’s raises, which was locked in a year ago. The other is being built—next year’s budget, which is just now getting decided in rooms most people never see. Keep those two apart in your head, and the rest of this chapter is more digestible.

Note

This chapter makes a lot of assumptions, which I’ll explain as I go. The first is that you work in a business that is doing well enough to afford a merit budget for the team. No merit budget? Probably no promotions and likely no raises. Reading this chapter is still worth your while.

Fall. Reviews. Critical milestone. You receive a letter that says some words about performance and then has some numbers about compensation. Hopefully, ...