Check out [[Daily Reading]] for context. ## Today's Picks of the Internet In today's edition, we have got ideas around **how to have better performance reviews**, **how generative AI is no match for babies** and **why it is important to share your draft**. #### [Elevate Your Performance Review Conversations with these 12 Expert Tips](https://review.firstround.com/elevate-your-performance-review-conversations-with-these-12-expert-tips) If you are a knowledge worker, the tips in this article will most resonate with you. A bulk of the tips shared are geared towards helping managers conduct better performance reviews of their managees, but there are also key tips if you are a junior at your company. I am still in a junior role with no people to manage, so I come at this article from the perspective of a young employee looking for guidance on how to look at my best during review season. My favourite tip is ##### Ask questions and avoid getting defensive about feedback We all get defensive when criticised. It's not wrong. In fact, it is a humane response - To harden in the face of adversity. But, to succeed in life and grow one needs to recognise feedback. And to do so, we might often need to tune down our inner voice that asks us to push back against feedback. **Examples of defensive statements** - That's not true! You are wrong! - Oh did you not notice the "other" time I did this well? - It was not my fault. He did not do his work well and that led to the bad outcome. My work was delivered correctly. - You put me in a tough spot. There was no way I could have delivered this! ... and others where we tend to shift blame or responsibility away from us immediately after we get feedback. A better way to handle these scenarios is to ask a question to your manager to understand examples of where you could have done better and more importantly, how you could have done things differently. Work with your manager, not against. Rephrasing the above defensive statements using my own interpretation of the article. - That's not true! You are wrong! => Could you give me an example of when I exhibited this behaviour? - Oh did you not notice the "other" time I did this well? => I believe I lack consistency in my approach as I can recall a time when I did this well. Could you help me develop a more consistent approach? - It was not my fault. He did not do his work well and that led to the bad outcome. My work was delivered correctly. => I believe I focused more on my task than ensure the entire project is delivered on time and well. Could you help me understand the areas I need to be looking at carefully in the future to ensure project success? - You put me in a tough spot. There was no way I could have delivered this! => Could you give me some tips on how to breakdown a seemingly complex project such as this one into smaller components? It would also be great if you could point me to a framework that would help me reach out to colleagues for support in the future. See the difference? Just some minor rephrasing can be the difference between a *pissed off manager* and a *manager who actively gets down into the trenches with you to help you succeed*. #### [Young children trounce large language models in a simple problem-solving task](https://bigthink.com/the-present/large-language-models-lose-to-children/) An experiment by three development psychologists at the University of Berkeley discovered that large language models (LLMs) can't reason to innovate like young children or babies can. It's an important find as without the ability to innovate, AI can't entirely take our jobs. Well, at least the exciting ones where innovation drives profits. It's also interesting as babies are not learned or taught anything in any way. They just perceive a lot of data as soon as they are born and intuitively pick things up. Unlike LLMs, they are not "trained" with large data. They have no notion about "training" data. Would be interesting to see how LLMs can be made more baby-like to make them more innovative than just imitative. #### [Share Your Draft](https://23766778.hs-sites.com/share-your-draft) If you are a creator, here is a short piece on the importance of sharing your draft to a select few and soliciting feedback before you publish it to a wider audience that do not know of you. > Art is never finished, only abandoned. - Leonardo Da Vinci --- #### Like what you see? Would you like to support me? Easy! Head over to [this link](https://refind.com/?invite=7b7e76f6e0) and subscribe to receive **Refind** newsletters. Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Loved by 400k curious minds.