Ask 5 random employees your company's top 3 priorities. Most would guess wrong. Leadership says the priorities out loud in All Hands; nobody's job description changed because of it. Everyone's got a goal document somewhere, but good luck tracing it to an actual company objective. Pick any employee, and you can draw a straight line from their goal to a company objective. Goals shift mid-quarter when priorities change instead of only being reset once a year.

The review is the plot twist. Nobody saw it coming until then. You hear about it once it's already a visible problem, usually through a complaint. Sometimes it gets spotted early, but nothing consistent is tracked, so it depends on the manager. Something's tracked regularly, and it usually flags a dip before it's a real problem. A tracked signal triggers a specific action before it's visibly a problem.

People mostly find out at review time, if at all. It depends entirely on the manager. Some give regular feedback, others never do. Most managers give feedback, but usually only when something has gone wrong. Feedback is regular across teams, covering what's working as well as what needs to change. Feedback happens as the work happens, not saved up for later, and people act on it.

It usually comes down to whoever argues hardest, often the most senior person in the room. Managers talk it through, but similar work can still end up with very different outcomes. There's a written standard for what earns a raise or promotion, and managers use it. Managers compare their decisions side by side, using the same evidence, before anything's final. You check over time whether raises and promotions are going to the right people, and fix the process when they aren't.