I have written Performance Improvement Plans that were genuine second chances. I have also written the other kind.

Forty years on the manager’s side of the desk gets you both. The second chance is when you’ve watched someone good lose their footing, you believe they can get it back, and you want a document that proves you tried properly. The other kind is when the decision has already been made two floors up, and the plan is the paperwork that makes it look like a process.

Here’s what unsettled me the first time I put the two side by side. They were identical. Same template, same headings, same polite language about “support” and “clear expectations” and “regular check-ins”. Hand them to a stranger, and they’d tell you both employees were being looked after.

Only one of them was.

Here’s the trap. Most people receive a PIP and treat it as a verdict. They either fight it like a parking ticket or accept it like a diagnosis. Both reactions skip the only question that matters in week one: which document am I actually holding? Because a rescue and a removal need completely different strategies, and if you play the wrong one, you’ll either leave a job you could have kept, or spend three months fighting for a job that was gone before the meeting started.

The intent isn’t written down. But it leaks. Here are seven places it leaks from.

After that meeting, you’ll want to do one of three things: argue the case, resign with a flourish, or promise to work every weekend until Easter. Resist all three. Arguing in the room gives them a “defensive” note. Resigning hands them the outcome without the paperwork. Over-promising sets a bar you’ll then have to clear on no sleep.

Ask for the plan in writing. Say you’ll read it properly and come back with questions. Then go home. And say nothing to colleagues yet, not because you don’t trust them, but because the office rumour mill runs faster than broadband and will have you clearing your desk by Thursday.

Put the two kinds of goals next to each other.

A measurable goal is achievable, and whoever wrote it expects you to try. A vague goal can’t be measured, which means it can’t be passed, which is sometimes the point. In your first review meeting, ask one question and write down the answer: how will success be measured, and who decides? If the reply is some version of “we’ll know it when we see it”, you’ve learnt something important about what they’re hoping to see.

Three to six months with proper metrics is a plan. That’s enough time to change a habit, produce evidence, and have someone who’s been paying attention review it. Six weeks with “hit X by Y”, where X is what a fully functioning team does in a quarter, is a countdown with a calendar invite.

Then ask what happens when the plan ends. A genuine one has an end state: hit these, we close it, we move on. The other kind gets vague right here. “We’ll review where we are” has the same reassuring quality as “we’ll keep your CV on file”.

A rescue comes with resources. Training, a mentor, carved-out time, and your manager in every check-in because they’ve got something at stake too. A removal comes with goals built to be missed and a meeting diary that keeps shedding attendees.

Note who’s absent. If your manager starts sending apologies and HR starts sending the invites, the ownership has moved, and it hasn’t moved towards you. In my experience, the people who want you to succeed turn up. The people who’ve already decided tend to find something urgent elsewhere.

Track wins as they happen, with dates and evidence, not from memory in month three when you’re trying to remember whether that project landed in week four or week six. Document every conversation, especially the verbal ones. “Don’t worry too much about item four”, said in a corridor evaporates the moment it’s inconvenient.

Keep a separate copy at home. Companies that need three weeks to approve a stapler can revoke your login in four minutes, and they will do it before they tell you.

Refresh your CV and reconnect with your network now, while you still have the title, the salary, and a story that reads as “exploring options” rather than “needs something by the first of the month”. People who interview from panic accept worse offers, and interviewers can smell panic through a Teams call.

Set aside some emergency cash if you can. Three months of runway turns a bad situation into an inconvenient one, and inconvenient is a much better place to negotiate from.

Memorise these, so you recognise them in real time rather than in hindsight: metrics nobody on the team currently hits; scope that keeps shrinking (“we’ll move that project to take the pressure off”); HR appearing in meetings they were never in before; a timeline that moves without ever resetting.

And if it feels off, it probably is. Your gut has been reading rooms for a lot longer than you’ve been reading HR documents.

This week: Get the plan in writing. Ask how you'll measure success and who decides. Start a dated log of wins and conversations, saved somewhere the company doesn’t own. Tell nobody at work.

This month: Audit the document against the seven tells above and make an honest call. Count who turned up to the check-ins. Refresh the CV, book three coffees with people who’d take your call, and move an emergency amount into a separate account.

This quarter: If it’s a rescue, hit the metrics and ask for the plan in writing to close it. If it’s a removal, stop fighting the document and start negotiating the terms: reference, notice period, timing, and a leaving story you chose rather than one that was chosen for you.

Those two documents I signed all those years ago said the same things. The difference was never on the page. It was in the room, the timeline, and who bothered to show up. Learn to read those, and a PIP stops being a verdict and becomes what it actually is: information.

Be kind to yourself out there. A PIP says something about where you are. It says nothing about where you’re going.

Keep on rockin’

Harvey.

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