I recently had a conversation about performance and promotions. The person I was speaking with shared feedback they had received: they needed to work on a project with “high business impact” to get to the next level. I am a manager. I have given this feedback myself. Many, many times.

But lately, I’ve been realizing that this advice, while well-intentioned, is often vague. Worse, it’s unfair. When we tell engineers to aim for “impact,” we are asking them to set a goal based on a variable they have almost no control over.

Control vs. Gambling

In my posts about quantifying performance, I often use a simple formula:

Performance=w1​(Input)+w2​(Output)+w3​(Outcome)+w4​(Impact)

• Input: The effort, code, and mentoring you put in.
• Output: The deliverables (docs, features) you create.
• Outcome: The immediate result (did it solve the user problem?).
• Impact: The long-term business value (revenue, retention).

The further you move to the right of this equation, the less control you have. Impact is often a lagging indicator, sometimes lagging by years.

Telling someone to “control business impact” is just gambling.

Let’s look at a human example. Say you spend months supporting a colleague who is struggling. Thanks to your mentorship, they turn a corner and, two years later, they are absolutely killing it. How do you calculate the “business impact” of those coffee chats you had two years ago? You can’t. But the input, the act of mentoring was high quality.

Why Managers Give This Feedback

Why do we managers keep saying this? Because measuring performance is incredibly hard.

As I wrote in Performance of an Engineering Manager, managers are often judged by the output of their team. We fall into traps like “Hero-based success” or “Burnout-driven delivery.” When we don’t know how to measure our own inputs, we look for shortcuts. “Go find high impact” is an easy way out. It avoids the hard work of defining what excellence actually looks like on a Tuesday morning.

The Better Way: Work Backwards

So, if you get this feedback, how do you handle it? You don’t just hope for a lucky project. You need a system.

In Ready for Promotion, I talk about the concept of “Working Backwards.” Don’t wait for the cycle. Write your promotion case now.

1. Write the “Press Release”: Imagine it is 12 months from now. You just got promoted. What does the announcement say?
2. Identify the Evidence: To make that announcement true, what traceable and observable evidence needs to exist?
3. Focus on Inputs: Now, work backward to today. What daily inputs (code, design docs, mentoring) will generate that evidence?

This shifts the focus from “hoping for impact” to “behaving at the next level.” Promotions aren’t about potential; they are about demonstrated ability.

When the Inputs Don’t Work

There is a flip side. Sometimes, you execute perfectly, your inputs are solid, your outputs are great, but the impact never comes. Maybe the market changed. Maybe the strategy pivoted.

This is where you need to look at your Career Map.

If your daily inputs aren’t resulting in value, you have to sit with the harsh reality. It’s not about “chasing impact” anymore. It’s a question of fit. Does your current role align with your values? Are you solving the right problems?

If your horizon for promotion is 12 months, but the company’s “high impact” projects take 2 years to materialize, the math doesn’t work.

What to do next

Incentives in our industry can be messy. But you can bring order to the chaos. Reframe the conversation: Don’t accept “high impact” as a goal. Ask to define the inputs and outputs that represent success.

Focus on what is in front of you. That is where the work actually happens.