What should you do before a performance improvement plan?

Most PIPs are written by someone who has been frustrated for months and has said very little out loud. The document arrives, the employee reads it, and their first honest reaction is: this is the first I'm hearing of it. Sometimes they're right.

A performance improvement plan assumes a set of conversations already happened. This guide is about having them, in order, over weeks. It uses the Accountability Dial™, Jonathan Raymond's five stages: Mention, Invitation, Conversation, Boundary, Limit. If you have a hard 1:1 tomorrow and need the prep checklist for that one meeting, start here instead. This page is the longer view.

Why the sequence matters more than the plan

Three ideas from the Dial do most of the work here.

History decides the stage, not severity. A first missed deadline is a Mention even if it was expensive. The question is never "how bad was this?" It's "how many times have we been here, and what have I already said?"

The stages are separated by time. Each one needs room to land. A Mention on Tuesday followed by a Boundary on Thursday gives the person no real chance to change, and it will feel like an ambush, because it is one.

The goal is ownership, not compliance. A PIP can force compliance for the length of the plan. It can't make someone care about the work. The earlier stages are where ownership actually shows up, which is why most situations resolve at Mention or Invitation when you have those conversations early.

The sequence at a glance

Here is a running example. Marcus is an account manager. His renewal brief, the one-page prep the solutions engineer uses for Thursday client calls, is due Wednesday at noon. Lately it shows up Thursday morning.

Stage	What you say	What you write down	Move on when
Mention	"The renewal brief came in Thursday at 8:40. What happened?"	A private, dated line: what happened, what you said.	It happens again after a real chance to change.
Invitation	"That's the third late brief this month. I'm curious what's going on."	Date, what you asked, what they said.	The pattern holds after a couple more cycles.
Conversation	"When the brief is late, Lena preps from scratch and we walk in thin. I want to talk about that."	A short recap sent to them: topic, change agreed, check-in date.	The agreed change doesn't show up by the check-in.
Boundary	"For the next four calls, briefs land by Wednesday noon. If one will slip, tell me by Tuesday. If that doesn't happen, I'll move renewal prep."	A written recap with the change, the date, and the next step. Let HR know.	The Boundary isn't met by the date.
Limit	"We've talked about this four times. I'm moving renewal prep for your two largest accounts to Dana."	HR's process, if the consequence is formal.	The conversation on this issue is over.

What each stage looks like in real weeks

Mention: the same day or the next

The first late brief. You notice because Lena, the solutions engineer, is reading it in the elevator on the way to the call. Say one sentence, lightly, and then actually let it go.

"Hey, the brief came in this morning instead of yesterday. Anything get in the way?"

Maybe his kid was sick. Maybe the usage export broke. You don't know yet, and that's the point of asking. Write one private line with the date. That's all the record a Mention needs.

Invitation: after it repeats

Two weeks later it's late again, and the one after that is missing the usage numbers. Now you have a pattern. An Invitation names it and asks what's underneath, without deciding the answer for him.

"This is the third brief this month that's come in after the deadline. I'm not upset, I'm curious. What's going on with these?"

Then stop talking. Sometimes this is where you learn the expectation was never clear, or that he's been covering a colleague's accounts since March. Plenty of situations end right here.

Conversation: when it keeps happening

A few more weeks, another late brief, and in Monday's pipeline review he went quiet when you asked about the renewal. Now you talk about impact, in the work's terms, not yours.

"When the brief is late, Lena does her own prep from scratch, and last week the client asked about seat usage and we didn't have it in front of us. I want to figure out with you what needs to change."

Agree on one change and a check-in date. Send a recap within the hour, two or three sentences. This is the first stage where a written recap really matters, because it's the first stage that is clearly about a pattern.

Boundary: when the Conversation didn't change it

The check-in comes, and nothing has moved, or he says it's fine and it isn't. A Boundary is specific, dated and still forward-looking. He can meet it.

"Here's what I need. For the next four renewal calls, the brief is in by Wednesday noon. If one is going to slip, I hear about it by Tuesday end of day. If that doesn't happen, I'm going to move renewal prep to someone else."

Say it once, calmly. Recap it in writing. This is also when you tell HR what's going on, before anything formal, so the expectation and the next step fit your company's policies.

Limit: when the Boundary isn't held

A Limit is the end of the conversation on this one issue, followed by a consequence that fits the situation. It's rarely termination. For Marcus it might be moving prep for two accounts, which is real but proportionate. If the consequence is a formal PIP, a role change, or anything that affects his job, HR runs that process, and where needed, employment counsel too.

How long to stay at each stage

There's no universal number. The rhythm of the work sets the clock. A weekly deliverable gives you a data point every week. A quarterly forecast gives you four a year, so the same sequence takes far longer.

A workable rule: stay at a stage until the person has had at least one or two real chances to show the change. If Marcus's briefs are weekly, that means roughly a week or two between Mention and Invitation, a couple of weeks before a Conversation, and a Boundary window of three or four calls. From first Mention to a missed Boundary, that's often a couple of months, which is roughly what being fair takes.

Signs it's time to move a stage

• The same thing happened again, after they had a real chance to change it.
• The agreed change didn't show up by the check-in date you both had on the calendar.
• Ownership is missing. You hear "the export is broken" for the third time with no plan to fix the export.
• Other people are adjusting around it. Lena now builds her own prep. That's impact, and it belongs in a Conversation.

And signs you're moving too fast:

• You're reaching for a Boundary before you've talked about impact.
• The pattern is real, but you never said the expectation out loud.
• You feel more frustrated this week, but nothing new has happened. Your mood isn't a stage.

Where a Boundary and a Limit meet a formal PIP

A PIP isn't a stage on the Dial. It's one possible consequence at Limit, run through a formal HR process. The Dial is what makes that consequence fair: by the time anyone writes a plan, the person has heard the expectation several times, been asked what was going on, understood the impact, and been given a specific Boundary with a date.

That's also why the Boundary matters so much. It's the last forward-looking conversation, the one where the person can still fix it on their own terms. Skip it, and a PIP becomes the first time they hear a clear "by this date, or this happens." Most people, given a real Boundary, meet it.

What to keep in the record, and what to leave out, is covered in legal-defensible 1:1 documentation. The short version: dated outcomes, not transcripts or your private drafts. Your company's policy and the law where you work decide what a formal process requires, so check with HR or counsel before you start one.

It isn't only for managers

You can't put a peer on a PIP, but the same sequence works sideways. If a teammate's handoffs keep landing late on your desk, a Mention and an Invitation are yours to have. A Boundary sounds like "if the handoff isn't in by Tuesday, I'll raise it with Priya so we can sort out the timeline." The Limit is bringing it to the person who owns the decision.

Where Ren fits

The hardest part of this sequence is the first two stages, because they feel too small to bother with. Ren is an AI app in Slack and Microsoft Teams that notices the conversations that aren't happening, helps you judge which stage a situation is actually at, drafts the first sentence in your voice, and asks why this one is hard for you. Your conversations with Ren stay private and are never shared with your manager or HR. You can try it at tryren.com.

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Related: The five stages of the Accountability Dial · Preparing for a tough 1:1 with an underperformer · How to tell an employee they're not meeting expectations · Find which stage your situation is at