Mid-year career conversation that does not become status review

Prepare for a mid-year career conversation with {{report name}}.

Inputs:
- Their current level + tenure: {{paste}}
- Their stated career goals (if known): {{paste — and your honest read of how serious they are}}
- Their current work and recent feedback: {{paste}}
- The next-level requirements at our company: {{paste — competency framework if you have one}}

Output:

## The frame
The 2-sentence opener that sets this apart from a status review. Should center on them and their trajectory, not their projects.

## The five questions
1. What do you want to be able to do in 18 months that you can't today?
2. What part of your current role would you want to keep forever?
3. What part would you want to give up?
4. What feedback have you been hearing (from anyone) that you've been brushing off?
5. What would have to be true 12 months from now for you to be glad you spent the year here?

For each, your specific job in listening: what to probe, what NOT to fix in the moment.

## Where they probably are
Your honest read on where they sit:
- High potential / fast track
- Strong contributor, stable trajectory
- Leveled, expanding scope
- Plateauing — needs intervention
- Quietly looking

For each, the specific message they need to hear from you.

## What you owe them after
Within 7 days: a written 1-pager of "here's what I heard, here's what I commit to, here's what's on you." Then a follow-up date 60 days out, calendar-blocked.

## Anti-patterns
- "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" — banned, useless
- Promising promotions
- Solving their feedback for them in the meeting
- Letting the conversation become "let me tell you what I think about your trajectory" (it's their conversation, not yours)

Hard rule: if you walk out and can name your direct report's actual aspiration in one sentence, the conversation worked. If you can't, you did most of the talking.