A conversation with
Kara Wilson Oliver, VP of People & Operations at DealMaker
About DealMaker: A Fintech Company Scaling Talent and Performance Management
When DealMaker scaled past 120 employees, it was time to upgrade its spreadsheet-based review process. Calibration meetings consumed hours of leadership time, and the information leaders had to work with was incomplete. The system tracked outcomes like sales and project delivery, but not behaviors such as adaptability and tenacity. By adopting Incompass Labs, DealMaker introduced a system that was quick to implement, gave leaders broader behavioral data to work with, and streamlined calibration into a more efficient process.
DealMaker built its early review system in Google Sheets, with a lightweight 360 process layered on top. For a smaller team, it worked. But as headcount grew, tracking performance across dozens of employees became cumbersome, and calibration meetings exposed the limits of the system - leaders were making decisions with incomplete or inconsistent data.
“You get 16 people in a room, a giant spreadsheet, and exhaustion sets in. Our brains could only remember the last few people, and the process didn’t feel statistically significant,” said Kara Wilson Oliver, VP of People & Operations at DealMaker.
The bigger issue was what the system left out. Sales numbers and project deadlines captured outcomes, but they didn’t reflect the qualities DealMaker saw as predictors of long-term success: adaptability and tenacity. While managers tried to uncover these traits during hiring, there was no way to measure them once employees were in the business.
“Performance management is non-negotiable. It’s the founding layer for HR to prove itself as a business function,” Oliver explained.
Kara could have defaulted to the performance module built into her HRIS, but she’d used it before and knew it lacked structured calibration. For DealMaker’s growing team, she opted for Incompass Labs because it offered a system that could be adopted quickly and applied consistently across the organization.
“We’re not a company that spends a lot of time on training, so I needed a system people could just get. Incompass delivered on that - it was intuitive from day one, and people immediately saw the value.”
With Incompass, DealMaker was able to:
The shift was immediate. Calibration meetings went from drawn-out debates to focused, high-quality conversations. Leaders entered with pre-calibrated data they trusted, freeing them to spend time on the decisions that mattered most.
“Even the skeptics realized this was a better way. We actually got kudos from people who don’t normally give kudos. That never happens. The weight of the work had already been done - we didn’t have to burn mental energy on the basics.”
Employees noticed the difference, too. Because feedback was weighted by expertise rather than influence, the process felt more objective. Promotions and recognition were tied not just to outcomes, but to how employees lived the company’s values.
“When people saw their feedback weighted based on their expertise, the lightbulb went on - this is how performance management should feel.”
For DealMaker, adopting Incompass Labs wasn’t just about replacing spreadsheets. It was about putting performance management on the same data-informed footing as the rest of the business and making it a foundation for culture and growth.
“Performance management is the most expensive thing we do. Getting it wrong undermines trust and engagement. Getting it right changes everything,”
With Incompass, DealMaker turned performance reviews from a time-consuming process into a competitive advantage: faster, fairer, and built to scale.
Curious to see how Incompass can help you? Schedule your demo today.
