They're a communication tool, and as such, can be used for good or bad purposes. If you already distrust your manager and organization to a large degree, yeah y

They're a communication tool, and as such, can be used for good or bad purposes. If you already distrust your manager and organization to a large degree, yeah you won't ever see any value on them, but the problem is the inherent distrust and antagonism. I've had plenty of good career dev chats with my manager (and my reports once I became a manager) following a review. This should be happening all around in 1:1s, but the semester or yearly review is a larger retrospective summary of the work we do, what we're proud of and what we feel could have gone better. If there's no trust however, this exercise is moot. Even if my manager did not read it, writing about it has been valuable to me and makes me realize more clearly what I've done, whether I feel I'm being valued or not, and if it's time for me to move on.