Self-Assessment
By the time you write your self-assessment, it's too late to tell a new story.
The first unscripted episode — spoken freely, no teleprompter. The common self-assessment mistake is telling a new story and hoping your manager digs in; but a manager recalls a whole cycle of perceived reality before your document ever lands. Anything completely new is a risk: unseen work, invisible impact, or worse. The fix runs through the whole cycle — use every one-on-one to present your impact, the data you changed, the needle you moved, so the self-assessment becomes a summary of a reality you already share.
- A self-assessment that tells a new story is a risk — your manager already holds a cycle's worth of perceived reality.
- Use every one-on-one to build shared reality; the self-assessment should only be its summary.
Transcript
Today, I'm going to talk about self-assessments. Everybody knows self-assessments is really important in terms of performance management. Basically, it's a piece of document that you officially present to your manager: what you have done in this performance cycle.
However, a common mistake a lot of people make is: create a new story in their self-assessment, in the hope of your manager is going to actually dig into the new story during the performance management cycle. It's not the best way.
Because essentially, your manager is really trying to recall their perceived reality during the whole cycle, even before your self-assessment landed in his or her desk. Essentially, you are trying to present information to match with the reality that is already in your manager's mind.
If you present something that is completely new — that is a risk. It's either: you've done something, but it's never in your manager's eye, or the impact is not in your manager's view — which is a problem. Or you are fabricating something — which is even worse.
So the best way to make sure your impact is really in your manager's mind is: during all of the one-on-ones across the whole performance management cycle — being six months, or being a whole year — using all the one-on-ones to present your impact, to present the data you changed, to present the needle you moved.
Only when you are doing those things, your manager will have a shared reality with you of what you have actually changed. And then your self-assessment will become a summary view of what's already in your manager's head. And that is the best way to making sure your self-assessment landed in the right way.
Hope this helps.