Hi Kim
I have run a number of business self assessments with teams of senior
managers within my business and my experience has shown that they will
nearly always portray themselves badly, and usually worse than their
Directors would see them. When I have been involved in assessing other
organisations the experience is not entirely the same as they will often
identify things that they regard themselves as being very good at or very
bad.
However when you ask an individual to do this perhaps the results are
different because it is so personal. Perhaps people within a team can hide
to some degree, but can also be very critical of themselves as a team, and
of course there is also politics at play and team members very often want
to make their own points.
Ron Smith
Royal Mail
UK
smithro@royalmail.co.uk
----------
> From: Kim Boal <
odkbb@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
> To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
> Subject:
> Date: 22 March 1999 14:58
>
> Russ Russo expresses surprise that Jack Ring reports that self assessors
> rate themselves higher than do outside assessors. Perhaps, Russ does not
> hang around academics enough to know the adage, "S/he is a lengend in
> her/his own mind." Or perhaps, Russ never heard that purportedly, a
study
> of undergraduate students found that 90% rated themselves as better than
> their average peer.
>
> Clearly, all of us whose jobs require that we give performance feedback
> often experience conflict engenered by the discrepancy between our
> assessment of an individual's performance and their own assessment.
Books
> have been written about how to improve the performance appraisal process,
> and there is not enough space here to discuss the topic adequately.
> However, I would suggest that many of the problems that occur in
> performance appraisal start with the failure to clearly state the basis
of
> appraisal before hand. After all, you don't play a game of basketball
> without first knowing the rules. Towards that end, there seem to be
three
> basis of comparisons frequently, though inconsistently, used. the first
> basis of comparison is against some stated criteria, whether a standard
or
> a goal. The second is normed based, i.e., how does this performance
> compare to other people doing the same task. The third is historical,
> i.e., how does this performance compare with previous levels. All of
these
> bases of comparisons have limitations that need to be recognized.
>
> This is not to say that other identified probems, ie., holding people
> accountable for outcomes that they do not control, invalid assessment
> instruments, poor appraisor training, etc. can be ignored. Nonetheless, I
> think failure to define a good job apriori, lies at the heart of many of
> the problems encountered in the performance appraisal process.
>
> Often wwrong, but never in doubt.
>
> Kim Boal
> --------------------------------
> Kim Boal
> College of Business Administration
> Texas Tech University
> Lubbock, TX 79409
> (806) 742-2150
>
KimBoal@ttu.edu