EXCELLENCE IN EVALUATIONS
Excellence begins with you!
DANIEL GRISSOM
Over the last 15 years as I’ve been teaching people how to make
sound evaluations, I’ve noticed a consistency. It deals with where people
begin their evaluations. Top Performers begin with themselves and
Average Performers begin with the organization.
For example, starting at the bottom, top performers ask, “How can I
make a difference for my team and organization?” Starting at the top, with
the organization Average Performers ask, “How can my organization make
a difference to me?” The most effective evaluation is to begin with yourself,
then examine your team and organization.
Evaluating yourself or your organization means realistically looking
within and identifying not only strengths, but also weaknesses. Most
individuals and organizations are good at identifying strengths, but not
always so good at identifying weaknesses. Remember Garrison Keeler’s
Lake Wobegon community, “where the women are strong, the men are
good-looking, and all the children are above average.” It seems we all
tend to suffer from the Lake Wobegon effect where we see ourselves better
than we really are.
[pyramid visual]
The Lake Wobegon effect, also called better-than-average effect,
is a term used by psychologists to refer to the human tendency to
report flattering beliefs about oneself and believe that one is above
average. Many experiments have shown that most people believe
that they possess more desirable attributes than other people.
(From Wikipedia)
Countless studies looking at everything from driving to getting along
with other people show that most people rank themselves better than average,
even though statistically this is impossible.
In a study by Ola Svenson, 80% of students believed they were in the
top 30% of safe drivers. The reality suggested a quite different picture.
In 1987, John Cannell did a study that reported the statistically impossible
finding that all states claimed average student test scores above the
national norm.
One College Board survey asked 829,000 high school seniors to rate
themselves in a number of ways. When asked to rate their own ability to
“get along with others,” a statistically insignificant number – less than 1%
– rated themselves as below average. Further, 60% rated themselves in the
top 10% and 25% rated themselves in the top 1%.
How about you?
How accurate are self-evaluations?
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