advice ultimately boils down to work harder in judging talent.
everyone wants a single word answer oh sally is great, john is okay.
the truth it’s hard work to right level people.
no one gets it right.
systems get co-opted by ruthless people for personal gain.
only hard and consistent work by leadership can reduce, but not eliminate the harm
zdosb · 4d ago
Cannot agree more. And it's also surprising how much of this information about the calibration process in its own is unknown to people in the org.
bilbo-b-baggins · 4d ago
This kind of thing is why I hate working for larger corporations.
There’s a tipping point where an organization grows large enough that you can no longer trust your colleagues.
It’s a weird inversion where managers advocate for employees that act favorably towards them when everyone else in the trenches know they are awful or incompetent.
djoldman · 4d ago
> In theory, calibration is supposed to be the sanity check that keeps us from grading on a curve, but too often it’s just performance review theater.
Performance reviews' primary value to a business is to defend against lawsuits.
zdosb · 4d ago
“Don’t blame the players, change the game.”
PoignardAzur · 4d ago
I get the point that the author is making, that any given employee's work is more complex and difficult than you might guess from a short summary, but... Well, that's the case for everybody? At the end of the day the company still needs a way to judge how valuable any given employee was.
The article complains that managers end up competing on who plays the calibration game better, yet a lot of suggestions at the end boil down to "managers should play the calibration game harder".
advice ultimately boils down to work harder in judging talent.
everyone wants a single word answer oh sally is great, john is okay.
the truth it’s hard work to right level people.
no one gets it right.
systems get co-opted by ruthless people for personal gain.
only hard and consistent work by leadership can reduce, but not eliminate the harm
There’s a tipping point where an organization grows large enough that you can no longer trust your colleagues.
It’s a weird inversion where managers advocate for employees that act favorably towards them when everyone else in the trenches know they are awful or incompetent.
Performance reviews' primary value to a business is to defend against lawsuits.
The article complains that managers end up competing on who plays the calibration game better, yet a lot of suggestions at the end boil down to "managers should play the calibration game harder".
I'm not sure there's a systemic solution to this.