A Business Week survey asked individuals, “Are you one of the top 10 percent of performers in your company?”
Eighty-four percent of middle managers said yes, as did 93 percent of employees age 55 or older. Eighty-nine percent of women and 91 percent of men think they’re in the top 10 percent, as do fully 97 percent of all executives.
Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average! Seems like a delusional view of our contribution is the norm.
This begs the question: How do you help people understand what quantifiable measurements they SHOULD be scoring themselves on so they can assess their contributions intelligently?Having well-established critical driver numbers and quantifiable results for each position is imperative. Without them, employees are free to imagine their own criteria for excellence—something too many of us are clearly doing! A teller who knows his or her critical performance drivers and how they will be measured each week is newly empowered to assess his or her true contribution.
Every team member should have exact measurements in place to help them understand how they rank in relation to your expectations using approximately five clearly defined critical driver areas. It will help your people ground themselves in reality and create REAL plans for progress toward precise goals.
There’s nothing wrong with self-confidence, of course. Heck, it’s one of the things that helps to get us from Point A to Point B. But it isn’t enough to say, like Stewart Smalley to his mirror, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!” To have any real value, confidence needs to be reality-based.
The number one reason to encourage realistic self-assessment in your workforce is this: People who believe they’ve already arrived stop moving forward. And the last thing you want is an organization full of people marking time and patting themselves on the back.