“Time to do my annual performance appraisals,” Sarah sighed.

“You know, Deming said you can double the impact of those annual appraisals if you just do them every two years,” I smiled.

“I know, I know,” she agreed. “They just seem so one-sided. The team member sits there and waits for me to deliver the dastardly news that they will complain about to everyone else on the team. By the time I am finished with the bunch, they are depressed and irritated.”

“Instead of delivering nasty news, have you ever asked them how they think they are doing?” I wondered out loud.

“But, what if they have an inflated sense of their own performance?” she replied.

“It’s a starting place. Competent organizations are populated by people who have an accurate self-assessment of their individual competence. It’s a conversation we can have, to talk about expectations, skill development, performance. Those are productive conversations. Those are things we can fix. We cannot fix self-deception.”