Calibrations Have a Context-Collapse Problem

excellent write up<p>advice ultimately boils down to work harder in judging talent.<p>everyone wants a single word answer oh sally is great, john is okay.<p>the truth it’s hard work to right level people.<p>no one gets it right.<p>systems get co-opted by ruthless people for personal gain.<p>only hard and consistent work by leadership can reduce, but not eliminate the harm

This kind of thing is why I hate working for larger corporations.<p>There’s a tipping point where an organization grows large enough that you can no longer trust your colleagues.<p>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.

&gt; 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.<p>Performance reviews&#x27; primary value to a business is to defend against lawsuits.

“Don’t blame the players, change the game.”

I get the point that the author is making, that any given employee&#x27;s work is more complex and difficult than you might guess from a short summary, but... Well, that&#x27;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.<p>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 &quot;managers should play the calibration game harder&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m not sure there&#x27;s a systemic solution to this.