Let's Abolish Self-Appraisal - Dick Grote's Perspective on the Manager's Role | Talent and Performance Development | Scoop.it

Asking an employee to write a self-appraisal using the company's appraisal form is a ...deceptively attractive technique.

A performance appraisal is a record of a supervisor's opinion of the quality of an employee's work. The review meeting is a discussion, not a negotiation. Asking the individual to write a self-appraisal encourages misunderstanding by both parties.

...individuals are notoriously inaccurate in assessing their own performance, and the poorer the performer, the higher (and more inaccurate) the self-appraisal. 

Research by the consulting firm Lominger, Inc.indicates that "the overall correlation between self-ratings and performance was .00. The most accurate rater by far is the immediate boss."

Further, in their article "Unskilled and Unaware of It," Cornell University researchers Justin Kruger and David Dunning report that those who are incompetent performers are also incapable of assessing the difference between good and bad performance.

As they put it, "When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine."