In the end, accuracy and kindness are the same thing.

Put your compliments and criticisms in perspective.

Think about accuracy, not implications.

Make accurate assessments.

Learn from success as well as from failure.

Know that most everyone thinks that what they did, and what they are doing, is much more important than it really is.

Recognize that tough love is both the hardest and the most important type of love to give (because it is so rarely welcomed).

Recognize that while most people prefer compliments, accurate criticism is more valuable.

Don’t hide your observations about people.

Build your synthesis from the specifics up.

Squeeze the dots.

Don’t oversqueeze a dot.

Use evaluation tools such as performance surveys, metrics, and formal reviews to document all aspects of a person’s performance.

Make the process of learning what someone is like open, evolutionary, and iterative.

Make your metrics clear and impartial.

Encourage people to be objectively reflective about their performance.

Look at the whole picture.

For performance reviews, start from specific cases, look for patterns, and get in sync with the person being reviewed by looking at the evidence together.

Remember that when it comes to assessing people, the two biggest mistakes you can make are being overconfident in your assessment and failing to get in sync on it.

Get in sync on assessments in a nonhierarchical way.

Learn about your people and have them learn about you through frank conversations about mistakes and their root causes.

Understand that making sure people are doing a good job doesn’t require watching everything that everybody is doing at all times.

Recognize that change is difficult.

Help people through the pain that comes with exploring their weaknesses.

Knowing how people operate and being able to judge whether that way of operating will lead to good results is more important than knowing what they did.
