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Self-Assessment
2 min read · 495 words
Self-assessment is the operator examining their own functioning honestly — and the honesty is harder than it sounds.
The system has multiple distortions in how it reads itself. The self-image the mind maintains is usually inflated in some directions and deflated in others, with the inflations and deflations both invisible to the operator running them. The operator who reads themselves as competent in domains where they aren’t, and incompetent in domains where they are, is producing a misreading that shapes their decisions about where to invest, what to attempt, what to accept about themselves.
The mechanisms that produce miscalibrated self-assessment. First: the system tends to compare itself against the most visible operators in any domain, who are usually the highest-functioning, producing chronic underestimation in the comparison. Second: the system tends to accept positive feedback that flatters the self-image and dismiss negative feedback that contradicts it, producing an imbalanced data stream. Third: the operator does not have access to the experience of others, only the visible outputs, leading to overestimation of how well others are doing relative to actual conditions.
The other distortion: assessment that has tipped into self-attack. The operator who is examining themselves continuously with critical eye is not producing accurate assessment; they are producing the self-criticism the Self-Criticism entry covered. The accurate assessment is run with neutral attention, observing what is actually present, distinguishing strengths and weaknesses without amplifying either through the lens of mood or self-image.
From the chair: run periodic honest self-assessment, in conditions that allow it. Not when in the middle of difficulty (the assessment will be distorted by current mood). Not when in the middle of triumph (the assessment will be distorted by inflated mood). In a calm period, with deliberate attention. The questions: what am I actually producing in this domain. What is working. What is not working. Where am I improving. Where am I stagnant. Where am I declining. These produce data the operator can actually use.
The other discipline: gather external input as part of the assessment. The operator’s self-assessment is one data source; it is not the only one. The honest feedback from other operators who know the operator well, the actual outcomes the operator’s operations are producing, the comparisons against external benchmarks where they are available — these supplement the internal assessment and correct for the distortions the internal assessment alone produces.
The accurate self-assessment is uncomfortable in places. It usually reveals territory the operator has been overestimating themselves in (where the actual capacity is less than the self-image claimed) and territory the operator has been underestimating themselves in (where the actual capacity is more than the self-image admitted). The reckoning with the first is harder than the recognition of the second; both produce more accurate operation when the operator updates the self-model to match the actual data.