| Tim Ferriss, in his book The 4 Hour Workweek tells a story on how he won a Chinese kickboxing championship by gaming the system. He dehydrated himself to lower his weight class and followed the rule that if he pushed the opponent out of the circle 2 times he would win.
Successful people know how to game the system. In term of employment reviews, do you best work in the 4th quarter of the year. This will be most memorable to your boss and will have a higher weight than other times. Find out what you can do to get the highest rating and do it. Get it on your daily to-do list and make it a habit. In Scott Adams' book How to Win at Almost Everything and Still Win Big he describes a CEO who Scott met on a plane. The CEOs system was:
I've always thought about doing the following but never actually did. At my company the grade people on three different scores. Exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations. They also grade on a curve, so if you have eight people working for you, 50% get meets expectation and 25% get exceeds and the other 25% get below expectations. Now if you're being measured against your co-workers, you should think twice before helping them as if you help them you reduce your odds of getting an exceeds expectations. Persuasion skills are another way of gaming the system. |