Don’t rely on your unilateral judgment. Even if your company doesn’t require a 360 process so that you learn what other people think of your direct report’s performance, you can still do a sanity check. One manager I know does this by simply asking each person on the team to give their peers a √ −, √, √ +. Most people get a √, and if they do that’s the end of the conversation. If one person gives a peer a √ − or a √ +, he asks a couple more questions. This takes about five minutes out of everyone’s 1:1 time twice a year, right before performance reviews, and offers him a great sanity check to
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