Challenge or Contain: Performance Rating Decision Tool

What This Is:

• A self-directed decision framework to determine whether challenging your performance rating is strategically rational, or whether containment is the smarter move.

• This is a decision instrument, not coaching or reassurance. It produces a clear, defensible position you can stand behind later.

How It Works:

You work through a fixed sequence of decision lenses:

• How performance ratings actually work in your organisation

• What action versus inaction changes over time

• Whether you have real leverage to alter the outcome

• A viability check to prevent symbolic or self-damaging action

• A forced decision gate that converts analysis into direction

Nothing is optional once started. The process narrows to one position.

Time required: 90–120 minutes, completed independently.

What You Leave With:

• One personalised documented decision, not a set of options:

  • Challenge now

  • Contain and accept

  • Delay and reassess

  • Treat as an exit signal

  Along with:

  • The reasoning behind the decision

  • The evidence and assumptions used

  • Clear triggers for reassessment

  This is your decision, recorded cleanly and well thought out.