Six Tips for Acing Your Year-End Review

With all the distractions the end of the year brings, it's easy to neglect your day-to-day work. But this might be the most important time of year to focus on your job and your career. Many organizations hold year-end performance reviews, and acing them is often your ticket to a pay raise or promotion.

This article from the CareerJournal how to prepare for a performance review so that you can garner glowing results:

• Be prepared. Conduct a self-review before you meet with your manager. Be honest with yourself -- evaluate how well you managed your objectives, summarize what you accomplished and give yourself an overall rating.
• Be sure to share one or two stories that illustrate how you've gone above and beyond the call of duty.
• Study your weaknesses. Identify what you can do better, and have a plan prepared illustrating how
• During your review meeting, take notes. It will be useful for you to have them so that you can follow up properly during your next review.
• Keep the conversation focused on yourself.
• By the end of your review, try to reach some kind of consensus about your overall performance. If you can't agree with your supervisor's assessment, ask for more time so that you may find information to back your claims

BOTTOMLINE: If you used Six Disciplines, the process would be automatic. You'd already know how your Year-End Performance Appraisal was going to be, since you had "mini-appraisals" each week, and at the end of each quarter. No surprises, and there's time every week to adjust your performance.