What is calibration?
Calibration is managers comparing and adjusting ratings across teams so the same standard applies to everyone. It usually happens after first-draft ratings are written and before they are final. Each manager explains their ratings to peers and a senior leader, and the group moves any rating that looks out of line with how others judged similar work.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
Two sales managers can look at the same 90% attainment and rate it differently. One sees a seller who fought through a weak territory. The other sees a seller who coasted. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, writing in HBR in 2015, pointed to research on the idiosyncratic rater effect, where a manager's personal rating tendencies can outweigh the work being rated. Calibration is meant to catch that bias across managers. For a CRO running a buy-and-build platform, it is also how branches bought from different owners come to share one definition of a strong seller, which matters once ratings drive pay and promotion.
Example
Fictitious numbersA facility services platform has three branch managers rating 21 sellers, seven per branch. One branch rates six of its seven sellers as exceeding expectations, while the other two branches rate two of seven each. In calibration, the managers compare territory, deal mix and results side by side. The first branch moves three ratings to meets expectations, leaving three of seven above the bar.
"If I swapped two of my managers, would the same sellers get the same ratings?"
Sources
- Reinventing Performance Management checked 9 Oct 2026
- Performance Management Cycle (U.S. Office of Personnel Management) checked 17 Oct 2026