New Delhi, April 14 -- The year 2016 was exceptionally good for me. I was sure I would receive the top rating, and during the appraisal time, I had a bounce in my gait. To my shock and horror, I got the dreaded ME or Meets Expectations rating.

"What?!" (readers may add more exclamations and expunged words to understand my sentiments then). It did not sit well with me, so I reached out to my seniors to understand what went wrong. Almost a decade later, I still get prickled thinking about that ME, but it taught me more than all my 'DE' (Demonstrates Excellence/Top Performer ratings). Here are my key learnings from that episode:

Now a Meets Expectations/Average rating means the employee has successfully completed the tasks assigned to him/...