Godwin had been in the same post for two years when his employers introduced a new appraisal scheme. He had been in post long enough to feel that he ‘knew the ropes’ and could do the job reasonably well, he was therefore not at all anxious about the appraisal and felt quite comfortable all round. However, he was very surprised, and quite perturbed, when the appraisal meeting resulted in criticisms of him for being too unadventurous in his approach, for staying within his comfort zone and not trying out new ideas. Although the overall standard of his work was acceptable, there was a strong view that he had not taken the opportunities to develop that had been available to him and that he had stuck too closely to what he knew best, basing his work more on habit than a commitment to achieving the highest standards of work he could. He realized that he was going to have to give the situation a lot of careful thought, as he recognized that they had a point: he had done nothing to go beyond the basics of getting the job done.