more on focal

i asked one time "which is more important for you, the percent increase or the rating?" automatically, he said "the increase, of course." this begs the question "isn't the increase generally a function of the rating?" in a way, that's true. we all know that O gets a bigger piece of the pie, then EE, followed by S and not even crumbs for BE & IRs. I think that for most of us, our priority is really the bottomline that's why we say, the increase is much more important. This actually is a good way to psyche yourself - i normally set an increase range (say 20-25%) from which to measure if i will be happy with my focal or not. I guess I'm thinking, if i get an increase within my expectations then the rating really is immaterial to the bottomline. This doesn't mean however that we don't have to look at the rating, that actually helps us formulate a wealth of questions like :

(a) is there anything i could have done differently to improve the rating i got?
(b) what specific attributes do the people who were rated higher than myself have that i should try to emulate?
(c) what should i do this year differently to help me get a higher rating or even a promo?

looking at our rating, its true we ask "is this how much one whole year is?" probably not and that's what makes it difficult to swallow. there really are no comforting words about focal - its either good, bad or so-so. i guess its difficult to prepare ourselves for the actual results. for some of us, focal is a time to make the difficult decisions. it is a time to contemplate whether all that we do is worth it. i know that for some, if they play their cards right, things start to fall into place soon. for the rest, i guess it just wasn't meant to be - and that's why its always a good idea to have a plan B, and C, and D.