Tim H. Swanson
It's that special time of year! Mall Santas are popping up all over the place, America is throwing away moldy thanksgiving leftovers, you’re up to your eyeballs in Christmas plans, and the best leaders are evaluating themselves and their organizations to prepare for next year.
There's no question about it, evaluation is essential to the health of your team. And the end of the year is the best time to take a breather, check everyone's vital signs, and do surgery on long term goals.
But when it comes to evaluating, where do you start? And where do you finish for that matter? The goal of evaluation is to get a snapshot of how things are going. But do you evaluate the experience of your team members, or the thing your team produces? What if your product is something that isn't early measured, like church music?
As a leader, the most significant contribution you make to the team’s efforts is your leadership. So it’s crucial that you check which way the wind is blowing. That’s why I had my team evaluate my leadership this year. It took a few weeks to do everything, and I’m really excited about the results, and sharing my process with you.
These are my 10 steps for doing a self evaluation. Feel free to use these to perform your own evaluation.
1. Base the questions of your evaluation on your team’s core values. The core values of my team have to do with being prepared and on time. So I asked them questions about how reliable and accessible I’ve been. If something else is more important to your team, like getting the most out of their abilities, you might ask them how well you’re doing at employing their skills.
2. Select an audience. Mine was my team. Yours could be your boss, your peers, your subordinates, or your customers. I value having a high functioning team so they are a natural audience for me. You may want to see what your boss, or board thinks of your performance. Just be sure to select people that interact with you regularly, and can speak intelligibly about you.
3. Ask the right questions. The wording of your questions is important. Commit some time to selecting words that will get people thinking about the things you want to be evaluated on. An example would be, “How well did I listen to you during conversations?” That question is very specific. As the interviewee reads it, he’ll begin to ponder specific conversations he had with you. A similar question with a broader scope would be, “How attentive was I to the cares and concerns of you and your teammates?” A question like that will get the interviewee thinking about multiple interactions with himself and other team members. Whatever direction you go, the important thing is that the wording of your questions leads people to focus on the topic you want them to tell you about.
4. Give people lots of ways to answer. Some people like the noncommittal format of multiple choice questions. So include some of those. But there are some people on your team who have more to say. They may want to give you an ear full. Let them. Stick at least one essay style question in there for the verbose people. You can also consider including a scale of 1-10 question. The main thing to consider is that when you poll a group of people, there’ll be some different personality types. Cover them all. Some people are really uncomfortable with the scale of 1-10, they’ll get stuck trying to decide whether you’re a 6 or a 6.5. Others hate multiple choice because the answers aren’t specific enough. Some people won’t like your essay questions, they’ll just skip them. Be sure to cover all your bases. Craft questions that will touch every part of your diverse audience.
5. Use the tools of the time. I use SurveyMonkey.com. There are other services out there, but I like that one because it’s simple, and my team can answer anonymously. There are even pre-crafted surveys for all kinds of different teams and organizations on there that’ll take the guess work out of it for you.
6. Sell your survey. There’s a reason schools make students give teacher evaluations before they leave their last class, at the end of the semester. If they send them home, they’ll never get any feedback from anyone. With regards to this, adults are the same way. Be sure to communicate with your audience more than once. Keep it in front of them. That’ll give you a better turn out.
7. Balance celebration and contemplation. I have a hard time celebrating what I’ve done well. Whenever I have any kind of feedback, I typically go straight for what I need to improve. I’ve met people on the other side of the coin who look at all their victories, and ignore what needs to be worked on. Seek balance in celebrating what you’re doing well, and contemplating what you’ll do to improve in areas where you need to improve.
8. Invite someone else into the review process. Whether it’s your boss, a mentor, your spouse, or an insightful friend, have an objective third party help you understand your results. My boss went through my results with me, and gave me some really great insight.
9. If it’s appropriate, share your results. My team had a lot of good things to say about me, but they also pointed out some things that I really need to work on. So after I was done digesting the results I made a video to communicate what I learned and what I plan to do about it. This is what I sent them:
10. Use those results to map your course. Asking people to evaluate you is a way to show that you care. But in the end, your actions will tell them everything. Let the results from your evaluation inform your plans for the next year. Be sure to continue doing the things that you discovered you were doing well. Then, and this is the hard part, follow through in the areas where you need to improve. That’ll tell people how much you really care about what you do.
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