I was once a part of a group of people that would get together once a month and talk about leadership. We were all doing our own thing, but we'd get together and talk about the things we did that were similar. We'd also talk about new things people were trying and once a year we'd have a big conference.
What always bothered me about the conference is that we always used the same basic template. We'd have the same general talks, same format, same breakout sessions, etc. Every year I'd get feedback from people about what was great and what wasn't. What bothered me was that we didn't evaluate any of the feedback as a group. I'm sure all of us would get feedback from different people, but we never shared it as a large group. We never learned anything or moved forward as a result of our feedback.
I love evaluations.
I hate evaluations.
I love that they can help us move forward. I love that they can help us to see our blindspots. I love that they can be encouraging and instructive.
I hate that there's never a smooth way to do them. I hate that you have to break up the feel of the meeting to stop what you're doing and fill these out. I hate that we sometimes do them before the end of whatever we're evaluating, so you can't fully evaluate everything. I think that some people use them as their personal soap box to rant about stuff that might not even involve the thing you're evaluating.
I love the idea of evaluating something that I was a part of when I thought I did a decent job.
I hate the idea of evaluating something that I was a part of when I stunk up the joint.
I've decided that ultimately I want to have evaluations when something is really bad and I don't feel like the leader gets it. I want them to know it was bad. It's a very important thing for me. I NEED them to know how bad this is and what better way than to do a big evaluation and show them the overall numbers?
That probably tells you a little about me.
I've got some work to do yet...
What always bothered me about the conference is that we always used the same basic template. We'd have the same general talks, same format, same breakout sessions, etc. Every year I'd get feedback from people about what was great and what wasn't. What bothered me was that we didn't evaluate any of the feedback as a group. I'm sure all of us would get feedback from different people, but we never shared it as a large group. We never learned anything or moved forward as a result of our feedback.
I love evaluations.
I hate evaluations.
I love that they can help us move forward. I love that they can help us to see our blindspots. I love that they can be encouraging and instructive.
I hate that there's never a smooth way to do them. I hate that you have to break up the feel of the meeting to stop what you're doing and fill these out. I hate that we sometimes do them before the end of whatever we're evaluating, so you can't fully evaluate everything. I think that some people use them as their personal soap box to rant about stuff that might not even involve the thing you're evaluating.
I love the idea of evaluating something that I was a part of when I thought I did a decent job.
I hate the idea of evaluating something that I was a part of when I stunk up the joint.
I've decided that ultimately I want to have evaluations when something is really bad and I don't feel like the leader gets it. I want them to know it was bad. It's a very important thing for me. I NEED them to know how bad this is and what better way than to do a big evaluation and show them the overall numbers?
That probably tells you a little about me.
I've got some work to do yet...
I hope Crock isn't reading your posts...
ReplyDeletethis isn't Crock any more than it's me - and I think this is a pretty common theme.
ReplyDeletewe love evaluating stuff that we're good at. A lot of people love the chance to evaluate stuff because it gives them an excuse to vent.
You know as well as anybody - we'd throw the conference together because we were all too busy to really invest in them. We did the best job we could...but we could have done better.
Certainly I could have.
I'm a big Crock fan.
I'm with you. This brought back memories for me of planning club at the last minute. Crock called me last Monday night at 7:35 and asked for the chords to "at a time like this." I taught his guitar player how to play the song over the phone 20 minutes before club started. I guess I still got some useful YL skills in me...
ReplyDeleteIt seems these days, at least for me, when I think I did a job on something, and ask about it, I get the "I was fine" or "OK". But the things I felt like I bombed, I'm getting the "that was great". So now I guess I should aim for a double, and not the home run.