When think about the importance of evaluating goals post the execution stage, I decided to turn to my Kitchen Table Cabinet. I already knew my own thoughts on this subject but I wanted to hear from others who I consider wise and insightful. Here is what they reminded me about evaluating goals:
- ownership of the goal is required for a successful evaluation.
- evaluating a goal without the goal connecting to a greater purpose or mission will not yield a successful change in action over time.
- the evaluation process needs to be meaningful for all involved.
- evaluation starts by creating a safe and nonjudgemental space for sharing.
- routine accountability systems and goal evaluation systems are interconnected.
With the above conversations in mind and lots of time to reflect over the summer, I realized the following. First, evaluating a goal is a form of feedback. For it to work at the point of evaluation, there needs to be a steady diet of feedback before hand to make the evaluation of the goals more meaningful. We forget that people need attention and when we give it to them in a safe and nonjudgemental environment, they will receive it better. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their thought-provoking book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, Harvard Business Review Press, 2019, write that “Positive attention… is thirty times more powerful than negative attention in creating high performance on a team…. If you want your people to learn more, pay attention to what’s working for them right now, and then build on that…. get into the conscious habit of looking for what’s going well for each of your team members…. tell the person what you experienced when that moment of excellence caught your attention - your instantaneous reaction to what worked.” In short, people need attention and we as leaders can give it in such a manner that an evaluation is seen as helpful and productive.
Over the course of my career as an executive coach, I have been called in to coach an entire senior leadership team after they have all participated in a 360 feedback/evaluation process. As part of this work, every leader has received a 1.5 inch thick book with graphs, charts and page upon pages of written feedback. For those involved, it is overwhelming to read pages and pages of competencies and detailed descriptions. The charts are complicated and indicate that most everyone was average. As per the norm, the written comments are all over the board and either depressing or confusing. At the end of reading all of these evaluation books, I can even be depressed and feeling hopeless.
When starting a project of this nature, I routinely sit down with each executive and ask the following question: “Did you read the entire book?”
“Yes” or “I skimmed it” is the common response.
Then, I ask, “How did it make you feel?”
The answers are often “depressed”, “confused”, or “angry”.
“Okay, “ I reply. “So, how do you think you are doing? And what do you think you need to work on in order to be a better leader within this company?”
Every time, those involved give me a frank and honest assessment of what they needed to work on and how long they thought it would take. In short, nearly everyone is good at evaluating themselves and can reliably determine what they need to work on in order to be better.
Finally, when it comes to evaluating goals, focus on the outcomes from completing the goals. Some will be short term outcomes and others will be long term outcomes. Your ability to help people understand these outcomes will help them in the future work more effectively on future goals.
This week, give more feedback, and routinely ask people to evaluate their own performance. These two action will generate positive outcomes over the long term.
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