Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Team evaluation form/structure?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Sep 20, 2015, at 4:50 PM, Sue STIGLEMAN <sstigleman [at] bellsouth.net> 
> wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have a form or other process for evaluating teams?  We are 
> starting to pursue an experiment of evaluating our teams, and it would be 
> nice to not do the work and struggle of reinventing the wheel. 

No, but as usual I have information and advice: 

1. Elliot Jacques who is the authority on job definitions, pay levels, and 
evaluation, says peer evaluations don’t work in collegial organizations. 

2. The movement in work is away from the annual evaluation toward coaching and 
feedback in the moment.

3. The individual (and the team) work in a context that allows or enables 
behavior. The whole system of push and pull has to be evaluated. 

Best to evaluate the work of the team in the larger context of teams, not of 
individuals — is this the right aim statement? Is it even possible to achieve 
it? Should we change the aim statement, make alterations somewhere else, or add 
a new team? What do “we” want and can anyone achieve it?

Aside from the mentally ill who have usually formed their own world, a person 
who is a “problem” is rarely acting in isolation. They act in relation to 
something else. It’s the something else that needs to be looked at. Are 
community standards clear and “enforced”? Are they reasonable? Are expectations 
realistic?

Even when you restrict discussion to “positive” statements, there can be hurt 
feelings and finger pointing. Yes, some will feel honored and gratified, but 
others won’t. Even one person who doesn’t can create a hole in the community. 
Would you really want to get up tomorrow morning and face a neighbor who 
doesn’t like the way you garden? 

I have thick skin and rarely judge myself by what others think, but other 
people do. It can wound them deeply. People can shrug off a boss they don’t 
like anyway; not so much a neighbor they have to eat dinner with.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines, Washington DC

"Let us make a special effort to stop communicating, so we can have some 
conversation." Judith Martin