Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Evaluating Boards?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Apr 16, 2015, at 7:40 AM, Sue STIGLEMAN <sstigleman [at] bellsouth.net> 
> wrote:

> We are beginning from the recommendation we've heard from Laird Schaub over 
> the years to have a regular process for reviewing the performance of teams 
> and committees.  I'm on the Board, and our thinking is that the Board would 
> go first, do a self-evaluation and ask for evaluation by the Membership, 
> before moving on to evaluate the other teams.  We currently have zero nada 
> zip evaluation process for any team.  
> A few objectives are: 1. periodic review of team charters to keep them 
> current and fresh (as part of the review process.)2. encourage an attitude 
> and a process for team members to regularly step back out of the everyday 
> weeds, looking at the bigger picture, and asking "how are we doing?"3.  
> establish a mechanism for Members to give input to teams and committees about 
> how they are impacted (positively and negatively) by the team's work. 

Firstly, have clear aims stated. This is usually where things get muddy. There 
have been no clear statements of what a team is expected to do. In the first 
review this will probably be as far as you get. And probably "should" be as far 
as you get. How can you evaluate performance if you don't agree on objectives?

Secondly, review the roles, not the people. The purpose, not the performer. In 
a community, you don't want to wake up the next morning and think about what 
you neighbor thinks about you. You want to wake up feeling at home. You weren't 
hired. And you probably didn't sign on to be therapized or to live up to 
someone else's expectations. 

In a wonderful quote by Elizabeth Warren:

> There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. … You 
> moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired 
> workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because 
> of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t 
> have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your 
> factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the 
> rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something 
> terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the 
> underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for 
> the next kid who comes along.

The same is true of every person who didn't do it right. Success and failure 
doesn't happen in a vacuum. So an evaluation of a team is an evaluation of the 
community in one aspect of itself. How are "we" doing in relation to 
facilities, etc?

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
http://www.sociocracy.info