"Evaluation" Is Not A Bad Word

One of the "Five Es" of developing leaders is EVALUATION. I've often viewed this as receiving feedback from my team leader or director about my work, or going over the results of my 360 with that same person. Now I'm starting to embrace EVALUATION in a fuller sense of the word.

But let me start by confessing: that word scares the pants off of me. I don't know if its pride, perfectionism or something else, but I have a genuine fear of hearing, "you've been weighed on the scales and found wanting (Daniel 5:27)". That biblical phrase has become a pop culture phrase, too, because many people share my fear of failing to live up to other's expectations, or of not producing/performing enough.

Which means that sitting down with my supervisor to go over my 360 has been a time of stomach-roiling review during which I gloss over most of the encouragement and remember only what I perceive to be the public declaration of my failures.

I recently finished reading a book on leadership skills for solving problems, reaching goals and developing others. Since I am passionate about helping people learn how to walk with God for a lifetime, I read this book with an open heart, asking God to teach me through this author. God answered that prayer as I read one of the final chapters. The author talks about asking the person you disciple or mentor to summarize what they've learned from that appointment and stresses the importance of not summarizing the learning for your disciple, but waiting for them to put words to their own learning. Here are three of the questions he suggests:

• What do you want to remember from today's conversation?
• What awareness do you now have that you didn't before?
• What was most useful to you from our conversation?

Goodness. Scary.

I've usually invested a decent amount of time preparing for a discipleship, training or mentoring appointment: praying, studying, reading, all to help equip that person with the knowledge and skills to help them connect to the heart of God for a lifetime. What if they can't summarize the time we just spent together? Was it a waste of my time? Of theirs? Does it come across as self-serving or proud to ask these kinds of questions? Am I looking for a pat on the back?

Actually, no. The author makes the case that asking for a summary or highlight from your training time actually reinforces the learning. Putting voice to something new is one of the first levels of acquiring a new skill or habit. Some say it takes 16 repetitions to learn a new idea, so taking the time to reflect on your appointment and then clarifying the take-always helps your disciple learn.

Other benefits of asking a potentially scary question include reinforcing the value of your times together, creating action steps from an "ah-ha!" moment, and celebrating a new insight. For me as the teacher, trainer, coach, discipler, I get instant feedback about how effective our appointment are. Is there enough clarity? Do our conversations wander too much so that the appointment feels scattered? Was I too casual with the teaching moment so it felt like a gab session, or was it a helpful, fruitful time?

I'm learning that evaluation isn't simply top-down, from my director to me. I can help those I train understand the benefit of evaluation by asking key questions which not only trigger learning, helping them make connections to live life by their faith values and core beliefs, but also offering insight to me as a trainer so our times together in the future can be more fruitful. Inviting others to evaluate our time together is good for them, and good for me.