In a small (25 staff) Non Government Organisation (NGO) attached to a
University in South Africa we were able to effectively use 'evaluation' to
find ways to provide staff with the space to grow into their work
responsibilities and hopefully in their lives. We used a system of three
to six monthly 'accompaniments' (drawn, I believe from a system used in
the Netherlands in which the supervisor 'walks beside' the staff member
during the evaluation). During these sessions staff and supervisor
jointly review the previous period's successes and challenges and seek to
find paths for continued improvement. Among the outcomes of the session
are a set of specific goals including developmental (formal and informal
training) goals. The record of the previous accompaniment is used as a
starting point for the next accompaniment.
The role of the supervisor is to listen critically and to help guide the
staff member to paths of potential improvement, if no such path is offered
by the staff member. It is also necessary for the supervisor to identify
what their role is in different circumstances, thus providing a clear
expression of joint responsibility for achieving goals. II believe it is
this, as one of the foci of the accompaniment, that makes it such a
powerful tool.
In the interests of transparency, any major decisions concerning working
arrangements, responsibilities, etc. that evolved out of the session
would be shared with the rest of the organisation.
Although the process is time consuming, the growth within the organisation
can be extremely gratifying. I was able to witness tremendous growth in
staff competence over the two year period, and could directly see the
results with those staff members whom I accompanied directly. One quirk
of our particular system was that one could request to be accompanied by
someone other than a direct supervisor (but would have to be a person with
sufficient view of the organisation, its vision and staff
responsibilities). On the few occasions this was used, the process helped
to redefine working relationships between staff member and supervisor to
the extent that staff members asked that their supervisor continue with
further accompaniments.
I do not know if such a system could work in a larger organisation,
especially if the organisation was relatively flat. We did not experiment
with peer accompaniment.
--"Leslie Lax" <leslax@cnx.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>