This is a follow up to my post about inviting my team to evaluate me. Here are some of their comments. (Just FYI, I’m not hiding any of the bad answers, but I am condensing some of the similar or repeated comments into one comment. I feel bad sharing the good stuff too, like I am bragging or something, but I guess to be fair I must. Honestly the evaluations were overwhelmingly positive, but I did slant this to get more negative feedback, because I was looking for self-improvement ideas.)
- What is my expertise? What do you sense I do well?
- Leadership/Team-building
- Business/church administration
- Networking /Connecting people/Internet presence
- Thinking strategically
- Communicating/Teaching (on Sundays)
- Transparency
- Kingdom-building
- Counseling
- What is my greatest weakness or what is an area in which I need improvement?
- Pace of life/Stress you assume/Being too busy
- Listening before you have the answer.
- Not interacting with the staff on a deeper level.
- Communication with the staff about upcoming plans and overall church business.
- What do you wish I did more of?
- Listening to feedback.
- Connecting people to our specific areas of ministry
- Helping come up with solutions to the problems you discover
- Invest in the staff/team-building
- Drink more diet Mountain Dew
- Enjoy the ride
- Giving more unsolicited feedback
- If you had my job, what would you do differently?
- Delegate more administrative duties
- Put the Blackberry down more
- Put as much emphasis on discipleship as on church growth
- Do you feel I have your best interest at heart?
- Yes
- Yes, but more than that you have Grace’s best interest at heart.
- 100% Yes/Another said 99% yes.
- I’m learning to trust more. (Went on to add they’d been hurt in previous employment relations.)
- Am I approachable?
- All but two said yes, absolutely yes, 100% yes.
- One said, “Not always, sometimes you are intimidating, especially to the female staff”
- One said, “Most of the time, but there are times you seem distracted, busy or uninterested.”
- What would you like to say to me, but you haven’t for whatever reason?
- Be careful with your Blackberry
- Don’t let past failures hold you back, they have shaped you and people see you as real.
- You are respected more than you know.
- I consider you a genuine friend.
- You have a tremendous heart for people, but you are often pulled in too many directions because of it.
- For us to continue to move forward you will need to delegate more.
- You help mentor and counsel so many people, but I wish you did those things more with your staff.
- I would like to see us as a staff spend more time in prayer.
Tomorrow I will share some of my comments to this feedback.
John, I got 100%. I sent out several reminders and didn’t get the last one until the day before I met with them, but they all responded. I gave a couple of options, including putting them in a Word document they could add their answers, print and put in my box. I wanted them to feel they could do it anonymously.
Wow. This is great. Thanks so much for sharing the responses you received. I’m actually quite nervous about doing this, but I’ve committed to it. About to set it up and invite the staff to respond.
Did everyone that you sent it to respond? I guess I’m cynical, but I’m guessing maybe 30% of our guys would actually do this.
Ron, this is good stuff. It is not easy putting your rear end out there like you have. I was going to say Butt, but Julie would have gotten mad at me. Great blog, thanks for sharing.