Down here there's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line.
--Bruce Springsteen
Is the art of evaluation gone? Has the tough analysis, the honest recommendation, the timeline for improvement been lost? Or have we lost not the ability to take a hard look at something and offer suggestions for improvement, but instead lost the fire in the belly necessary to carry it out?
On the one side, those who do the evaluating do not want to be perceived as the "bad guy," while those who get evaluated are so thin-skinned that they couldn't take the criticism if it ever came. We can't talk to power, and power can't talk to us, certainly not in any meaningful fashion.
Last week, our school had an accreditation team of school administrators from a variety of other Southern independent schools come take a look at our mission and our programs and our 5-year plan for self-improvement. They were a genial bunch, and I enjoyed talking with them on a couple of occasions. But when it came time for them to issue their final report, at least in its oral form, they had no recommendations of any kind to offer us. Even our headmaster, who enjoys things going smoothly and without conflict as much as possible, seemed a bit befuddled, at least initially, by this turn of events.
Those of us who draw our personal work energies from a constant awareness of the many and varied ways that our school needs to improve could not have been more disheartened. The critiques around the water cooler or over a beer need a little bit of validation once in awhile, some tiny support for the notion that conditions in the workplace need to get better. Heck, some of those critics wouldn’t mind being told that they need to get better!
There are many ways to process this:
1) We're that good. A fellow administrator told the faculty that the visiting team "had never seen a school so clear about its mission."
2) Our headmaster has just been elected president of the governing organization partly responsible for the accreditation that just took place.
3) It was easier for the team to rubber stamp what we are doing and to be able to return home to their own schools and issues without having to give us a real challenge.
My money is on the third possibility. Why not just head back home with a pat on the back and a few bland platitudes? After all, the members of the team are competitors, if not for actual students, then certainly for prestige and reputation. But, beyond that, there’s also a kind of “you’re a professional and I’m a professional and I’m not going to try to tell you how to do your job” kind of mentality at play.
And yet. I sat in one of the meetings, the last one actual before the oral non-report was delivered to the top dogs, and I heard them say, because I brought it up, that the students they interviewed thought that we are behind technologically and the parents they interviewed thought the same thing. And all of this because I told them that much of the faculty thinks we’re behind technologically (my comments undermining the colleague to my left who was towing the party line).
So where’s the recommendation? Where’s the simple statement, regardless of the plan we may have for the future or the philosophy that we articulate: “You guys need to get up to speed. Now. As an immediate priority.”
But this circumstance is in no way limited to this one event. Our situation is small potatoes. Especially when a CEO who screws up a major corporation gets shuffled out the door with a severance package larger than the yearly economy of a Central American country. Especially when a coach who has failed is still getting paid, perhaps still working for the organization, long after he has been removed from his position. Especially when we have no way to look our leade
rs in the eye and say, “You aren’t doing what you said you would do.”
Put me squarely in the camp of being for hurt feelings, bruised egos, performance ultimatums and good old callings onto the carpet. Let me lobby for performance reviews that mean something and for societal criticisms that let us know the full implications of our failings. But that has to happen globally--some mid-level guy can't really tell it like it is if everyone else is going to traffic in platitudes and the mildest of recriminations? Otherwise, how can we even try to get better?
--Bruce Springsteen
Is the art of evaluation gone? Has the tough analysis, the honest recommendation, the timeline for improvement been lost? Or have we lost not the ability to take a hard look at something and offer suggestions for improvement, but instead lost the fire in the belly necessary to carry it out?On the one side, those who do the evaluating do not want to be perceived as the "bad guy," while those who get evaluated are so thin-skinned that they couldn't take the criticism if it ever came. We can't talk to power, and power can't talk to us, certainly not in any meaningful fashion.
Last week, our school had an accreditation team of school administrators from a variety of other Southern independent schools come take a look at our mission and our programs and our 5-year plan for self-improvement. They were a genial bunch, and I enjoyed talking with them on a couple of occasions. But when it came time for them to issue their final report, at least in its oral form, they had no recommendations of any kind to offer us. Even our headmaster, who enjoys things going smoothly and without conflict as much as possible, seemed a bit befuddled, at least initially, by this turn of events.
Those of us who draw our personal work energies from a constant awareness of the many and varied ways that our school needs to improve could not have been more disheartened. The critiques around the water cooler or over a beer need a little bit of validation once in awhile, some tiny support for the notion that conditions in the workplace need to get better. Heck, some of those critics wouldn’t mind being told that they need to get better!
There are many ways to process this:
1) We're that good. A fellow administrator told the faculty that the visiting team "had never seen a school so clear about its mission."
2) Our headmaster has just been elected president of the governing organization partly responsible for the accreditation that just took place.
3) It was easier for the team to rubber stamp what we are doing and to be able to return home to their own schools and issues without having to give us a real challenge.
My money is on the third possibility. Why not just head back home with a pat on the back and a few bland platitudes? After all, the members of the team are competitors, if not for actual students, then certainly for prestige and reputation. But, beyond that, there’s also a kind of “you’re a professional and I’m a professional and I’m not going to try to tell you how to do your job” kind of mentality at play.
And yet. I sat in one of the meetings, the last one actual before the oral non-report was delivered to the top dogs, and I heard them say, because I brought it up, that the students they interviewed thought that we are behind technologically and the parents they interviewed thought the same thing. And all of this because I told them that much of the faculty thinks we’re behind technologically (my comments undermining the colleague to my left who was towing the party line).
So where’s the recommendation? Where’s the simple statement, regardless of the plan we may have for the future or the philosophy that we articulate: “You guys need to get up to speed. Now. As an immediate priority.”
But this circumstance is in no way limited to this one event. Our situation is small potatoes. Especially when a CEO who screws up a major corporation gets shuffled out the door with a severance package larger than the yearly economy of a Central American country. Especially when a coach who has failed is still getting paid, perhaps still working for the organization, long after he has been removed from his position. Especially when we have no way to look our leade
rs in the eye and say, “You aren’t doing what you said you would do.”Put me squarely in the camp of being for hurt feelings, bruised egos, performance ultimatums and good old callings onto the carpet. Let me lobby for performance reviews that mean something and for societal criticisms that let us know the full implications of our failings. But that has to happen globally--some mid-level guy can't really tell it like it is if everyone else is going to traffic in platitudes and the mildest of recriminations? Otherwise, how can we even try to get better?
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