Everybody likes to hyphenize the word self. Self-governance, self-pleasuring, self-definition, self-study, self-improvement...and I could go on. Rarely do we hear self-evaluation or self-assessment. Are you supposed to evaluate yourself or is that something that other people have to do for you? Is that something other people even can do for you? And is there an approach that is maximally mutual, where both you and the setting interact to do assessment?
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that the boss will never accept that. I’ll bet they would, especially if you could articulate how good it would be for what the boss wants to get done. You know rule number one for the job interview, right? Tell them what you can do for them and their goals. Don’t talk too much about yourself.
The same thing is true about evaluations. We need not dread them. Instead, we can own them.
We talk often about the battle of inner with outer. Or internalized racism or sexism or internalized sloth. If the inner muscle of evaluation is soft, aren’t we handing over power to a lot of other people to tell us who we are? Why do that, when a mutual approach could improve all of our experience together?
If we were to add internal evaluation to external evaluation, life might get easier for everyone. The boss WILL need to be assured that he/she/they still get to evaluate you. But they might want to know what you know, too. It might actually help to sell whatever it is you are selling.
The last few times I was evaluated at a congregation I was serving, I was asked to assess myself, to show the assessment to the leaders, and then to hear their responses. The process was new to me, although not to the church leaders. “They had always done it that way.”
Self-assessment might be an ideal learning opportunity. We know that one of the hardest tasks for a new employee is getting “in” to the setting early enough and quick enough to matter. We all value social capital and know that its marvelous trust is hard to achieve. That’s why self-definition early and often would really liberate a people in to understanding who you are among them.
This is often how I do my own assessments. I am a parish pastor. These bullets are free for you to custom design.
I know I am succeeding when.....attendance at worship increases.
Or when people offer honest criticism of my sermons. Or when everyone at a small meeting speaks. Or when I have a few laughs a day. Or a tear with you.
A self-disclosure of self-assessment can’t be long. It will confuse and scare people. It needs big verbs, like summarizing the above markers with something like honest engagement. I know I am succeeding when I enjoy honest engagement, when people show up, when they speak honestly, when everyone has a say, when there are occasional laughs and tears.
I would love to show you who I am and what I value. I’d love to show it to you outside of the context of formal assessment of each other so that when we do formal asessments they have a kind of early trust built into them. I’d love to have a chance to change before I don’t.
Self-assessment can also be very intuitive, very private, very personal. How do I feel about going into the office? How am I sleeping at night? Which voices am I repeating in the shower? Are there people who are stealing energy from me? Am I encouraging them to do that? Will they be the same people who will bother the next hire or already bothered the last hire? How do I trust my own judgement about who to listen to and who to lovingly ignore?
What does my significant other experience about me in this setting? Am I transparent about my days or are there things I am keeping hidden? Who is my support group? How is my work/life balance going? Is it better here than in the last place? What kinds of habits have I changed to adapt to in this setting?
Self-assessment may even need a funny word, one that sounds less sociological and more sensitive. Sleuthing? Sensing? Dusting off the old action-reflection model and actually spending time on our own actions? Have meetings that include mutual self-assessment for at least 1/5 of their time. Set up agendas that include reflection. Stick to them. Encourage the pattern of self-assessment, out loud, in the open. Criticize yourself. “I so wish I hadn’t said that. It really wasn’t helpful to our process. I wonder why I did that? Please allow me to repair – so that we can get on with our primary focus.”
Before self-assessment can be discussed, we have to put ourselves in the driver's seat. Announce to our inner selves that we want to evaluate ourselves, regularly and ritually. Then let the world know. Your habit might catch on. You might even do enough prehab to prevent rehab.
Rev. Dr Donna Schaper is senior minister at Judson Memorial Church, co-founder of New York City New Sanctuary Movement and Bricks and Mortals: RemoveThePews.com. Ashe is the author of 35 books, most recently, I Heart You Francis: Love Letters from a Reluctant Admirer. She also grows a good tomato.
