When God does your eval …

As an employee, I have gone through the experience of having my work evaluated by someone I reported to. Going through that process has helped me be more sensitive as to how I evaluated the many direct reports who have worked for me.

There are many people who would be more comfortable — and would greatly prefer — a “high altitude” evaluation. You know, the kind where you say, “Overall you’re doing a good job, keep up the good work, let’s do even better …” The only problem with that kind of evaluation is that it doesn’t accomplish anything.

A real evaluation can be a little more uncomfortable, or be made an opportunity to improve, no matter how good the evaluation is.

When doing an evaluation, I always started the process by spending real time and genuine discussion on what the employee excelled at and highlighted key or unique ways the employee was making a positive contribution. I think it’s important not to gloss over this topic. When someone makes a positive contribution, regardless of how small, a leader should make sure there is real recognition, genuine appreciation, and appropriate reward for that contribution.

But to contribute to, and invest in your employee, the discussion must also include the not-so-positive. This is what a lot of employees dread, and often for good reason. None of us are perfect, we all have something we can work on, some area of our lives we can strengthen or grow in. How we handle this determines whether we really are contributing to the development of our team members and investing in them, or if we’re simply beating them up.

Having a frank discussion about what the areas of current weaknesses are, and openly discussing why this is an area of weakness, can help your employees see where they need to improve, and gives you the leader an opportunity to partner with them about how they can become more successful. This is an opportunity to not simply identify weaknesses, but to develop and implement plausible and practical strategies for enhancing the performance of your team members.

This part of the evaluation can help an employee be able to see where they are lacking, real ways they can improve, and the assurance of support and encouragement in a process that will hold them accountable for improving through specific, measurable goals with scheduled times for assessments along the way.

You can enhance talent and develop skill through a positive evaluation process.

That kind of process has been important to me in my spiritual life. It’s easier, less demanding, and much more time efficient if I simply admit to God that I’m not perfect and have room for improvement. But when I leave it like that, that simply remains my reality. It’s an easy admission. But having to do something about it is a different experience altogether.

My Christian life grows when I go to God wanting an evaluation for my life as a disciple. God has a great way of blessing us with joy and fulfillment regarding the things we do right. But I have found it to be immeasurably helpful when I “get real” with God and have discussions with Him about my weaknesses. By talking these things through with Him, and using scripture as a guide for His feedback, I can develop real “strategies” for ways I can grow as a disciple. When I can do that, I can set real goals with God, and He provides assurance and support through the process. His Holy Spirit does a great job of holding me accountable as I strive to grow in the areas of my weaknesses. And this entire eval process works best when I do this process routinely with the Lord.

For me, I strive to have a daily progress check-in with the Lord. This keeps me on track or helps me get back on track quickly when I wander off. I usually have a few times a year of extended time with the Lord to dig deeper at where I’m at in my discipleship, and once a year I spend extensive time in prayer, meditation and dreaming about my life in Christ, resulting in significant vision-casting and goal setting for the future.

It’s vitally important that I fully become and live as the man God wants me to be. That means I have to be serious about being accountable before God. If I don’t work this eval process proactively, I will wind up skating through life and getting the final eval that I’m unprepared for when I stand before Christ.

Let me make it clear that this entire process is not about my trying to earn anything or to please God. It’s simply about a deeply sincere commitment to pursue being who I can — and should — be as a child of God.

That will not happen accidentally. It won’t happen for me, and it won’t happen without my full engagement. But by diligently applying myself to this process, I can daily strive more fully toward the goal of really following Christ and applying myself, through the empowerment of His Spirit in me, to be a faithful disciple.

“23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
Psalm139:23-24

Scotty