[Ailist] RE: Appreciative Valuations of Staff

Wed Apr 30 15:20:59 MDT 2008

Hi Cheri and all,

I think Cheri makes a great point about fit. Fit is always important to
organizations and, in many respects, it is why organizations have a
probationary (I prefer "adaptation") period before confirming a new hire as
a "regular employee."

One client I am working with is competing in a marketplace where essentially
the labour market is tight. It is not easy to find people for the industry.
So once they hire them, it's important to keep them. At the same time,
because the labour market is tight, organizations often take satisficing
actions with respect to hiring and accept that the person may not be perfect
for the job, but ...

What we are beginning to experiment with is an alternative to this
"probationary period" mindset. Typically one asks, "Is this person right for
the job?" If yes, they "get" the job permanently. If not, they are sent
packing.

Our alternative to this approach is to first ask, "Is there a fit between
this person and the *organization*" If the answer is yes, then the question
becomes how to make *that* fit work. Obviously one hopes the fit is good
between the person and the job they were hired for ... and it may not be.
It's not always the case that an alternative position will be available for
such a person, but if there is why not look into it?

There is a limited amount of information one can glean from a resume and job
interview. Three to six months of observation provides far more
understanding of the person's knowledge, skills, abilities and talents. It
seems to me that, particularly in labour markets where demand outstrips
supply, finding a more fitting place for the person in the organization
makes more sense than simply sending the person packing if they don't work
out as was originally hoped.

This has been a great conversation. Thank-you all.

Regards,
Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Cheri Torres
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:27 AM
To: 'Chris Willis'; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: RE: [Ailist] RE: Appreciative Valuations of Staff

Chris,

So what you say reminds me of Bill's original valuing notion.  I would
suspect that most (not all, of course) people who are not succeeding at
their job know that and its not a good feeling. If they've had lots of
support and help and are still not succeeding, then an optional view to
punitive, discipline-type perspectives might be to step back from the
specifics of the job and begin exploring with them when they are at their
best in other situations--looking to discover where their strengths lie to
see if the underlying problem is simply a bad fit.

In the process of such an exploration, I'm thinking there would be the
possibility that they are not the best fit for the position--and they
discover it at the same time you discover why.  This may surface where they
could be a good fit in the company or help them discover how to find a
different company with a good fit.

Cheri

-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Willis
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:07 PM
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: [Ailist] RE: Appreciative Valuations of Staff

> Not to muddy the waters, but I wonder if another layer of this>
valuation/evaluation process should take into account who the person > is
that> is being valued/evaluated combined with the purpose/intention of the >
action.
Jumping into the middle of this conversation with a few personal
observations ... As leader of a small (22 person) consultancy, as I started
learning more about AI over this past year, I have begun to implement
various appreciative approaches within our company. My greatest hope,
besides overall process improvement and injecting a boost of joy in our work
in a stressful business climate, is to build a more positive culture
internally that will transfer into the work we do for our clients. We're in
process of completing a full AI process in exploring ways we can improve our
end-to-end project development methodology. At the same time, I have
introduced appreciative questioning into our quarterly team reviews. 

To summarize, we ask team members to come to a review prepared to tell us
about what they have contributed in the past quarter that they are most
proud of, what helped them acheive that success, how they have grown, what
they think they could do to contribute more, and what can we do as a company
to support them. Someone talked about having "conversations" rather than
evals, and I guess we've always done that, but now we've formalized the
questions we're asking around an appreciative questioning approach. 

Many of our people actually ask to be reviewed, and they always have. They
seem eager to know how they are doing and learn ways they can continue to
improve and contribute. Of course, some of this is financially motivated,
with hopes that the review will lead to a pay increase (although salaries
are pretty much frozen at present, but we do hand out our quarterly bonus
checks at that time.) 

What's working? Well, we've had some incredibily eye-opening reminders by
our folks of what they are doing RIGHT. Come review time, it's tempting to
go through a list of names to determine who needs a tune-up, and it can be
really easy to brand someone based on the last project they've worked on --
or, worse, the last screw-up they were involved in. It's actually been
empowering for our leadership team to hear our team's stories and share in
their wins. And they've been fairly perceptive, overall, in identifying the
places they need to work on moving forward. 

So here's the rub ... this approach breaks down for us wnen we really do
have a "problem child" in the ranks. Legally, we are, of course, required to
document when we have to formally put someone on notice that things aren't
going well. Flipping an appreciative review into a disciplinary discussion
makes the entire process seem disingenuous. Some of our leaders try to
soften this by sugar coating any negative observations, which does not give
the team member a clear message. 

I guess I'm glad our team is still small enough that we can approach reviews
this way, and, overall, it appears to be working quite well. I would hate to
try and implement a more form-driven rating out of fear of covering our ...
um ... assets! ~ Chris Willis Where there's a Willis, there's a way!
_________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
The Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List is hosted by the David Eccles
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administrator. For subscription information, go to:
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