On 30 Aug 1996, Keith Cowan wrote:
> Hal. I am agree with your "belief" but I am speaking from experience with
> various imperfect attempts at measurement of management effectiveness. How
> would propose achieving your desired outcome. Please be specific so we can
> discuss the pros and cons of your specific measurement techniques. Both
> Rol and I were being pragmatic. Maybe we are missing something?
>
> What measures of management effectiveness will help the organization learn
> without disempowering the managers? Cheers....Keith
Keith,
I doubt very much that my measurement techniques differ greatly from
yours, or anyone else's (I'm not that bright). Nor do I believe you and
Rol are missing anything.
I think the difference may be our understanding of evaluation. Rol gives
a good description of a formative evaluation process in his post on this
thread. The goal of the evaluation is learning, guiding, and shaping, not
judging. Formative evaluation is less formal and more fluid than
summative evaluation. Rol is obviously evaluating or how would he know
that he has found things he was not expecting? Without some kind of
informal evaluation how can the organization be sure it has learned
anything? If you've never gotten wet, how do you know you can swim?
Formative evaluation is a chance to take a deep breath and ask, "Where
have we been? What have we learned? Where do we want to go now?"
Therefore, I believe it can be done without disempowering anyone
(admittedly this leans heavily toward idealism).
Hal Steinbeigle
University of New Mexico
has@unm.edu
--Hal Steinbeigle <hals@unm.edu>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>