Imagine a world where staff evaluations aren’t dreaded meetings, but exciting opportunities for growth. Today’s episode will help you craft meaningful conversations, empower your staff, and create a culture of continuous improvement that fuels ministry success.

Show Notes:

• The healthiest forms of staff evaluations are not just a once- or twice-a-year conversation but have consistent, small conversations throughout our interactions. Those earn us the right to have the larger/harder conversations.
• Sometimes these evaluations are only built so that there can be hard action taken when someone isn’t a good fit for a position. This can often lead to the system landing in an unhealthy place.
• Having or being a leader who is overly busy (too many responsibilities or too many direct reports) also leads to a healthy form of feedback because they don’t have the time or emotional energy to do it in healthier ways.
• There are some key things to keep in mind as you create or execute your evaluation process:
  • You need an encouraging mindset. To help someone who Jesus loves grow into the person that He wants them to be.
  • These conversations are important to help the ministry get better! They matter for the sake of the kingdom and of the ministry.
  • Make sure everyone involved in the evaluation process is aware of the goals of the process overall.
• Sitting down for evaluation should NOT be the first time they are hearing the feedback (which maybe was being held onto for several months in advance).
• These conversations can be done through weekly or bi-weekly conversations. Then, schedule a yearly review of the job description. If you’re going to do an annual conversation, don’t do it right before or right after the “big season” for that staff person.
• If you’re in a smaller church, don’t feel like you have to settle on a letter or number grade and then tie that into compensation.
• Coach your people on the front end of an evaluation process. Consider how important certain pieces of feedback are, how helpful they will be, and how much relationship you have already built before this. If you have a need to give some harder feedback, make sure you have invested thoroughly in that relationship on the front-end.
• Consider people’s families as well. Speak encouragement to the person and even their families about how well they are doing.
• Build spiritual growth conversations into your evaluation conversations as well! Make sure you’re not JUST helping them grow professionally, but spiritually.
• Remember that, biblically, leadership is about serving those we lead. We need to keep that in mind as we evaluate people. People should feel that they are better after they meet with us.
• 360 evaluations can be a great opportunity for evaluation to flow in all directions rather than just top-down. However, in practice, it can end up being less healthy if we’re not careful (often people either don’t want to hurt feelings or they want to bring their own agenda).
• It’s also vital to do healthy evaluative check-ins with your volunteers not just staff members.
• Contact David Gaddini: david.gaddini@ministryarchitects.com
• Contact Anthony Prince: anthony.prince@ministryarchitects.com
• Connect with Brandon Collins: brandoncollins.org – brandon.collins@ministryarchitects.com
• Connect with Renee Wilson: renee.wilson@ministryarchitects.com