Speaking of Business: Assessment of managers a two-way street
We are devoting several columns to answer a question about identifying and prioritizing improvement initiatives. Our approach is to first conduct appropriate diagnostic assessments, which we are discussing in a series of columns. In the previous column we discussed the nature and value of human behavioral assessment.
In this installment we will discuss the nature of the management assessment itself. In the next installment we will give some tips on how to conduct the assessment and analyze results.
A management assessment measures the degree to which a manager is engaging in specific desirable management behaviors and activities.
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A management assessment collects and interprets the manager’s key stakeholders’ perceptions of the manager’s management practices. Stakeholders include the manager’s subordinates, superior and self. You may also include their peers in the assessment. This type of assessment is sometimes called a “360-degree assessment” because all the people around the manager rate the manager.
The assessment survey usually consists of 60 to 200 positive statements that describe good management practices. Stakeholders rate the manager by indicating whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with each statement. Because all the statements are positive descriptions of desirable management behaviors and activities, “strongly agree” and “agree” ratings are considered to be good.
Examples of survey statements:
The survey statements are usually grouped according to recognized management functions.
Examples of management functions into which the statements are grouped:
Besides asking stakeholders about their perception of the manager’s practices, the stakeholders are asked to rate the importance of each statement. Gauging importance is valuable because it helps the manager focus on improvement areas that are important to his or her stakeholders, and not waste effort trying to correct something no one cares about.
A good assessment also includes a place for stakeholders to write in any general comments they may have.
The stakeholder’s responses are compiled in a report that is used to coach the manager and assist him or her to create an action plan.
(Note: When the stakeholder is a group — subordinates, for example — the responses are compiled statistically to preserve the anonymity of individuals. Anonymity is critical for getting honest feedback.)
The report presents the manager’s results from a variety of perspectives:
Each of these perspectives gives the manager valuable insight.
For example, the manager’s superior may rate them favorably while subordinates rate her or him unfavorable or vice versa. The manager may rate himself or herself favorably and others may rate them unfavorably, and so on. Patterns like this are very valuable for helping the manager plan improvements and build better relationships.
As you can see, there are a variety of insightful, useful comparisons that can be made from the overall ratings of various stakeholders.
Summary ratings for each management function provide valuable guidance for identifying improvement targets. For example, a manager may have an unfavorable rating for statements related to the performance evaluation function, which then could be an area for improvement.
Greeley resident Russell Disberger is a founding member of Aspen Business Group, a Northern Colorado-based specialty consulting and venture-capital firm assisting businesses in obtaining strategic growth. He can be reached at (970) 396-7009 or by e-mail at russell@aspenbusinessgroup.com.
We are devoting several columns to answer a question about identifying and prioritizing improvement initiatives. Our approach is to first conduct appropriate diagnostic assessments, which we are discussing in a series of columns. In the previous column we discussed the nature and value of human behavioral assessment.
In this installment we will discuss the nature of the management assessment itself. In the next installment we will give some tips on how to conduct the assessment and analyze results.
A management assessment measures the degree to which a manager is engaging in specific desirable management behaviors and activities.
A management assessment collects and interprets…
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