Here’s the next installment of the “Leading on the Seas” series. Head over to the “Leading on the Seas” link in the list of categories to the right for more in the series.
Evaluation is always a critical part of leadership efforts. It’s important to measure up results with objectives and examine whether things are going well or need to be improved. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some value in evaluating. People like to do it – whether it’s after a date, after a wedding, after a movie, or after just about any other significant experience. We evaluate. It’s what we do.
But not all evaluation is equally beneficial or productive. One reason can be a black and white and overly structured approach to evaluation that leads some to only feel like they can evaluate when everything is over and done with. So basically when it’s too late to make any corrections or changes. It’s important to evaluate at the conclusion of a project or season of work, but if we wait we miss out on improving things as we go and ensuring greater integrity and better results as well.
Marine vessels typically had to be “drydocked” to examine all of their underwater parts. This happened only when a vessel was not in the water and going somewhere. So for the ship to be checked out, it could not be on a journey. It was sidelined.
A new method was eventually discovered called an “In-Water Survey”, which is a “method of surveying the underwater parts of a ship while it is still afloat instead of having to drydock it (wikipedia). This was a great step forward because it meant that the ship didn’t have to be removed from the water to take a full inspection of that which usually cannot usually be seen.
Waiting until the end of a project to do all the evaluation or assessment of how things are going is the equivalent of having to pull the ship out of the water. There is no opportunity to get back in the water quickly or continue on the journey without significant delay. Those who find ways to assess and evaluate as you go accomplish a few things. First, they find ways to make adjustments quickly and in a timely fashion. Second, they avoid having to wait for a scheduled drydock to evaluate at which point significant damage might already have been done which undermines the integrity of the vessel. Finally, they avoid long “evaluation” delays because there is a quicker and more integrated approach to assessment and evaluation built into the process. The ship is in the water and can stay in the water, avoiding significant delays.Of course you don’t want to build a culture in which you are evaluating all the time. That’s probably worse than a drydock. But if you can find ways of consistently assessing what typically goes unnoticed in the daily flow of activity it should position you and your team to be more agile and adaptable over the course of whatever project or in whatever leadership season you are in.
I’ve found that having occasional conversations about the culture our team is reproducing and our core values and how those values are being manifested and implemented are pretty helpful conversations that serve as “in-water surveys” in that these topics often get neglected in favor of pure evaluation of goals and priorities and tasks.
What are helpful ways that you can take “in-water surveys” of those things in your context that are not typically seen or noticed, but are of significant importance? And for fun, I saw this recently which speaks to maybe some of the difficulties in doing an “in-water” survey depending on who we’re leading. Enjoy 🙂
