Annual Performance Evaluation

This afternoon was my annual performance evaluation. This is my third at this organization and I didn't really care for the first two. They were silly and rather useless. You sit with your boss going through this evaluation. He/she may tell you a few areas you can work on, possibly based on examples from 9 or 10 months ago. And you walk away wondering why they didn't pull you aside 9 or 10 months ago to tell you about this problem area when that would have been the most fruitful time for learning. Or in my case, I've had multiple bosses and only the most recent does your evaluation so you're really only evaluated on part of the year. Needless to say, I wasn't too optimistic that this year would be any different. But I was wrong....

Shelley has been my supervisor for 3.5 months now. I really enjoy working under her. She's a non-linear, visual thinker - much like me. I think she "gets" me more than the other three supervisors I've had here (not that any of them have been bad). One of the things that is so evident is Shelley is that she cares about me, not just what I can contribute to the organization. Some people say you should leave work at work and your personal life at home. That's crazy if you ask me, and nearly impossible for me to do. I'm all about a holistic approach to life.

So Shelley tells me how she likes to run evaluations for her reports. We go through the form today then I do a day of prayer & vision in January. That day will produce a list of goals that I want to accomplish in 2007. Shelley and I will talk through those, breaking them up into manageable monthly action step. Each month I'll report to her on the progress I made toward the completion of those goals/action steps. I think this is fantastic. It provides me with accountability for the goals I set and a person who wants to help me reach my goals. I was pretty stoked.

We met for about two hours today, going over the evaluation form. We'd each filled it out ahead of time and then we work through the various categories together. The major categories are:
Communication & Decision Making Skills
Leadership Skills
Adaptability Skills
Work Relationships
Task Management Skills
Execution Skills
Personal Development
Development of Others

As we talked, she gave me a few suggestions for things that I could work on and we made a list which will help me in the development of my list of goals. I'll list here the areas we discussed and then after my day of prayer & vision I'll list my goals.

Areas to work on:
Time/task managment
Dealing with interupptions
Leadership skills
Expressing my opinion
Dealing with the hidden anger that encourages me to procrastinate

This coming year should be a good year for growth. I'm looking forward to it.