James Drogan

The three of you expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with your team assessment.  I owe you a response.

For a long period of time I thought the capabilities of a person were best represented by their knowledge, skills, and experiences.  At least two years ago, and perhaps earlier, I began to appreciate the attitudes and behavior as important characteristics that round out a person’s capabilities.  I’ve known, and now know, plenty of people with great knowledge, skills, and experiences, but attitudes and behavior that render them detrimental to resolving an issue.  And I’ve known and know people with wonderful attitudes and behavior, but lacked and are lacking the knowledge, skills, and experiences required for success in a particular endeavor.

Team assessment measures the sum total of one’s capabilities in a particular situation.

Let me remind you what I had to say about assessment.

Special Note: It is tempting, inasmuch as this may possibly be your last activity in this course, to treat it lightly. Resist the temptation.

One of the most important responsibilities you will have during your career is the assessment of the performance of others. This assessment not only reflects upon the person assessed, but also on you, the assessor.

Suppose, for example, you assessed a person as extremely capable, but made the assessment in a rather casual, off-handed, quick fashion. The person is then, based largely on your assessment, hired and subsequently found not to live up to expectations. Your assessment has put the person in a difficult position, he has performed poorly, his subsequent career is affected. You are also affected because your judgment is called into question.

Take the time to think about your teammates' participation. Produce a fair assessment. Treat them as you would like to be treated.

It seems to me that whatever the nature of the assessment – favorable or unfavorable – one ought to think about why the assessment is the way it is.  Human beings tend to react more to negative rather than positive assessments.  I think we ought to look upon them similarly.  Kipling, in his great poem If talks about, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same.”  My observation is that people often say nice things about you because they lack the courage and ability to tell you what they really think.  And, of course, in their pettiness,  desire for vengeance and inability to confront their own weaknesses, people often speak ill of others. 

The seminal question, therefore, is not so much the what, but the why.  Only you, as the assessed or otherwise interested party, can ask the question.  Only the assessor can answer.