2019-01-11 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 2, Issue 6
Featured Story
Consider Affirmation Statements in Your Performance Reviews
Let’s talk about employee evaluations. Rarely the most enjoyable part of the job for managers or people being managed, they are, for better or worse, a fixture in our lives. At best they are a helpful diagnostic that lets us see how we’ve developed, where we need to develop, and even form a hazy projection of the future. At worst, they’re an annual nuisance imposed by Human Resources. Anyway, a broader-scope discussion of performance evals can be found elsewhere; I’m here today to talk about disconfirming feedback getting in the way of transformative change, working from a piece in the January-February 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review (Negative Feedback Rarely Leads to Improvement by Scott Berinato & featuring Paul Green: https://hbr.org/2018/01/negative-feedback-rarely-leads-to-improvement).
The idea is, shockingly, that people don’t react well to receiving negative feedback in an area which they did not expect negative feedback. More importantly, it often leads people to reject not only that negative feedback, but all feedback from that evaluator. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, to use a horrifying figure of speech. We like to surround ourselves with people who affirm our value, and if someone makes you feel less valuable it’s easy to just ignore them and seek validation elsewhere. This is clearly problematic for supervisors and employees alike. In the article, Green says, We put employees in a position to deal with dueling motivations: I need to feel I’m valuable, and I need to improve. And we don’t do a good job reconciling them with our feedback mechanisms.
Clearly, a performance evaluation should not be solely a list of negatives to improve on. Sandwiching negative feedback in between compliments is also ineffective; it’s not as simple as tallying a list of pluses and minuses and aiming to end up on the positive side. What we need to do is first establish a strong sense of belonging and affirmation, after which some honest feedback doesn’t threaten an employee’s overall sense of value. Lovely, right? But how do we get there?
Berinato and Green suggest that employees be given a chance to self-affirm, to write at some length about the values that are important to them. That could mean asking employees to state in their own words what they like most about working at that particular library. More than their performance day-to-day, what about their work gives them a sense of purpose? This helps employees create their own sense of work worth, and it also helps supervisors gain insight into their motivations and desires.
How have you experienced performance evals? Have the ones you’ve received actually helped you perform better or feel more included in the team?
Fail Forward
We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.
How Much Stuff Was Left Over?!?
Recently the library participated in the International Cardboard challenge. We overestimated the attendance by a significant margin. Because of this, we gathered too many supplies for this program, and had no plans to use the leftover supplies. Instead of tossing everything, or attempting to replicate the challenge on another day, we used the extra material to jump-start a passive programming initiative at the library. We were able to set-up a Cardboard Creation station, and let people stop by and solve the challenge without staff interaction. We learned that just because one program was not the success we expected, it can lead to other ways of engaging the patrons that may be more valuable than the original program.
Crush Corner
Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you in the work you do? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!
University of Idaho Library and Open Education Resources
After the ILA Conference, I’m so excited to share the University of Idaho Library’s open education resources (OER). From the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open education resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium digital or otherwise that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. The U of I Library has put together a robust LibGuide with resources for educators (including K-12), students, and OER advocates. In addition, the Library offers Think Open Fellowships to support faculty in developing OER which in turn can lower the cost of college for students and contribute to higher graduation rates. You can find more great info from Evan Williamson’s ILA presentation on OER and GitHub.
SPLAT explores new ways to build capacity and support library folk as they serve their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org
SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-00-18-0013-18). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.