Annual reviews
8th Aug 2015
Dilbert on Annual Reviews
It’s that time of year where we’re harvesting our learning and planting seeds for the future. As a relatively new Framework member, it’s the first time I’ve been involved in our Annual Review process, where we gather feedback from colleagues and clients, and consider, with our peer supervisor, what we’ve achieved and what we’ve left undone in the past twelve months, and what directions we may wish to take in the coming twelve months.
As with any review, it raises as many questions as answers, and the next stage in the process will be creative and exciting. Together, at our six monthly retreat, we started to create a theory of change for our work as a collective of organisational consultants. Individually and together, we’re trying to listen deeply to the feedback we’ve received from clients and understand what to do more of, what to do less of, and what to keep doing. When we hear “this was a conceptually brilliant piece of work”, should we infer that we need to continue to work with clients who provide thoughtful briefings and who work with us to build a productive relationship, or should we ensure that the team delivering that work continues to collaborate on other projects; do we do our best work under time pressure or when we have plenty of time to deliver? Individually or in a team? If a participant in a training course says that the trainer was “brilliant, passionate and skilled”, does that mean that there is an art to convening a group of trainees who are at exactly the right point to benefit from the training, or that we should keep the numbers small so that more personal relationships can be established, or merely make sure that the sun is shining, the trainer is well rested and there’s chocolate cake at the break! Ah, so much to learn and understand.
Thank you to all of our clients for the past twelve months for taking the time to provide such considered, thoughtful and ‘juicy’ feedback.
