Supplemet Your Formal Evaluation System
With Appreciative Review

Being a professional in the leisure industry is a constant challenge, particularly in today's environment with limited budgets, expanded working hours and rising expectations. Our fundamental responsibility in the leisure industry is to provide quality programs and facilities to our stakeholders. Quite often, these programs and facilities attract the interest and participation of hundreds of people, resulting in a positive experience for the participants and the community.

Unfortunately, despite the general popularity of a program or facility, there will inevitably be a few people who are unhappy with the service we provide. This type of individual negative reaction frequently has a dramatic and disproportionate influence on the evaluation of an otherwise successful facility or program and the evaluations of the employees who worked hard to bring about that success.

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In facility and program evaluations, we understandably stress the enjoyment and satisfaction of the majority of our customers over the dissatisfaction of a disgruntled minority. Yet, managers in the leisure field very often forget to apply this same technique to the evaluations of the employees who make these facilities and programs possible. While an employee evaluation can and should be a rewarding experience that fosters skill development, the establishment of mutual goals between employees and supervisors and collaborative problem solving, the "point based" evaluation systems with which most of us are familiar tend to focus on negative incidents in an employee's career that are fresh in the supervisor's mind. Point-rating schemes arc also quite subjective and do not require an evaluator to expend a great deal of effort to evaluate an employee. Rather, they simply allow a result to be generated from the evaluator's spontaneous reaction to a variety of pre-packaged statements about an employee.

Effective and fair personnel evaluations require supervisors to include an employee's positive characteristics and contributions to ensure balance and an honest dialog in the evaluation process. You can achieve this positive focus and balanced perspective by using "appreciative review" in your personnel evaluations. Appreciative review in the human resources context rests on the premise that surveys consistently demonstrate that employees rank praise and appreciation as the most important factors in determining whether or not a job is enjoyable. To judge individual performance while simultaneously promoting employee morale, appreciative review identifies the best in each employee and classifies the ways in which that employee serves as an asset to your organization.

What is Appreciative Review?
Appreciative review, or "A.R.," is a cooperative search for the best in people, their organization and the world around them. A.R. differs from the traditional organizational evaluation system in that it does not focus on negatives or seek to extract specific improvements from individual employees. Instead, A.R. seeks to discover the forces that give life to employees and the organizations that they serve. Dr. Charles Martinetz, a cultural employee consultant with the Federal Aviation Administration, describes A.R., as appreciating and valuing the best of what is, envisioning what might be, then discussing what should be and creating what will be.

How Does it Work?
Prior to an employee evaluation, an A.R. evaluator develops a number of questions in a narrative style that encourages the employee to provide stories about the most positive aspects and qualities of the organization and to relate common themes from these narratives in order to generate a clear picture of the organization at its best. (Examples of these questions appear on page 21.)

At the start of an A.R. interview, the evaluator provides a brief overview of the A.R. process, stressing that the interview is not an effort to rate or Judge the employee as such, but is instead an effort to discover the employee's positive views about the organization. The evaluator then begins

CREATING PROVOCATIVE PROPOSITIONS Provocative propositions should not be confused with vision statements. A vision statement is a useful tool- But it focuses on dreams for the future without describing specific goals on how to achieve that vision. For example, a vision statement for the Romeoville Recreation Department might read: "To be a Park and Recreation Deportment of state and local renown and to be the most service-oriented form of government our residents will ever experience." Provocative propositions take things a little deeper. They describe the circumstances of an ideal state. This helps to create the climate to do more of what works- These symbolic statements have meanings that are deeper than words, reminding each of us of what is best about our organization and how each of us can participate in making more of the best. Provocative propositions ore reality based. They come from stories on the history, traditions, events and facts from the past. To create a provocative proposition, start by asking a positive question. Managers should have three to five questions determined prior to the appreciative review. Then the manager and employee can arrive at provocative propositions together based on the employee's answers to the positive questions. For example, I asked Remeoville Recreation Department Office Manager Nancy Aldridge: "What is the best we have to offer our residents?" In her response, she wrote: "We offer exceptional service to our residents and deal with them in a courteous and caring manner while striving to give our residents an enjoyable experience each and every time they participate in one of our programs." From that answer, Nancy arrived at this provocative proposition: "I will continue to make customer service a priority in our staff meetings and encourage staff to constantly evaluate the process in which we register residents- This will be accomplished by: 1) analyzing how to reduce registration lines during the first two days of registration, 2) challenging staff to create one new customer service improvement at the front counter each month and 3) holding bi-yearly reviews of our customer service manual." Nancy's proposition describes a pre-existing strength and suggests specific ways to build it into an even greater success.

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the interview, focusing initially on the employee's personal high points and accomplishments during the past year, then moves to questions tailored to supplement specific areas of inquiry within the organization's formal evaluation process, and then concludes with a dialog about what the organization could be like in the future if it functioned at its best.

From the responses to the interview questions, the A.R. evaluator then works with the employees to formulate "provocative propositions," statements describing the organization under ideal circumstances. Provocative propositions differ from traditional vision statements by distilling the best of an organization from the real-life experiences of its employees, rather than simply asking those employees to imagine a dream state of affairs that does not necessarily rest on a factual basis. By encouraging employees to use provocative propositions in discussing the organization, the evaluator helps to create an organizational culture where "doing what works" becomes the norm and helps to remind employees of how they can do their part to bring out the best in their organization.

A.R. in Use

In January 2003, the Romeoville Recreation Department implemented A.R. as a supplement to the existing point-based evaluation system. Typical positive-oriented questions used in this A.R. evaluation included the following:

• What is the best of what we offer our residents?

• What do you see as our essential direction?

• Tell me about a time when you experienced a strong sense of respect from another person, colleague or customer. What gave you that feeling of respect?

• What are the qualities in your existing team, division or department?

• Tell me about a peak experience or high point during the past year, a time when you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment.

• Five years from now, without any obstacles, what will our department look like and what can you do to help bring about that change?

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A.R. is gaming rapid acceptance in both the public and private sectors.

Many prominent organisations including British Airways, GTE, City of Hampton, Virginia, McDonalds Corporation, NASA, the U.S. Navy and Visa have successfully implemented some form of A.R. evaluation.

A.R. Field Notes from the Romeoville Recreation Department
A year after first getting into it, each full-time employee at the Romeoville Recreation Department has experienced the appreciative review process at least once, and it has been wildly accepted among department personnel. They feel it brings a positive approach to the evaluation process and allows employees to focus on their positive contributions to the department.

All employees help develop an individual business plan, which, by its very name, encourages them to take ownership of their jobs. The individual business plan results in a mutually agreeable personal vision statement, which is created with feedback from the employee and the supervisor. (We use the form shown on the left to help with this process.)

Employees also contribute to the development of the organization by completing an appreciative inquiry form and developing a set of goals. The goals must be tied to a specific area that the department is striving to improve. (See the sample form on the left.)

After the annual evaluation, employees undergo a six-month review to re-evaluate the implementation of their provocative propositions.

"Several times throughout the year I remind myself and my employees of their provocative propositions, mainly when we face challenges. We need to focus on what we do best when we solve problems," says office manager Nancy Aldridge. That sentiment echoes the thoughts of many of her co-workers who feel that following up on the appreciative review process more than Just once a year reminds them of their goals and fosters a positive approach in dealing with day-to-day operations.

Accentuating the Positive
A.R. helps people and organizations embrace positive thinking in order to discover their own strengths, assets and best practices. By encouraging people to see the best in themselves, A.R. enables them to see the best in their organizations and to achieve their maximum potential.*

Steve Gulden is the director of parks and recreation at Romeoville Recreation Department. The idea to use appreciative review of the Romeoville Recreation Department arose after Steve completed a class titled "Organization Cultures and Systems," in which he studied appreciative inquiry and best practices.

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