The art of evaluation

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone to the Unfiltered podcast. This is Lee Stephenson and I am trying to sound like the guy who says, "Are you ready to rumble?" on the fights. So. But it is good to be with you. And I have the privilege of overseeing Church Planting for Converge.

Danny Parmelee: And I'm Danny Parmelee, and I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And today we're going to talk about the art of evaluation. Probably our favorite conversation to have right, Danny?

Danny Parmelee: Well, I actually don't mind talking about it. I think it's something that's maybe missed and can probably help out planters. Because I think it's more than just a system and more about just creating a culture of evaluation that you can get going from the very beginning. It'll help you long term.

Lee Stephenson: So why with that...why do you think evaluation is important? And when we talk about evaluating what are we actually evaluating?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. Well, I think that, again, you can pretty much evaluate everything from, you know, staff performance, volunteer performance. You can evaluate programs, evaluate preaching, evaluate worship. Just all of those different things, and they'll look different. But again, if we go back to kind of this culture, where that becomes the norm. Where we don't just do things, and then move on to the next thing without doing some sort of evaluation. And the whole reason that we do evaluation is so that we can get better. It's not to just be critical. It's not, you know, staff evaluation, so that you can get your raise. And it's just a, you know, thing that you have to do on the checklist. But instead, it's just that culture of development and wanting to get better and better at everything that we do.

Lee Stephenson: So, did you have scripted moments of evaluation? Let's say, let's take the weekend experience.

Danny Parmelee: Yep.

Lee Stephenson: And if so, like, what did that look like? How long did it last? How did you make sure, like, if we said, "That sucked." That it changed, you know, for the next week? Like, how did you actually do follow up and follow through?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, so for us, and again, you know, we've shared a little bit of some of our early stories. In the beginning, we didn't have even service planning meetings. It was thrown together the night before and through email. But once we had a rhythm of service planning meetings, it always started with evaluating the last week's service. And I don't remember even all of the exact questions. But there was a template of questions that we went through that helped. Because you can also get into this thing where it's just a nag session. You know, a barf session. And everyone just, I mean, talk about starting your week off horrible. And of course, the person that feels most responsible for that is going to be the worship leader, creative arts director type of person. So, you just have to kind of protect from that. And for people to be able to share things, both positive and negative. And that they don't need to share every single thing, but to share some of those things that oh, well, as we share that, as we go into the future, we're going to remember that. So, if it was, let's say, for example, "Man, we did that song, and it was really, really long. And it was during offering. And then we had a really, really long communion. It just seemed to drag forever." So, we remember that for next time that it just had this feeling where it didn't accomplish what we wanted: leading people into worship, of giving, and communion. You know, that type of thing.

Lee Stephenson: Did you have a... Like, and again, I know you're having to drill down and think through the past. Did you have one question that you would recommend like church planters, "You need to ask this question during your evaluation process?"

Danny Parmelee: We did have a template. I don't remember the question. So, do you? Do you have one?

Lee Stephenson: Well, I mean, we evaluated usually every Monday, coming out of the service. And still at a level we do that. We do it a little bit more digitally now. Just because of our different setup. But there's kind of five questions that we always went through on a weekly basis. And I'll see if I can try to remember them real quick. One was: Were we Jesus-centric? And was God honored, you know, through the start to finish of the service. Number two, was technology an enhancement or a distraction? Because sometimes honestly, it's like, I have no idea what we did but the lights were really cool. You know. Well, that didn't accomplish anything. Did people...were people lead deeply into worship? Was a another one. We talked about do people engage God's word during the experience? And then did we do anything that made a guest feel stupid or confused? I didn't like asking any evaluation question about the sermon because nobody would actually be honest to me. You know... "Oh, that was a great sermon! You know. Never better!" And that week after week after week. And it didn't matter what I said trying to give them freedom. They just wouldn't do it. So, my way around that was I just asked a follow up question to say, "Hey, guys, what, what was the main point of the sermon?" And if it was different than what I thought it should have been, I know, I missed it. And that's on me.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. And no, that's great. And I would agree too. It is interesting, because - and I know we've talked about this before with sermon evaluation - but how you do it. When you do is often different. Most people think, yes, have people fill out this paper after the sermon. Or you know, right before service evaluation type of thing. Oftentimes, that just doesn't help as much as people would think. But yes, with service evaluation, those types of things. Walking through those questions, you know, some of the strata. You know, what worked? What was confusing? You know, rephrasing it in those types of way, I think are just great questions to be able to ask. And, like I said, as the leader, you're just making sure that it doesn't turn into a flower session. Oh, yeah. High five, everyone was awesome. That was like the best thing since sliced bread. But you're also not trying to make it, you know, this horrible barf session, either.

Lee Stephenson: Exactly.

Danny Parmelee: You really are wanting truth and for things that you can change.

Lee Stephenson: And I like where you started the conversation, Danny. And talking about there's an importance of creating a culture of evaluation. Because once you create that culture, you can evaluate everything and anything. And people just recognize like, this is normal. This is a part of who we are, this is the way we talk, this is the way we get better. If you don't from day one kind of create that, it's really, really hard to introduce that later in time.

Danny Parmelee: It feels punitive, like, "Hey, we're now doing staff evaluations," you know.

Lee Stephenson: Exactly.

Danny Parmelee: And I'll say and I actually… I was not the best at staff evaluations. Definitely not a high point for me. I was thankful to have an executive pastor later on to be able to do those types of things. But, a program evaluation, or I should say, event evaluation was one of our most important. Because after you do something, let's say you do this big outreach. You think you're going to remember next year, when you're doing something similar, but you forget. So, when you do that evaluation, you have to take notes. Like, "Hey, don't forget, you know, the person doing the face painting needs to set a timer of three minutes per child. Or there's going to be two children that have the most amazing face paint, and then a whole bunch of angry parents." Or whatever. You know, whatever those just different key elements are. So that then as you move into it next year, you can go back and "Oh, yeah, we totally forgot we needed many, much more volunteers for the line or for the signup. Or the digital sign up didn't work at all. And we just had everybody show up." Whatever those different things are, to capture those.

Lee Stephenson: No, I think that's great. How did you... like your ongoing staff evaluation, you know, was it... Did you guys register it from a standpoint of direct reports? Like you evaluate the persons that you're receiving direct reports? Or did you like, as your staff grew? Did you even help evaluate all the staff? Like, how did you break that up a little bit more?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. So, as I already confessed, even though loved culture of evaluation, I failed completely at the hard copy paper routine. Especially in the beginning, where it just seemed like the tyranny of the urgent let's just make it to next week and in that type of thing. And then as we grew and as I said, for me, the key aspect and the reason I needed an executive pastor was for the organizational part. And what we were structured in that sort of way was a chief of staff. So, there was only two people that reported to me. That was the Executive Pastor and the Director of Communications. And their director of communications reported to me just because it was a passion area of mine and I wanted my hands on everything that was, you know, marketing, communications and that type of thing. Where then the executive pastor would do all of the evaluate. I did do evaluations, it was just spotty. So, some years there were. Some years there wasn't. Sometimes they'd be twice a year. And you know, maybe I'd go to a conference and be reminded of like, hey, write down some of your weaknesses with your staff development. It's like oh, yes, consistency in that. And it's unique because I love evaluation. I love to be able to do that. And I don't love to do it out of a negative like, oh, I need to evaluate that person because they're doing horrible. I love it because there's so many times where the staff don't understand what an amazing job they're doing. And until you can put it on a piece of paper and put five stars and circle it and exclamation point.

Lee Stephenson: A sticker.

Danny Parmelee: Yeah, a sticker. You got a gold star. And they're like, "Whoa. Really?" And so again, this is where if you don't have a system for it, like I didn't, then it can all the sudden feel like you said it before, like, "Uh-oh, great. Now all the sudden he's doing staff evaluations?" Or, "What's going on? Are we all getting pay cuts? Are we getting axed or something like that?" So, what about you, what have you found works well, with staff evaluations frequency.

Lee Stephenson: I stole something from somebody else I had saw. And thought it was a great idea. We did a once a month evaluation. And it was a little bit less formal. Where it was basically kind of five key questions that they'd have to fill out on a monthly basis and submit that to their direct report. It was all done, we did it all through Google Forms. So, it was just an expectation. Just go in their log real quick. And then they understood that their direct report would most likely sit down with him once a month, and just kind of go through that. And highlight okay, and you know, some of the questions were like, you know, what were your goals for the past month? What was your biggest win for the past month? What's your biggest prayer concern as you kind of move forward? And then we'd actually have them rank where... You know, if they're married, how would you rank your marriage right now? How would you rank your walk with the Lord? How you feeling emotionally, spiritually, physically? And so if we notice, like, they're all ones, okay, we need to probably have a conversation about something. But that just created a platform and eased any tension, if there was a hard conversation that needed to take place. Because it was, again, it was part of our culture. And then once a year, we do a more formal evaluation period. And that would include like larger goal setting as well. So what's three major goals that you want to accomplish in the next year? How can we support you towards that? And then we'd always require them to put a "BHAG." And as you know, a big hairy audacious goal is a part of that, that conversation as well. And that was always helpful for us. Then we'd follow up the following year. Kind of okay, where, why weren't these accomplished? You put them down and gave us an opportunity to also encourage them and say, "Man, you guys. Your team just killed it this year. Great job and proud of you." And we try to do that, like September-ish. So that way, it was all done prior to the budget process.

Danny Parmelee: And if you had any 90-day performance plans, you had that before the end of the year.

Lee Stephenson: We had that before the end of the year. So that always worked out really, really well. But I tell you, the monthly thing was actually - I mean, that was the key when it came to us doing staff and leadership evaluations.

Danny Parmelee: So, here's my little shameless plug for RevCoach. That's how some staff are using... it's a software platform that basically monthly you can type in whatever your five questions are that you want. Set up all of your appointments, and literally, it's automated. And that we can give to our listeners for free. You just got to email Lee or I and we'll give you a code and you can use RevCoach for free to be able to use that with your staff.

Lee Stephenson: Love it. Love it. Great idea. Well, great, fun conversation. And the reality is when it comes to evaluation, just don't stop. Keep evaluating, day in day out. And it's really the only way we get better and have a greater impact for the Kingdom. And so don't be afraid of it. Embrace it and teach your staff and your leaders to do the same. So, thanks for tuning in everyone. This has been the Unfiltered podcast. Until next time, keep it real.