Grounding Assessments
The Life Leaders Digest
ONTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE - LANGUAGE - THINKING
You are constantly making assessments as you speak and listen to others and yourself. Because you created them you have a tendency to believe that they are true. To believe that drinking red wine is bad for you belies the health benefits of drinking moderate amounts of it. The assessment might be the result of a bad personal experience with alcohol in the past, or perhaps a family member who died from actions of a drunk driver. Assessments are not trivial. They are often not based of verifiable facts, but they may be 'true' to the observer.
Making grounded assessments is a complex skill. This is because you are having to ask yourself critical questions from a number of perspectives in order to judge whether your assessments are trustworthy and will lead to actions and outcomes that will add value. The danger lies in using more assessments to justify your assessments, when you should be exploring relevant assertions. See assessments and assertions. It is important to note that it is the listeners and not the speakers who will decide if an assessment is grounded or not. Nomatter how hard the assessor works to convince the listener it is what the listener accepts that matters. It is therefore a good idea to put yourself in the shoes of the listener and reflect on how your choice of words, mood and body language will be interpreted.
Critical Reflection
If someone comments that their boss is lazy, unreliable and a hopeless manager, to what extent might this assessment shared by others? For this to happen the meaning given to the statement has to be substantiated. It is not a grounded assessment until it has been reassessed or subjected to critical reflection. For example, when you make detailed observations aiming for accuracy and breadth. You make sense of each observation in its context, framework or domain of knowledge. It becomes critical reflection when you add depth and breadth to the meanings by asking questions about, and relating meanings to, a spectrum of personal and professional issues.
Concerns
You may want to question what is being served by making the assessment. What does this assessment say about you and your personal or professional concerns? What do you gain or stand to lose by holding on to these concerns?
Specifics
What specific area of your life or work is your assessment being applied? Generalisations are not acceptable. Always? A negative self-assessment may not be applicable to all situations - so be clear about what particular instances you are assessing.
Standards
What criteria and whose standards are you applying when making your assessment, or do you think you were born with them? Why is the standard you are applying in your judgements important to you? What makes them acceptable and are they still relevant to the situation you are observing?
Verification
How many past events and specific behaviours can you point to that can substantiate your assessment? Are they saying more about how you define truth or a fact, than what or who you are assessing? Is it just your opinion or can others back it up with examples? Are you just seeing what you believe to be the case or are you being objective in your assessment.
Accountability
What facts or evidence can you identify that do not support your assessment? It is necessary to seek the views of others to weigh the evidence both for and against your assessment. Critical reflection requires you to be rigorous and accountable with your opinions.
Ontology
The more existential aspects cannot be ignored. Are you aware of the language, mood and body state you are adopting when you make the assessment? Are you in a state of frustration or anxiety? How is this reflected in your body posture, gestures, words and tone of voice?
Undertaking Performance Reviews
Grounding assessments in this way enables you to provide feedback in a rigorous and compassionate way. Look for the positive observations that can be used to address the negative ones. This is more likely to induce more learning and a motivation to make the small changes that will make a difference. When you take care to ground your assessments through critical reflection you can create stronger and more resilient relationships. Try applying the above to a performance review and see what it reveals about you and the value of you assessment.
