Q. How does that evaluation work?
We break the service aspect down into a number of different attributes. Those attributes are rated and then there’s an opportunity for added comments. Then they’re tallied, they’re charted, and we sit down and we discuss it. We do the same thing going the other way.
It’s one thing writing it and sending it over in an e-mail. It’s a completely different thing when you have to say, ‘Can you share where we did not meet your standard based on this comment or these results?’ It’s as simple as, ‘Why did we get a 3 here?’ ‘Well, here’s why you got a 3.’ Without the tool: ‘How are we doing?’ ‘You’re doing fine.’ That’s usually not a good signal.
It’s not wrapped around a person — it’s wrapped around that subject. You have a chance to talk about it: ‘Well, how can we improve this? How can we make this better?’
Q. How do you establish an open-evaluation environment?
The first thing you do is you lead the way, meaning [dishonesty and personal attacks] are out of bounds for you. We can’t do that if we don’t want you to do that.
The entire operating premise is building on a valuable long-term relationship. If the other side is not interested in that, then forget this. This won’t work. So I already have a long-term mindset. If you don’t, this won’t work. But I can get you to think that there’s value to this because people don’t want to be working with a different agency every other day.
This has to be a relationship built on trust; there has to be information supplied. I have to know that sales were down last month; we are not accomplishing what we need to accomplish. I’ll know that because I’ll be monitoring that at the same time you are, therefore I can do something about it.
But without the clearly mutually agreed and specific objectives upfront, those things cannot happen. It’s a whole lot better to sit down at the beginning of the year and lay out the specifics so they know and you know.
How to reach: Brunner, (412) 995-9500 or www.brunnerworks.com
