A year earlier, a Manager took a piece of paper his Mayor had just handed him which contained three lines of handwritten notes. After the Manager reviewed them and had made a few inquiries, he was surprised to learn that what he had received was his annual performance evaluation. The Manager was caught off guard, especially since this was a significant departure from the three previous years where the Council had honored the provisions of his employment agreement that called for an annual performance evaluation and the right to discuss it with the Council. Even more surprising was when he called this fact to the Mayor’s attention, who replied, “What do you think we just did?”
Seeing little recourse, the Manager took this experience in stride. After all, what was he going to do, resign? Instead he learned from this experience and followed up with a conversation he had with a colleague a few months earlier regarding a performance evaluation process for city managers. After a few inquiries and a discussion with Latshaw & Associates, the Manager was sold on what this process had to offer him, not the least of which was the opportunity to find out where he really stood with his Council in terms of the confidence they had in him as their Manager.
After some private discussions with the Mayor and each member of Council, the Manager was rather surprised to learn that his Council too thought the process made a good deal of sense. This was especially true of the Mayor, who was not pleased with the fact that this task always fell on his shoulders with little support from the Council. He was tired of hearing all the complaints and then seeing the Council act as if everything was fine. The fact was that everything wasn’t fine, it was just that nobody wanted to be the one to say the things that needed to be said.
As a result, the Town engaged Latshaw & Associates to conduct their Manager’s next performance evaluation. Through this process, both the Mayor and Council learned a great deal about what each other thought about the Manager’s performance and what was important to each other. The Manager also learned that the Council had a much different view of his performance than he had and that his job was not as secure as he had assumed.
This process revealed that there was no longer a “comfortable fit” as there had been under previous Councils, both in terms of their Council-Manager relations and mutual expectations. The Manager was too far out in front of the Council in terms of his progressive thinking and agenda and there was a good deal of resentment regarding the way the public perceived who was in charge and leading the way. On the other hand, the Manager felt his efforts deserved greater support from the Council.
As a follow-up to his evaluation, the Manager engaged in Executive Coaching with Latshaw & Associates at the Town’s expense. His primary goal was to explore whether he was actually willing to adapt his style in response to the differences that existed and, if not, what avenues were available to bring his association with the Town to a close in an amicable fashion. The result was that the Manager came to realize that it was time for him to move on, not in response to his differences with the Council but because he had grown beyond the job and had never realized it. The Council had given him the candid feedback he had wanted but he just could not and did not want to be the kind of Manager they wanted. Still, he owed the Town a lot and he and the Council were able to cooperate during his search for a new job and in the timing of his resignation so that the Town was not left with a leadership vacuum or the kind of animosity that is often associated with a Manager’s departure.
Here, a Performance Evaluation and Executive Coaching worked hand-in-hand to reveal a general philosophical incompatibility that, left to fester, would have produced more strain on both the organization and all parties concerned. Instead, a win-win situation was achieved whereby the Council was able to select someone else who was a better fit for them, and the Manager was able to find a new position that offered him greater challenge and professional growth.
