Bringing compassion into public project evaluation: the UCL Evaluation Exchange

A blog by Joe McMartin

Evaluation is an essential tool for organisations to gain insight into how to improve their work. Independent evaluations are set up as neutral, gathering evidence to present an objective view of what is working and what isn’t. Typically, they result in a dense report presented back to the organisation with findings and recommendations. The organisation then produces a management response and lays out what and how it will implement the recommendations.

Is there a problem?

1. An evaluation can be a bruising experience for the project in focus and overall, for the organisation. The team’s hard work is scrutinised, and inadequacies are laid bare. This can be very discouraging. Anxiety about an evaluation being negative (which may have a reputational risk) can also lead the organisation to cherry pick what is evaluated to get a ‘better report’.
2. It can be frustrating for the evaluators.  They work with the best intention to present what they have observed, often for the organisation to either contest their findings or ask for them to be watered down.
3. These two issues result in the opportunity to develop the organisation in a manner based on new insights is lost. Instead, the report is filed on a hard drive, and everyone moves onto the next thing.

To address these three issues, leadership coach Lucy Roberts and I, have developed an approach we call compassionate evaluation, born out of our own experience in working with various organisations.

What’s compassion got to do with evaluation?

Evaluation is a cerebral activity, gathering and analysing evidence, showing cause and effect. Compassion is relational, recognising that all of us have times when we suffer. Being compassionate is about seeking ways to support each other as difficulties arise and a desire to act against the difficulties and suffering. Compassionate evaluation does two things:

• It brings in objective and independent analysis,
• Using appreciative inquiry, it generates encouragement for the organisation to feel inspired to apply itself in new ways to its work.

How?

There’s not a single blueprint as each organisation is individual. Different cultures require their own approaches. However, so far, we have identified a number of elements:

• Pay close attention to what the organisation needs from the evaluation. That may shift as the evaluation progresses. Support the organisation to articulate what it needs.
• Genuinely, appreciate effort - people typically work hard, so say so.
• Recognise that organisations are working on complex issues, so things going wrong is inevitable and a part of the journey of the unknown. Improvement is not linear; it’s made up of steps forward and back.
• Aim for every interaction with staff to generate learning, agency, and capability.
• Increase trust with staff by increasing engagement on the evaluation.
• Use sensemaking sessions to review the evidence with staff and help them extract their own learning.

Compassionate evaluation is not about watering down the evidence to make staff feel good or bad. That is ‘idiot compassion’ – being nice to avoid conflict. Instead, compassionate evaluation is about organisations recognising their strengths, and generating the energy for them to take on difficult insights to act without prejudice and fear.

All organisations need an independent view of their work. And all social purpose organisations need encouragement to keep working on society’s most difficult issues. Compassionate evaluation helps you to do both.

With thanks to Dr Alok Rath for his kind suggestions and encouragement.

Links:

• To find out more about how compassionate evaluation, contact Joe McMartin.
• Find out more about the Evaluation Exchange here.
• To find out about specific projects within the Evaluation Exchange, contact Ruth Unstead-Joss.

Image credit: unsplash.com