In our last post (Do you see what I see) we talked about the value of 360 feedback and how to go about obtaining it. In this post we will seek to provide specific resources to accomplish this.
There is an excellent video entitled “5 Misconceptions of a Parish Team” by Patrick Lencioni on The Amazing Parish website. https://vimeo.com/254699777 For many reasons, it is well worth your time to watch this. How often have you been asked what seemed like a simple question and your response was wildly overinterpreted? In Lencioni’s video, the pastor mentions he likes purple flowers and the next thing he knows the parish is covered in only purple flowers.
As Catholics, we rightfully respect our priests. This respect however can lead to confusion and difficulty if it prevents us from providing honest and helpful feedback to our priests. Unfortunately, this is often the case as parishioners and staff are afraid of offending Father. So, what is a priest to do?
In this post we will cover 3 different means of accomplishing this; 1) A 3 question survey 2) A feedback tool created by National Leadership Roundtable. 3) A Manager Attributes Self-Assessment from Stewardship Advocates. http://www.stewardshipadvocates.org/the-priest-as-leader-manager/manager-self-assessment/
3 Question Survey
This simple survey asks 3 questions of respondents:
- What is going well under Father’s leadership?
- What is not going well under Father’s leadership?
- What is missing under Father’s leadership?
The forms need to be distributed manually or electronically (to further protect anonymity). They should be collected by a trusted 3rd party who will not reveal specific answers or identities to the priest. That 3rd party then compiles common themes and presents them in summary fashion to the priest. This usually provides candid and anonymous feedback to the priest. Of course, the success is highly dependent on the integrity and ability of the 3rd party to provide an accurate summary.
CatholicLeadership360.org
This excellent feedback program was created by National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management. It is a 360-feedback tool that has been customized for the Catholic Church. There is a fee involved as it generates a comprehensive 28-page report. It is very effective and has been recommended to others by 96% of those who have used it.
Manager Attributes Self-Assessment
This form has been created by a group called Stewardship Advocates and can be found on their website as the last page of an article entitled, The Priest as Leader-Manager. There is a list of 17 characteristics and relative strength is marked on a1-5 scale. The priest can fill this out first and then share the blank form with 5-7 others. The format allows anonymity in response if returned indirectly to the priest. Use of this form will allow the priest to compare his answers with those of other respondents.
These are not exclusive as there are also other useful methods and programs out there to obtain feedback. These are a good way to start collecting feedback.
In our next post we will discuss what to do with that feedback.