Consulting 6.1 Evaluations: Evaluating others

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This lesson will help you evaluate performance effectively in English. 

Introduction

Evaluating people's performance is required at most consulting firms. Clearly describing people's positive points can have a powerful effect on morale, and highlighting weak points can help improve performance. This lesson will help you do both.

This lesson will generally be about formal, written evaluations. Of course we can also use this as spoken language in meetings if they are very formal.

Spend time on this lesson because the next two units depend heavily on this one going well. 

Warm Up

What do you think about these evaluations?

  1. She works hard and does her best. Additionally, she met her deadlines and interacted consistently with her team.
  2. He effectively leverages his skill set to immediately add value to the project.
  3. She worked independently when possible and reached out for help as soon as it was necessary early in the project.

All these are bad evaluations. Here are the reasons:

  1. This one is too broad and it's actually just the minimum required. 
  2. The overuse of buzzwords masks weak feedback. Try taking out the buzzwords, it pretty much says that he uses skills to contribute to the project. Everyone should be doing this! Which skills? How does he add value?
  3. Adding the time phrase makes it seem like it’s going to lead into a negative point. If that’s the aim, then this is good. If it finishes here, then it leaves the reader hanging. Did she not do this through the rest of the project? Take out "early in the project" if it's meant to be a positive point. (This is especially true because "as soon as it was necessary" is a time phrase.)

This lesson will focus not only on language (most students have a good grasp of specific consulting language), but also on style, structure and even some content. 

Ask your student to supply a lot of language and opinion through this lesson. There is a good chance they already have a rich vocabulary for evaluations. 

Language

A. Read the following evaluations, noting any interesting collocations. Then rate each one on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not very important and 5 being absolutely integral. 

  1. They drive the project forward with plenty of energy and enthusiasm.
  2. They are effective at leveraging the resources around them, especially the perspectives of experienced consultants.
  3. They comprehensively structured each task and broke big jobs into achievable goals, progressing quickly and logically through to the next milestone.
  4. They were stable and reliable.
  5. In meetings, they make a great impression and connect with clients through charm and wit, as well as presenting information clearly.
  6. They communicate honestly and openly.
  7. They have extensive specialized knowledge and are able to use it effectively.
  8. They are quick to offer advice and guidance to teammates, especially junior staff.

Practice the collocations before moving forward. Your teacher will say a noun, verb, adverb or adjective. Try putting it into a phrase.

 

B. Read and discuss the following evaluations, again noting collocations. Notice that the language tends to be softer than the negative phrases. Rate the issues on a scale of 1-5, with one being not very important and 5 being a massive problem. 

  1. It would be beneficial if they focused more on the client’s point of view.
  2. They sometimes deliver what the client asks for literally, rather than understanding the underlying issues.
  3. They are slow to understand core issues, and senior staff need to explain them repeatedly.
  4. They need to simplify their presentations and crystalize their ideas, especially when presenting to upper management.
  5. They need to deal with stress and mistakes without losing confidence. They lose their positive outlook and become disheartened quickly.
  6. They can often be slow to get assistance on difficult projects.
  7. They tend to have small presence in the room, preferring not to speak up in client meetings and larger internal meetings.
  8. They can quickly build good rapport, but they rely too heavily on that rapport, without focusing enough on the value added.

Practice the collocations before moving forward. Your teacher will say a noun, verb or adverb, and you can use it in a phrase.

Collocations are pairs of words that tend to be used together. One example is the verb+noun collocation take a photo. This is a strong collocation as take is the only verb possible with photo in this sense (you can´t make or do a photo). If you take the verb+noun collocation follow the rules, there are a number of collocating verbs with the same meaning (obey, stick to) so this is a relatively weak collocation. Other collocation patterns include adj+noun (a quick glance); adv+adj (absolutely brilliant) etc.

A. Read the following evaluations and discuss the language. 

  1. They drive the project forward with plenty of energy and enthusiasm.
    ↳Try to get your student to rephrase each one, something like this:
    • E.g.—"It's important to drive the project forward. But, it's not so important to have plenty of energy and enthusiasm. So maybe 3, maybe 4. Let's say 3.5 out of 5."
  2. They are effective at leveraging the resources around them, especially the perspective of experienced consultants.
  3. They comprehensively structured each task and broke big jobs into achievable goals, progressing quickly and logically through to the next milestone.
  4. They were stable and reliable.
  5. In meetings, they make a great impression and connect with clients through charm and wit, as well as clearly presenting information.
  6. They communicate honestly and openly.
  7. They have extensive specialized knowledge and are able to use it effectively.
  8. They are quick to offer advice and guidance to teammates, especially junior staff.

NOTE: Possibly the worst thing you can say about a person is that they are "uncoachable". That means in spite of their skills, they're not going to progress any more. At some firms they will be asked to leave.

Practice the collocations before moving forward.

Play a kind of game: you say the noun, verb or adjective, and they build a phrase. 

  1. Drive—drive the project forward
  2. Structure—structure tasks (well/effectively/comprehensively).
  3. Milestone—progress to the next milestone.
  4. Impression—make a good/great impression.
  5. Connect—connect with clients.
  6. Communicate—communicate honestly.
  7. Specialized knowledge—have specialized knowledge.
  8. Advice—give/offer advice.
  9. Guidance—give/offer guidance.

  10. Effective at—using/leveraging the resources.

  11. Effectively—work/analyze data effectively.

    Extra ones:

  12. Comprehensive—logical and complete (e.g., take a comprehensive view of the situation.)

  13. Insightful—to be insightful (e.g., they are consistently insightful).

  14. Problem—solve a problem.

Ask: Which point do you think is the most important?

B. Negative language tends to be softer. Note this too.

Collocations are in bold. 

  1. It would be beneficial if they focused more on the client’s point of view.
  2. They sometimes deliver what the client asks for literally, rather than understanding the underlying issues.
  3. They are slow to understand core issues, and senior staff need to explain them repeatedly.
  4. They need to simplify their presentations and crystalise their ideas, especially when presenting to upper management.
  5. They need to deal with stress and mistakes without losing confidence. They lose their positive outlook and become disheartened quickly.
  6. They can often be slow to get assistance on difficult projects
  7. They tend to have a small presence in the room, preferring not to speak up in client meetings and larger internal meetings.
  8. They can quickly build good rapport, but they rely too heavily on that rapport, without focusing enough on value added.

Practice the collocations before moving forward.

Play a kind of game: you say the noun, and they say a key noun, verb or adjective, and they build a phrase. 

  1. the client’s point of view — focus on/understand the client’s point of view
  2. deliver — deliver what the client asks for
  3. underlying issues— understand the underlying issues
  4. core issues— understand core issues
  5. crystalize — crystalize their ideas
  6. stress — deal with/handle stress
  7. confidence— lose/gain/have confidence
  8. assistance — get assistance
  9. a small presence in the room — have a small presence in the room
  10. rapport — build good rapport/have rapport
  11. rely — rely too heavily on
Practice

Read the information below and rephrase it into formal evaluations. Decide what information you would focus on and if you would ignore anything.  

  1. So, Kimberly Wong, she came aboard a few weeks after we started the project, but she hit the ground running. She was just full of positive energy and always smiling and always giving feedback. I really enjoy working with her! She used to be a doctor, so more than once, she spoke from her medical point of view and pointed out why something wouldn't work. There was just this one time, or maybe it happened twice, when Stan, a senior consultant, got a bit annoyed with Kim. Actually, I think what Kim said was right, but she didn't back her argument up with facts. Maybe, Stan didn't feel respected. Anyway, Kim was really quiet for the rest of the day, but I guess they solved that issue because, the next day, she was back to her usual self. Stan seemed happy, too. 
     
  2. Jude McLean is really, really sharp. He's a total rock star at Excel. I saw him take a huge dataset, and within a day, he'd cleared out the noise and dug up a really exciting insight. It took him one day. Also, if you tell him something once, he really gets it. That being said, I'm not really sure why we bring him to meetings. I don't think I've heard him say a word to a client other than "hello". Maybe he doesn't have anything to say? But, I don't know, it doesn't really leave a good impression. Like, the client's paying good money for him and they don't really get a sense of what he's able to do. He also got annoyed at me a few times when I was just trying to give him feedback. But, you know, he's the best analyst we have. Also, have you seen his suits? He really dresses well.