No matter how hard senior managers try to keep the long-term goals of their organization in mind, it is only natural for them to have their heart set on achieving a "good" rating. If they have scheduled a Level 3 assessment, they want to be Level 3. In some cases, they have told their corporate managers that they are Level 3. In other cases, bonuses have been tied to the maturity level rating, and in a few cases, their jobs may be at stake. It is not unusual, therefore, that when senior managers do not like what they hear, they may lash out at the team and even make threats.
Here again, an experienced Lead Assessor must remember that the function of an assessment is honestly to reflect an organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The assessment process should never be corrupted. However, a Lead Assessor should also be sensitive to senior management constraints and concerns and try to work with them to mitigate real problems. The best way to do this is to meet with senior managers at least once before the assessment begins and several times during the course of the assessment, including one meeting early on and another right before the final findings. Bringing the senior manager in on the findings makes him feel more a part of the assessment and makes it more likely that he will want to implement its recommended solutions. (Lead Assessors be warned, however, that an adamantly hostile senior manager may accuse the Lead Assessor of trying to pre-judge the assessment when informed at an early stage that significant pieces of KPAs/PAs seem to be missing.)
Even when senior managers seem to be intractable, an informal pre-briefing before the final presentation can save what might have been an impossible situation.
On one assessment, after the draft findings and ratings meetings, the Lead Assessor along with several assessment team members scheduled a meeting to communicate the results personally to the president of the organization. The organization had not achieved the maturity level rating (Level 3) he expected. The president looked concerned and asked the Lead Assessor "Would it be possible to consider a smaller portion of the organization? If it were rated at Level 3, would the organization be rated Level 3?" The Lead Assessor explained that things didn’t work that way. The president then asked in a menacing way whether there was any way at all for the assessment to produce a Level 3 rating. The Lead Assessor again had to say no. The president then said that he could probably find a Lead Assessor who would give the organization a Level 3 rating. Maybe the people in the assessment had been too hard on themselves. The Lead Assessor got through the rest of the meeting as well as he could, but after this attempt to intimidate him he expected the worst from the final findings meeting. He was surprised. The president (who did not have a software background) listened to the substance of the final presentation. Then, having been prepared by the pre-briefing, he announced that although he did not understand everything about the KPAs, he did understand the team’s account of the overall organizational strengths and weaknesses, and he agreed with them. Moreover, he added, he had to assume that because they were accurate, the rest of the assessment was also accurate. By this time, he had come to terms with his disappointment and had started to process the results of the assessment as information to be added to his existing knowledge of the organization. He not only had started to think of the results as useful, but he also had decided to play a role in transmitting the results. The pre-briefing had helped transform the assessment from an exercise in futility to a significant (if painful) moment in the organization’s attempt to improve itself.