Why Are Evaluators So Tentative about the Advocacy Aspect of Our Profession?

[Rakesh Mohan]

My mother used to say that where there are two or more people, there will always be politics over resources. Because evaluations involve making judgments about prioritization, distribution, and use of resources, evaluations will always be inherently political.

Greetings! I am Rakesh Mohan, director of the Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE), an independent agency of the Idaho Legislature. This year our office is celebrating 20 years of promoting confidence and accountability in state government.

At OPE, there is nothing tentative about advocating for our work—i.e., promoting the use of our evaluations, defending our evaluation approaches and methodologies, and educating people about evaluation. For us, evaluator advocacy is all in a day’s work.

I believe it is the fear of politics that makes many evaluators tentative about advocacy. Some evaluators say that it is not their job to mess with the politics lest they be perceived as taking sides, while others do not even acknowledge the fact that evaluation and politics are intertwined. The option for evaluators is not to ignore the political context of evaluation, but to understand and manage it without taking sides.

The following advocacy activities of my office are grounded in professional evaluation and auditing standards and are guided by our personal ethics:

1. Conduct my “daily sojourn.” Each year during the legislative session, I visit the capitol every day even if I do not have a scheduled meeting. These visits help me to inform others about the work of my office and be informed about the political context in which we conduct evaluations.
2. Keep legislative leadership informed. This is the first step in building relationships with policymakers and gaining the confidence and support of the leadership.
3. Keep stakeholders informed. This is imperative if we want to have the buy-in from key stakeholders.
4. Assist policymakers with evaluation requests and legislation. This helps with getting good evaluation assignments and subsequently facilitates the implementation of our evaluation recommendations.
5. Educate policymakers and others about evaluation. We should let policymakers and those who influence policymaking know who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
6. Work with the news media effectively. If betterment of the society is one of the purposes of evaluation, we need to reach out to the people. The press can serve as a bridge between evaluators and the public. Here are three examples of how the media can help evaluators and evaluation offices:

• Legislature's auditor defends teacher 'despair' report
• Measuring tax success
• Goo-goo alert: More kudos for Idaho Legislature’s performance auditors

Details about these strategies and other thoughts on evaluator advocacy are discussed in my recent article, Evaluator Advocacy: It Is All in a Day’s Work (April 25, 2014).

This article was published along with two related articles in the Forum section of the American Journal of Evaluation:

How to Become an Effective Advocate without Selling Your Soul (George Grob, April 22, 2014)

Broadening the Discussion about Evaluator Advocacy (Michael Hendricks, April 17, 2014)

All three articles are available from OnlineFirst of the American Journal of Evaluation.

Idaho State Capitol, Boise, Idaho

[Note: I am honored to be invited to cross-post this guest blog that I first wrote on July 8, 2014 for Evaluspheric Perceptions, a blog by Dr. Sheila Robinson. Here is the link to the original post: http://sheilabrobinson.com/2014/07/08/why-are-evaluators-so-tentati...I am truly interested in knowing your thoughts on this subject of Evaluator Advocacy.  Please post your comments on this or Dr. Robinson’s blog.]

[Rakesh Mohan]

Thank you for the likes: Shiny, Tanisha, Patience, and Rituu.

[Rituu B Nanda]

Thanks Rakesh for this sharing. I value it very much. My takeaway from this- having a person responsible, clear office policy and integrity are key to successful advocacy. Warm greetings !

[Rakesh Mohan]

Dear Rituu, as you requested, here are some details.

Some of the activities I mentioned in my blog post are discussed in our office policies and procedures, while others are just part of our evaluation practices guided by three sets of professional standards:

1. Guiding Principles for Evaluators, issued by the American Evaluation Association (http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=51)
2. Government Auditing Standards, issued by the US Comptroller General (http://www.gao.gov/yellowbook/overview)
3. Program Evaluation Standards, issued by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (http://www.jcsee.org/program-evaluation-standards-statements)

Here is an example of how my “daily sojourns” benefit our office and work. In June 2013 we issued a report on business tax policies: http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/ope/publications/reports/r1306.html. Initially the report did not receive any attention from legislators or the press. Then in early February this year during the legislative session, I was on one of my “daily sojourns” to the state capitol where I ran into two reporters from the Idaho Public TV. They asked me a question. In response to their question, I mentioned our report on business tax policies. A couple of days later, they were in my office interviewing us about the report for a TV story: http://video.idahoptv.org/video/2365191278/

Here are policies and procedures relating to working with the press:

1. Per our office policy, no one in the office is allowed to talk to the press unless I am present during those conversations. In our office, the evaluator who does the work gets to talk to the press. The interview I mention above actually took place in my office and I was present there during the entire time. My staff was better qualified to answer the reporter’s questions than I was. Therefore, you do not see me in the video clip.
2. Per our policy, we do not make any partisan comments, nor do we comment on any legislation. In the story that aired, reporters talked about three bills that were being considered at the time in the legislature. However, as you can see in the video, we did not comment on any of those bills.
3. Per our policy, when talking to the press, we limit our comments to the evaluation work that we have done.
4. The reporters in Idaho covering the state legislature and government know that we are non-partisan and we do not comment on the legislation being considered.
5. I trust my staff that they will follow office policies and will use sound judgment in responding to the reporters’ questions.
6. As the director of the independent agency of the Idaho legislature, I am responsible for making decisions about whether and when to talk to the press.

I hope you and the readers will find my brief example with explanation helpful. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain and showcase the work of my office.

[Rituu B Nanda]

Thanks Rakesh for posting. I have a question- you say that advocacy is part of day's work. How have you done this? Is it part of your workplan? 

Please can you share ayn experience which you are proud of. Would love to hear the story.

[Rakesh Mohan]

Rituu asked me to add my experience to this post.  Please visit either my office's website or my LinkedIn profile:

http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/ope/staff.htm

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rakesh-mohan/48/1b1/a5a