The Evaluation Couch (Maria Montenegro)

This episode series features inspiring women who are transforming the way evaluation businesses work by creating workplaces that are people-centered.

In this episode, Kat Haugh from Convive Collective shares her journey of creating a people-centered workplace that embraces flexibility, authenticity, and well-being. She discusses the principles of human design and how they have helped her create an environment where her staff can step into their unique gifts and strenghts. Maria and Kat discuss Kate's approach to recruitment and organizational learning. Kat also shares valuable career advise, especially for those currently affected by the foreign aid crisis. 

Resources: 

Learn more about Convive Collective here. 

This episodes focuses on our experiences of getting stuck when deciding whether to apply to a job or not. Maria shares experiences when getting stuck and building scenarios based on speculation have led her to not take action. She explains how our brain makes decisions and discusses some narratives or biases that can promote the decision loop that might lead to inaction. Finally, she shares a framework that can support your decision-making process to avoid getting stuck. 

Resources: 

Thinking, fast and slow by David Kahneman

Maria's CARE to Apply Decision Tree

In this episode, Maria discusses her experience with scarcity mindset around the earning potential of a career in evaluation. She introduces the concept of scarcity mindset and how it can impact your decisions, stress, and well-being. This episode discusses the importance of talking about money and having compensation information to make career decisions. Maria shares a few steps you can take if you are experiencing scarcity mindset around your earning potential. 

This episode features several attendees of Eval24, the 2024 American Evaluation Association conference that took place in Portland, Oregon. Maria engaged several attendees to ask them about risks they have taken in their careers, goals they are working towards and advice they would give their younger selves. 

This episode features several amazing evaluators. I am grateful for their generosity with their time and wisdom. 

Featured evaluators in alphabetical order: Allison Prieur, Angela Suarez, Audacity Nadler, Bijan Kimiagar, Carolyn Haythorn, Eddah Kanini, Elizabeth DiLuzio, François-Daniel Portelance, Gabriela Castro, Gladys Rowe, Grace, Joanna Hillman, Olivia Melvin, Prabin Nanicha, Rachael Kenney, Theodore Theoharis, Tian Ford, Veronica Olazabal, Vivien Ahrens, Zach Tilton.

In this episode, Maria discusses Planned Happenstance, a career development theory. Maria provides an overview of Planned Happenstance and the five attitudes or skills that can help you make the most of chance events. She shares three tips that can help you adopt this theory to grow your career. 

In this episode, Maria provides useful content to help you transform your resume. This episode covers the cognitive processes behind common resume tips, general rules for effective resumes and how to organize your information. Maria shares three frameworks you can adopt to write effective work experience content. She also shares things to avoid using real-life examples to showcase how to improve your resume content. She ends with a few strategies you can use to maintain updated and effective resumes. 

In this episode, Maria interviews the incoming Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) President, Michelle Anderson-Draper. Michelle reflects on her journey in evaluation, the role of planned happenstance in her career and her hopes for her presidency term. Throughout the conversation, Michelle shares her own careeer goals, highlights the value of lifelong learning and provides valuable tips to help evaluators grow in their careers.  

Visit the Canadian Evaluation Society to learn more about the CES Fellows, Designation program, and Provincial Chapters: Canadian Evaluation Society (evaluationcanada.ca)

For more information on the Student and Emerging Evaluator representative to the Board position, visit: Latest News (evaluationcanada.ca)

Chris Lysy, from Fresh Spectrum, sits in the couch to share how he built a special career by leaning into his interests and diversifying his skills. Chris shares how he became the artist behind thousands of evaluation cartoons and shares valuable tips related to exploring our interests, finding opportunities, starting a consulting business, and creating content. 

Visit Chris' website for free resources, cartoons, and more. 

Watch Chris' and Maria's Q&A mentioned in the episode and see the cartoons here. 

In this episode, Maria reflects on the role that a bad job experience can have in shaping our careers. She shares her own learnings from a bad job and how reframing her experience has helped her learn how to navigate future challenges. The episode also includes tips to help you reframe challenging job experiences to turn them into learning opportunities. 

This episode is a how-to guide for tailoring your job application. Maria provides an overview of why it is important to tailor your application and how to overcome barriers getting in the way of creating a relevant and concise application. She demonstrates the process she would follow to tailor an application by using a real job posting as an example. The episode discusses Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that can make the process more efficient and how you can use them. 

Resources:

The job posting used in the example was retrieved on November 13, 2024 from Indeed. 

This post includes the keywords results from Copilot, Teal, and JobScan. 

In this episode, Eric Barela shares his career journey spanning 20 years in various sectors, including non-profits, foundations, and corporate settings. Eric discusses his roles in differet organizations and his recent shift to consulting. Eric reflects on the importance of support systems, both personal and professional, and emphasizes the need for evaluators to remain adaptable and continuously learning. He also touches on the challenges and opportunities that come with transitioning between different sectors and how his evaluation practice has evolved throughout these changes. Eric concludes with advice for those facing career transitions, encouraging them to understand interconnectedness and context within organizations. He motivates us to see transitions as opportunities for growth, continous learning, and to fall in love with our evaluation profession all over again.

Resources

Follow Eric Barela on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Visionary Evaluation in Eric's AEA365 blog post. 

In this episode Maria shares her strategy for leveraging conference to grow your career. This episode includes actionable steps you can take before, during, and after conferences to move closer towards your career goals. 

This is the last episode in the series dedicated to healthy job search mindsets. In this episode, Maria discusses the importance of developing your story, the narrative that describes your uniqueness and the value you add to a job. This episode focuses on an important component of your story: your strengths. Reconnecting with your strenghts will not only allow you to stand out but will also increase your resilliency. Maria shares an excercise to identify your strengths and shares an example from her career to show how it works. 

Other resources you can use to develop your story: 

The Simple, Powerful Method to Find your "Why" 

Values Excercise 

Why work in evaluation: Excercises and Resources 

Diego Luces joins Maria to discuss evaluators' use of artificial intelligence (AI). Diego brings a lens to this discussion from his work as a software engineer working on AI tools. This episode discusses barriers and self-limiting beliefs that evaluators shared with Maria about AI. It includes suggestions for how evaluators can address some of their concerns and reframe their limiting beliefs if they choose to prioritize embracing this technology. 

Resources:

Microsoft's Responsible AI: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/responsible-ai

Resources to improve your Copilot prompts: https://copilot.cloud.microsoft/prompts

This episode series features inspiring women who are transforming the way evaluation businesses work by creating workplaces that are people-centered.

In this episode, Nina Sabarre, founder and CEO of Intention 2 Impact (I2I), discusses the values-driven approach of her social impact consulting firm. Nina reflects on her past experiences with leadership and the importance of creating a supportive, inclusive workplace culture. She emphasizes the significance of embedding transparency and care into recruitment processes and how she has benefitted from being part of community of evaluation firm owners. Nina shares her progress on learning how companies can support employees amid climate emergencies and offers advice for job seekers to actively question and assess potential employers' values and practices during interviews.

Resources: 

Learn more about Intention 2 Impact and sign up for their monthly newsletter here.

This episode series features inspiring women who are transforming the way evaluation businesses work by creating workplaces that are people-centered.

In this episode, Monique Liston from Ubuntu, an organization dedicated to racial equity, shares insights into Ubuntu's mission, practices, and organizational philosophy. Monique talks about her abolitionist leadership and how Ubuntu aims to create a world free of anti-Black racism by focusing on liberation and creating a workplace that enables collective healing and well-being. Monique discusses Ubuntu's innovative hiring practices, which promote transparency, reciprocity and cultivate community. The episode concludes with advice for job seekers to remain authentic in their application process. 

Resources:

Ubuntu Research and Evaluation, LLC is on a mission to reach 1,000 followers on LinkedIn. Enjoyed what you heard? Show your support and give them a follow!

In this episode, Diego Luces shares a story about how he knocked on a company's door and ended up landing on a job when he was still a fairly new immigrant in Canada. Diego shares what motivated him to take this risk and how he maintained a positive mindset after being rejected in his job search process. He offers useful advice to help others navigate the job search process. This episode discusses the importance of diversifying our job search strategies as well as barriers faced by immigrants in searching jobs in a different country. 

In this episode, Maria explores how evaluation competencies can help you grow into a stronger evaluator. She breaks down what evaluation competencies are and offers practical advice on selecting a framework to guide your career development. Maria also discusses how these competencies can ease the sense of overwhelm that often comes with building an evaluation career, allowing you to focus your efforts and seek guidance more effectively. Drawing from her own experiences, Maria shares examples of the competencies she has worked on at various stages of her journey.

Resources

Learn more about evaluation competencies here. 

Learn about evaluation competency frameworks here. 

Complete the exercise "Finding a competency framework that suits you" if you are struggling to select a competency framework. 

Finally, check out Maria's favourite cookies recipe here. 

In this episode, Maria discusses positionality statements and shares her positionality statement for The Evaluation Couch. This episode includes a brief introduction to positionality statements and examples of how evaluators use them in their practice. Maria shares aspects of her identity and position in this world relevant to the topics that will be discussed in this podcast. She shares three tips for integrating positionality statements in your evaluation practice.  

In this episode, Maria explores why some people take action while others don't. This episode discusses the process of stepping outside our comfort zone and navigating our fear zone to reach our growth zone. She shares how she experienced and overcame the fear zone when she launched The Evaluation Couch. She then shares tips you can try out to navigate your own fear zones and her reflections on all she has gained since launching this podcast.  

Resources: 

The comfort zone - growth zone model Maria talks about is derived Learning Zone Model developed by Tom Senninger and is described in more detail here

This article describes the research that suggests that excitement and anxiety are physiologically the same and the power of reframing our emotions 

Watch Brene Brown's TedTalk: The power of vulnerability 

In this episode, Maria honours her friend and colleague Carol Wilson, celebrating her retirement by emphasizing the importance of using plain language in evaluation. The episode offers a brief introduction to Plain Language and provides seven practical tips to improve your communication by using words that are appropriate for your audience. 

This episode was informed by Maria's experiences as well as resources from  Plain Canada Clair and the Plain Language: Clear and Simple - Trainer's Guide. 

In this episode, Ratiba Taouti Cherif joins Maria to share insights from her 20 years of experience in international development. Together, they explore Ratiba's learnings from navigating uncertainty in this space: 

1. Your industry is not your identity
2. You will lose networks and build new ones 
3. Diverisying income isn't a backup plan. It's a power move
4. The future of work is independent and global
5. Sitting on both ends of the table changed everything
6. Stability isn't a job. It's adaptability. 
7. Where to start

Resources

To learn more about Ratiba, follow her on LinkedIn. Her podcast is available on all major audio platforms #RethinkSocialChange and on YouTube. Learn about ReThink Social Change Cards here.  

Find The Bloom's pro bono support for those affected by the humanitarian crisis here. 

In this episode, Maria highlights the value that younger generations bring to workplaces and the importance of understanding generational differences to build better working conditions for all. This episode provides an overview of the historical and contextual factors that influence the motivations and expectations of different generations. It also provides suggestions of how we can transform workplaces to make them more inclusive of younger generations. 

Resources and references:

Generation Why: How Boomers Can Lead and Learn from Millennials and Gen Z by Karl Moore

Delloite's Gen Z and Millenial Survey

LinkedIn Research

Gen Z In The Workplace: How Should Companies Adapt? by John Hopking University

How Gen Z will Change Company Culture by Ethan McCarty 

Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins

Making generational differences work: What empirical research reveals about leading millennials

In this episode Maria shares stories of her experieces negotiating job offers. The episode starts with statistics and research findings related to women and men's perceptions and experiences towards negotiating. Then, Maria shares stories from her career when she negotiated a salary offer and the lessons she learned from each of those experiences. 

Resources: 

The book Maria references in the episode is Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide
Learn more of the Vanderbilt Business research study here

The study providing evidence on the backlash account towards women's assertiveness during negotiations can be found here. 

To celebrate Mental Health Month, Maria uses storytelling to promote discussions around mental health and celebrate the diversity within individuals in the evaluation profession. Maria shares her story navigating her Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD and how she has used a strengths-based approach to asses how her neurodivergence makes her a better evaluator. This episode provides an overview of what ADHD is, what symptoms may look like, and highlights the importance of accommodations and enabling environments for people with ADHD to thrive. 

Maria shares a few resources including: 

• 2024 Mental Health Month Toolkit
• ADHD Chatter Podcast
• Ettie Bailey King
• Stolen Focus
• Scattered Minds

In this episode, Maria reflects on her experience of becoming a Credentialed Evaluator through the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) and explores the evolving professionalization of the evaluation field. She examines both the support and skepticism surrounding the credentialing process, presenting key arguments for and against the program. Drawing from her own journey, Maria offers thoughtful insights into the tangible and intangible benefits of earning this designation. She also provides considertions for anyone considering this path, encouraging a careful assessment of the long-term commitment and financial investment involved.

Resources:

Maria used a few resources to prepare this episode including this paper and this paper. 

She strongly advices anyone interested in accurate information about the Credentialed Evaluation Program to visit the Canadian Evaluation Society website. 

The evaluation competency framework used for the Credentialed Evaluation Program can be found here. 

Still trying to decide whether you should become a Credentialed Evaluator? Access Maria's decision aid tool on her website. 

In this episode, Shelby Corley and Stephanie Mui join Maria to discuss myths and questions about resumes based on their perspectives hiring for evaluation positions. They discuss their preferences when reviewing applications and provide valuable tips for those seeking to apply to evaluation jobs. 

This episode covers why cover letters are important and provides guidelines to write them effectively. Maria shares examples of effective cover letters she has written in the past. This episode also includes an exercise you can work through to identify effective stories for your cover letters. 

The statistics mentioned in this episode come from this study. 

Gabriela Rentería Flores, Chair of the EvalYouth Global Network, joins The Evaluation Couch to share her reflections. As we approach the upcoming elections for a new Management Group, this episode introduces EvalYouth and dives into the experiences of both Maria and Gaby. They discuss career opportunities, valuable learnings, and the sacrifices inherent in taking on leadership roles within EvalYouth. Maria and Gaby share their hopes for the future and encourage potential board nominees to recognize the impact they can make.

Welcome to the second episode in our series dedicated to job searching and maintaining a healthy mindset throughout the process. In this episode, Maria provides several practical actions you can take to embrace failure as part of the job search process and increase your grit and resilience to overcome job rejections.

Resources: 

Angela Lee Duckworth on Grit 

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant 

Welcome to the first episode in our series dedicated to job searching and maintaining a healthy mindset throughout the process. In this episode, Maria explores the external factors that can impact your job search outcomes. By understanding these factors and gaining insight into the inner workings of the organizations you’re applying to, you can shift your perspective and protect your self-esteem during your job search process. Maria shares practical strategies to navigate this reality. 

Resources: 

Job Rejections Are Causing Gen-Zers To Seek Mental Health Treatment – Career Design Lab | Columbia University – School of Professional Studies

Resources to learn about discrimination in the workplace:

Human Rights in British Columbia: Protection in Employment fact sheet (Canada)

 If you've been discriminated against at work - Acas (UK)

In this episode Christine Wise and David J. Hanson join Maria to share about Eval and Ink. Eval and Ink aims to unveil the identities and elevate the voices of evaluators by exploring the narratives behind their tattoos. Christine and David share the story behind this project and reflect on the powerful experience of connecting with others who are sharing the stories of their tatoos with them. This episode discusses how our identities show up in our evaluation work, the need for celebrating the cultural diversity in our field, the importance of considering the humanity involved in evaluation, and the value of self-reflection in our work. 

Learn more abotu Eval and Ink and get involved here. 

David's definition of Culturally Responsive and Equity-Focused Evaluation is from The Eval Matrix. 

David also shares about the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program from Expanding the Bench. 

This episode features Libby Smith, Deven Wisner, and Tiffany Tovey who share about their new community of practice for higher education evaluators and assessment professionals. This episode discusses alignment with our values, the value of collaborative reflective practice, and the role of community in navigating professional challenges. 

Resources

Learn more about...

Libby's work through her website: workwithlibby.com 

The community of practice here: https://viableinsights.com/community-of-practice/

Libby, Deven, and Tiffany's collaborative reflective practice through their podcast  Radical (Re)imagining

In this episode, Maria interviews Veronica Olazabal about transitioning as an evaluator into the private sector, focusing on philanthropy and corporate philanthropy. Veronica shares her experiences, the skills required for such transitions, and the differences evaluators may face in corporate settings. She also offers key advice for those considering this transition such as understanding different terminologies, aligning skillsets to new roles, the importance of conflict resolution, communication, and risk management. Veronica emphasizes the significance of resilience, adaptability, and effectively positioning oneself for the few available but impactful roles in the corporate sector. 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by Veronica in this episode are solely her own and do not reflect the views of any organizations she is or has been affiliated with.

Resources: 

Follow Veronica on LinkedIn

Read the AEA365 blog "Understanding the Emerging Field of Evaluation in Corporate Social Good" by Jared Raynor, Lisa Frantzen, and Morgan Buras-Finlay here. 

This episode features Torriel Harris, a career coach who is on a mission to help 500 women in their careers. The episode starts with a discussion of how community can help us heal from career related events. Then, Torriel shares her views on building community, how community has played a role in her career, and how she is incorporating community in her coaching program "Command the Room, Sis!". Maria and Torriel end the episode with practical tips for people wanting to start building their own communities to support their careers. 

Follow Torriel Harris on LinkedIn to learn more about her work and programs. 

Learn more about The Bloom, the community for social impact careers where Torriel and Maria met.