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Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I think a similar phrase might ring true for any organization or company:

The unexamined organization will never achieve more than mediocrity.

As the founding president of the Orange County (Calif.) chapter of the American Marketing Association, I decided early on that our board should take every opportunity to learn from our activities. That directive led to us earning the status of one of the fastest growing chapters nationwide over our first few years.

However, examining our performance - especially listening to our members' comments from the evaluation forms they completed at the end of each dinner meeting - wasn't always easy.

I vividly remember how many of my board members initially discounted our members' comments, saying that they, more than our members, knew what the best course of action was to take.

With a little cajoling, we did try a few of our members' suggestions - for example, offering more menu selections, moving up the meeting start time and offering presentation topics that they suggested. Soon, our overall meeting evaluation scores skyrocketed. More importantly, our meeting attendance and membership applications doubled.

These successes led to us seeking even more opportunities to evaluate our chapter's performance. Beyond the short five-question survey we gave to meeting attendees, we added several new evaluation forms that included:

Asking our guest speakers to comment on our performance from their perspective: Was the meeting time too short or too long? Was the audio/visual equipment appropriate and what could we do to improve their experience?

Asking meeting sponsors if they garnered any sales from the meeting, for how much money, and what was the overall return on investment from their contribution? Of course, any positive feedback, especially testimonial quotes, were used in promotional materials to attract future sponsors.

Asking board members to evaluate my management skills, but more importantly each other's personal performance. Everyone evaluated everyone else. The results were used to revise and upgrade our board meeting process and streamline our bylaws.

Asking our host restaurant to determine how their staff rated our coordination activities after each meeting. Of greatest value were their thoughts on how we could improve our communications so each meeting went off without a hitch. As you can imagine, the restaurant manager was surprised the first time we asked him to evaluate us - his customer - since evaluations usually come from the other direction.

There was other research we conducted throughout the year, including a comprehensive annual member survey. But the more frequent surveys were the most valuable since they helped us make improvements more quickly.

I've always wondered what it would be like for a corporation to expand the number and type of evaluation activities they conduct beyond the usual annual customer and employee surveys.

How about asking an accountant to evaluate more than just financials? How about asking them to evaluate the entire auditing process, but from their perspective? How about asking vendors what you could do to be a better customer? Or maybe ask your manufacturer's agents how you could be a better supplier?

I don't know how you'd do it, but wouldn't it be interesting to know how your competitors rate your performance too?

The point is that there are numerous opportunities to evaluate the activities, either personal or professional, of your organization that may be worth exploring to ensure that you maximize your performance.