Reveal Thyself
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” — Bill Gates
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” — Bill Gates
Talent management systems stereotypically are designed top down. A leader gets to give feedback to their employees whether it’s the rediculously outdated yearly review or even a more frequent quarterly. Sure there are systems in place like 360 to get feedback but usually those are self-selected to an extent. The reality is that the world changes daily and only continuous feedback and dynamic adjustment of OKRs (objectives and key results) works in today’s environment. But thats not all.. How does a leader understand what is expected of her/him from the team? Is there a good process for upward feedback?
I decided to do a “Reveal Thyself” experiment and began the journey of finding out what I can do, to be the best leader I can be. Its a simple few questions “Where do you need me more, where do you need me less, what are the top 2 things you would like me to change?” While the responses varied there were few commonalities that I got back and now without a further adieu here are the top 4:
Discipline — yes I am a bit nutty and it was grea tto hear that my team needs me to be more disicplined and focused even more. Working on that!
Debrief — yes we use Teams and Whats App to communicate but given my mind does context switching non-stop, apparently I do not relay feedback from important meetings. Ben changed now, at least with my leadership team where my mind is now their mind and they have the latest and greatest with full transparency
Approachability — I am too approachable?? I had to laugh at that one but this one decided not to change and apply even more of “Debriefing” to ensure all conversations are transparent across the team.
Devil’s Advocate — My cup is always half full, so the team challenged me to think through the worst case scenarios.. hmmm.. I think I will rely on others on the team that are much better at that :)
I believe that organizations and teams that will prevail need to be the fastest learning organizations and that also means learning about yourself as an individual.
How do YOU get feedback? Are there any novel ways aside from just simply talking to people? Cant wait to hear from you.