Are you self aware? How do you know?

How self-aware are you today versus 3 or 6 months ago? How about a year or two ago?

The truth is being self-aware is hard. One reason it’s so hard is we try to improve self-awareness on our own, trying to evaluate ourselves, put ourselves in others’ shoes, think about how other people view us. It’s a mind game that many of us try and fail, so we give up.

The good news is improving self-awareness doesn’t have to be a solo game.

I’d like to think I’m more self-aware today than I was yesterday, but that’s not always going to be the case. I’d also like to think that by being self-aware, I capitalize on my strengths and look to address my areas of improvement. Reality is, that’s not always going to be the case either.

The most effective way to increase your self-awareness is by gathering input from people around you to identify areas of improvement, and then working closely with someone to create a plan.

You may feel awkward, but remember that if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing. And more often than not, people around you would love to give you feedback, but may feel they haven’t had the opportunity or didn’t know you were open to it.

This can be as simple as asking for regular feedback from those close to you – peers, coworkers, supervisors or subordinates. But a more robust, thorough and effective way is to use an assessment such as a 360.

As a coach and consultant, I work with leaders and organizations to facilitate feedback, address areas of improvement, discover opportunity, and create a new future.

As a certified 360 assessor and feedback facilitator, I’d love to help you increase your self-awareness, unleash your potential, and create your new future.

Contact me today to schedule a conversation about how you could benefit from a 360 assessment.

What the headlines (still) say about workplace culture

Check the headlines. We’re constantly scrolling through stories about high profile executives and big brands being saddled with lawsuits about allegations of misconduct and harassment, ethical violations…you name it. See McDonalds, Vice, WeWork, and countless others. Same stuff, different day. So what gives? Doesn’t anyone learn from someone else’s mistakes any more? Don’t these people read the news?

It seems we have a problem. And while this is dramatically oversimplified, the problem appears to be – plainly – people can’t seem to follow the rules. And in many cases, they were the very rules they helped create in the first place. In other cases, just the law. But this is why we have HR, right? To create rules, and to make sure people follow them? Eh, not so fast.

Because here’s the thing. In so many of these newsworthy cases, HR is nowhere to be found. Or worse, they’re complicit. Which I’d argue leads to an even bigger problem.

My biggest fear is in its attempt to have a seat at the table, HR isn’t holding up its end of the deal.

Perhaps HR’s longing desire to be a business partner has clouded their judgment about what’s right versus what keeps them on the inside.

HR must keep at top of mind that their role is to protect and serve as partner to both the business and employees. It’s not one or the other, and it’s not one sometimes, the other most of the time. It’s a delicate balance that requires integrity, ethical standards, and a commitment to bringing humanity to the workplace.

The Solution

The solution to these rampant problems? Culture. Wait, the problem is culture. I mean, it’s the bad culture that led to the problems, but the good culture is what gets rid of the problems. See, what I’m trying to say is culture is good, but it can be bad, and when it’s bad, it leads to problems, and people do bad things that fit the bad culture and…

No, no it’s not culture. That’s a cop out. A buzzy catchall for organizational isms and “how things are done around here”. At least, it’s not only culture. There’s more to it. What’s missing in the “how things are done around here” is “how we talk about the things that are done around here.” How, with whom, when, where…

The Real Solution

What’s the real solution? I’d argue it’s feedback. Actually, a culture of feedback. Good, old fashioned, conversational, confrontational, critical, uncomfortable, sometimes hurtful, usually-misses-the-mark-but-hey-you-tried, yet mostly appreciated feedback.

Fortunately, the feedback of today looks and feels a little better than it used to, and we have technology to thank for that. Engagement surveys, 360 degree feedback systems, performance evaluation software, electronic communication, apps, and the like, all modernized for how work gets done today. One might argue these things have made managers’ and HR’s jobs a little easier. I’d argue they’ve just made our jobs different.

It has become incumbent upon HR and leadership to be intentional about leveraging that technology for good within an organization before it falls victim to the technology available on the outside. (See: Social Media. Definition: That thing that’s equally as useful for marketing a new, hip product as it is at fueling a movement that catches traction and brings down a brand overnight.)

Free-Flowing Feedback

It’s time to create a new future, to imagine the possibilities. What can a feedback culture do for you? What are you currently doing, and what could you be doing better? That is, what systems do you have in place (i.e. feedback loops, focus groups, technologies) that are helping and hurting? Are you creating an environment in which people can talk about how things are done around here internally? Or are they turning to social media and Glassdoor for that?

To be clear, a feedback culture is more than having a sufficient reporting system in place to capture complaints, ethical violations, or anonymous comments. It’s about having a culture that, at its best, promotes individual and personalized feedback in the moment and without repercussion, and in the least, provides avenues for anonymous feedback gathering, open door policies, and accessible leadership.

Without even getting into various types of feedback, or a qualitative analysis of which is better for which organization, a better place to start is to understand the directions in which feedback flows. This way we can begin to put the systems in place that are supportive of multidirectional feedback.

When we think of feedback, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a manager’s top-down feedback to their direct report. But a culture of feedback includes so much more. In addition to the culture promoting the direct report’s openness to hearing feedback from their manager and trusting that it’s genuine and helpful in nature, it also promotes an employee’s comfort in delivering feedback upward to their boss, or in some cases, their boss’s boss. Similarly, members of well-performing teams in a feedback culture feel comfortable sharing feedback with one another, resulting in either praise for a job well done, or quick course corrections and the agility that promotes high performance.

The point being that feedback is open. It’s honest. It’s raw. It feels good and it feels bad, and even when it hurts, it feels good, just maybe not in that moment. I once heard a wise man say, “Who are you helping by holding back? You’re helping yourself, not the other person.” If you aren’t putting the systems in place that encourage a feedback culture, you’re holding back. You’re afraid of what might be said, but you should be more afraid of what’s being said when you’re not around.

How 360s can transform your relationships and create a path to a successful career

There was a time in history during which how someone was perceived by their coworkers and direct reports was an insignificant factor in identifying high potentials and determining whom would get ahead. Fast-forward several decades, and the exact opposite became true. People became an organization’s biggest asset, and the currency became how people were treated. The former was an output-driven era, and the latter, a people-centered era.

Today, however, the most successful leaders and organizations understand that work is not completed by people, but rather through relationships.

And this is why 360 degree feedback assessments have been and will continue to be one of the most effective and indispensable leadership and development tools available.

A tool that does what it says it does and does it consistently well, 360s have been around for several decades, growing in popularity over the years. However, they’re often misused, being incorporated into succession planning, promotion readiness, and performance evaluations. This misuse has contributed to distaste, even fear, among those who receive them. But when used correctly for development purposes, the doors open to unlimited opportunity for personal and professional growth, and more importantly, enriched relationships.

Here are 3 things 360s can do to improve your relationships:

1.     Relationship with self. Your self-awareness is one of the most important aspects of your development. Ultimately what you know, and don’t know about yourself contributes to, and even determines, your capacity for success. The more you know yourself, the better you are able to know others.

2.     Relationship with others. Once you know yourself, you are more capable of understanding how your behavior, personality, and isms affect others. Your success is directly impacted by how others perceive you, which makes your relationships a significant contributor to your career success. Knowing others means understanding where they come from, what motivates them, what their preferences are, and how they like to be managed. These things are not learned by asking them, but rather through having a relationship with them.  

3.     Relationship with your career. Self-awareness is as much about knowing whom you are as it is what motivates you, what excites you, and what satisfies you. Knowing these things about yourself and understanding your interactions and relationships with others are the keys to a successful career, and even lay the foundation for success outside of one’s career.

The bottom line is by knowing yourself and others, you are better able to manage your goals, serve others, and accomplish things you never thought you could – because you didn’t do it alone. You did it through relationships.

Why today’s engagement surveys will set you up for failure, and what to do about it

Laszlo Bock, former SVP of people operations at Google and current CEO of Humu, wrote an article earlier this year for Fast Company entitled “Your employee engagement survey is destroying your company’s culture”. In case you haven’t noticed, engagement surveys are EVERYWHERE. Everyone who’s anyone’s doing them. And everyone else is selling them. Regardless of your or my thoughts or concerns on the reliability of these surveys or credibility of those selling them or the ethics behind them or who owns or sells the data, they can often provide some valuable insights.

That’s why I like Bock’s piece. It’s an insightful piece that, while necessarily promoting his company’s offering as superior in the marketplace, actually offers tips on how to make the most of your engagement survey attempt. Well worth the 3 minute read, and certainly worth bringing those tips back to the team for consideration. Well, except one.

There’s something he and I disagree on. And it’s a pretty big deal.

Today’s engagement surveys are being used to do something that they are simply not capable of. And the designers, data scientists and action-tasked go-getters are partially to blame for the misuse.

They’re kind of doing that thing your CEO does every time the newest issue of HBR magazine hits his desk.

You see, what employee engagement companies are doing is trying their hand at organizational change by allowing insights and algorithms to recommend change, and even transformation. But there’s something inherently wrong with this, that any actual change practitioner would poke holes in – it is just one single source of data. Often unreliable, invalid, and spotty data at best. Anyone who makes sweeping changes, or worse, presents these computer-generated organizational change recommendations to their C-suite should consider throwing in the towel on their career. Unless that C-suite is the HBR type.

This is why I believe that Bock’s assertion that one should “Do Something - Anything” with this data is misguided, no matter how it’s sliced, diced, AI-infused, or (insert food pun here). It’s actually dangerous and irresponsible.

Real organization diagnosis and change requires more than just engagement data to form sound and effective recommendations and corresponding actions. Sure, these surveys can help you determine whether the lunch thief on the 5th floor is hurting morale, or whether the air freshener in the restroom needs to be changed more often. Ok, that’s not fair. They’re more useful than that.

My point is the average HR or operations person doesn’t know what to do with this data. And the answer should be doing closer to nothing than anything. Because this data alone can’t do what the engagement companies want you to think it can do. So, for your employees’ sake, stop thinking that it’s the best thing since sliced bread, or whatever it is people are saying these days. And for your organization’s sake, don’t go wasting time and money on achieving short-sighted results.

To be fair, there is some value in Bock’s suggestion to do something rather than nothing. I can’t disagree with that in principle insofar as it is usually better to respond to feedback with action than with silence or inaction. But is a knee-jerk response the most effective thing to do? Will it make a meaningful, long lasting impact? Hardly, and you’d be lucky if it held you over until the next survey.

At the risk of playing semantics, another way to say it is an engagement survey may help you make changes (i.e. whether the snacks in the break room need a refresh), but real, lasting change and resulting business outcomes can only be achieved by methodical diagnosis and change efforts.

So what you should do? For starters, think about what you’re really trying to achieve. Compile data from 3-4 other sources and take a really hard look at it all. Envision possibilities and how they align with your company’s mission. Put together a plan, and over-communicate on it. And don’t forget to involve your people along the way. Lastly, if you want to target specifics and structure your effort try a diagnostic model like Weisbord’s Six Box Model. Only then will you start to embark on a meaningful change journey instead of sticking a band-aid on a symptom of a larger problem that you still don’t know exists. And you might preserve your culture in the process.