360 Vision

“Everybody needs feedback” (Doug Lowenstein), “feedback is the breakfast of champions” (Ken Blanchard), “the road to self-insight runs through other people” (David Dunning). These are all feedback platitudes that see us nodding along in emphatic agreement…so why does feedback remain such an underused tool? When it comes to feedback why are we still not giving, and getting, enough? Firstly we may not have developed the right feedback mindset - many people have come to fear feedback and to therefore dread rather than welcome the phrase “can I give you some feedback?” This is understandable when many organisations have fallen into the habit of delivering what is in fact criticism, dressed up as “feedback”.

Last year it was all about mindfulness. This year, so far, it’s all been about resilience.

Email is now the world’s biggest business enabler – but is it also destroying the art of communication? It’s incredibly tempting to hide behind email. It’s easy to email negative comments to colleagues without being there to witness the reaction.

It may sound obvious, but if you want your staff to instinctively do things without being told, you're going to have to lead by example. If you want them to respect and follow your lead, they'll need to see evidence that you instinctively do things yourself.

Is there an elephant in your room? When you gather your team for your team meeting is there, as the saying goes, an elephant in the room that no-one is talking about? If all leaders were to answer this question honestly, in the vast majority of teams the answer would be YES. The “elephant” may take many forms: the under-performing team member that the rest of the team resents, the conflict simmering between two team members, or the difficult conversation that the leader is putting off having because it is just too….

Redundancies leave a trail of devastation in their wake, and not just for those who've been laid off. The employees left behind are more vulnerable to dysfunctional behaviour - and they'll be looking to your for support.

All of us will have faced change of some sort at some stage over the past 12 months. Maybe you’ve had to restructure or remodel your business, adapt different ways of working, have asked team members to take on extra responsibilities or even different adopted new working practices.

From job interviews to first dates, how many times have you been told to “just be yourself and it will all be fine”? People warm to genuineness. Similarly, no one likes a fake.

Should your organisation learn a lesson from The Army? It seems strange to suggest that civilian organisations look to The Army for inspiration for their own operation, but when it comes to training and development there may be a valuable lesson to learn. The Army expects all of its personnel to undergo further training ahead of each new promotion; training that provides the skills the individual needs to be successful on the “next rung up”.

Ever hired someone who you think is just the perfect recruit? Someone who you think will hit the ground running, could soon be challenging for employee of the month and seems like a natural fit with the existing team. Only to have their evil twin turn up and have the opposite effect to the one you’d hope they’d make? Our experience has shown us that you probably didn’t spend enough time during the interview really getting to know your candidate.