“How’m I doing?”

Ed Koch, Mayor of New York City from the late 70’s to late 80’s, famously opened his press conferences with "How'm I doing?"  He was the first really public person who had an open feedback loop.  Today this lives on within Amazon reviews, Yelp, customer feedback surveys and so forth.

It's important when getting feedback to listen.  As I try to be a better listener, I'm also trying to ask more of "How'm I doing?"  Regardless of the answer, I need to listen.  I need to seek to understand what is being said and give a good reaction.  I may not be able to solve every issue, but understanding means a lot.

Here are some things that I do and have done to get some answers to "How'm I doing?"

Send a survey - Use SurveyMonkey.com to create anonymous surveys.  Responses are not always that honest, but it's important to be consistent (end-of-year, quarterly). It's also important to send back a general response to the survey takers.  Be transparent.  Don't just show the results, but thank people for their honesty and appreciate what they have done. This shows you are listening.

Start with your own problem - Start any feedback meeting (or retrospective for that matter) with volunteering information of how you can be better.  For instance, "My communication during that last project was horrible.  I need to do a better job with that.  Thankfully I have a great team who backed me up."

Reward and encourage negative feedback - The most useful feedback is not "you're great," but "you stink!" Of course getting a reason of why “you stink” is more helpful, but sometimes it's hard to get to the root of that.  Regardless, the person who is telling you what you are doing wrong is going to improve you the most. They should be rewarded and recognized so that you get more honest feedback.  Don’t take anything negative personally.  If we don’t know our weaknesses, how can we possibly grow?

Here are some good links for this week:

Stop racing to the bottom - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-beat-a-lower-priced-competitor/

And some Dilbert - http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-12-09/

Listening hints, talking tips

As I've been on a professional and personal journey the last 11 months, one thing that I've focused on and is probably key to my imagined success is “learn how to listen.”  Listening is hard for me because I tend to want to think about the next thing I need to do.  As conversations wrap up, I start thinking about the next thing and stop paying attention.  I'll admit to writing and reading e-mail during a conversation (still a problem) and a bunch of other bad habits.

Here's what I've been trying to improve on during my remote meetings:

Put away the keyboard - If you can't type, you can't get into “other things.” I have a keyboard drawer and I slide it closed.

Close down e-mail - Close your email application. This is probably the hardest thing for me to do because somebody might need me! There's always the phone and a "beep" will let me know if someone is trying to call while I'm on the phone.

Don't just hear, listen to what the other person is saying - The key to listening is  paying attention.  Focus on what is being said.  Ask questions.  Listen with your mind as much as your ears.

Take it from their point of view - Different takes on the same subject are not necessarily a Men Are From Mars/Women Are From Venus thing, but when people don’t have a common ground (gender, projects, backgrounds), they can say the same words and mean something completely different.  Even a statement as simple as "I'm satisfied" may not mean the same thing to two different people. One may think "Fantastic!  We did our job and you are satisfied. Someone else may think "That's terrible, why are you not extremely happy?"  Make sure to listen to the context of what is being said.

Say it back - This is probably most important thing that I try to do. Repeating back to the person is an excellent way to make sure that you were listening as well as letting them know that you heard them.

I hope these things help you as much as they help me. I also found a great application this week to use on my desktop to see if I'm actually spending time where I think I am.  https://www.rescuetime.com/

There's a great blog entry about working remotely at http://blog.rescuetime.com/2013/11/21/im-about-to-start-working-remotely-and-its-sort-of-freaking-me-out/

Scott Adams semi-related blog about PowerPoints - http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_science_of_making_your_story_memorable/

And some Dilbert: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-03-01/