My niece can’t stand taking medicine. I mean she literally has an emotional struggle to bring herself to put the pills in her mouth and swallow. Imagine the “fun” I had babysitting her when she needed to take medicine. It took a long time and a whole lot of finessing to get those pills down so she could get better.
Before owning your own business do you remember working for others and undergoing the end of the year review? Remember how it felt being sat down and told how well you performed or what areas you need to improve in? I would venture to say that most of you reading this have had 1 of 3 reactions to your review.
- You Enjoyed the feedback because you saw it as a learning opportunity to grow.
- You hated it because the person facilitating it was all the way out of tune with how your job and position really worked and their assessment of your performance wasn’t based in reality
- Your entrepreneur heart was bursting so strongly that you wanted to leave the job and start your business immediately.
I know that I have had all three experiences and many times, it was a hard pill to swallow because sometimes I felt misunderstood, undervalued, not appreciated, and overworked and underpaid. There were a few former employers that I knew really had my best interest at heart and it wasn’t just about me performing well to make them and their company succeed but they truly wanted me to improve for my future both personally and professionally and I really appreciated them for that.
So now that you are in a position to create jobs for others, you have an awesome opportunity to flip the old way of providing performance reviews and invest in your work talent by listening and learning from them about how they thrive and what they like to contribute instead of being treated like a robot to mindlessly do their work duties.
Another hard pill to swallow for some entrepreneurs and business owners is that we’re not perfect but we rarely allow the space for others to tell us. Informally, our work talent is always giving us a performance review. I would encourage you to embrace your employees’ ideas. This is not to say allow an open season for belligerent negative criticism of you as a leader and business owner or your executive team but it’s to say that there are some staff members that really want to see you grow and succeed and can offer you insightful jewels for you to become better.
I can hear you now, “NO WAY am I allowing people to critique me”. Think about it. Does your company have a way for customers to allow feedback on products and services or their experience with interaction with your staff? Why do you allow that? It’s because their opinions matter and so should your staff’s about how your leadership/managing style and work performance affects them. Like I said, it’s a hard pill to swallow but when done respectively and when you get over your ego, you can receive and implement improvements personally and professionally.
Letra Davis