This is Day #11 of a collaborative project with my strategic partner, Margi Bush of Wisdom Tree Coaching.
If you haven’t read Day One-Ten in this series, you may want to read those first. Today we will begin to explore our third theme, Knowledge of Others.
On Day One we encouraged you to seek feedback from your direct reports and discover your blind spots. And on Day Seven we offered our suggestions for your Self-Management when receiving feedback.
Today, we want to offer up suggestions for getting to know your direct reports before you dive in and start giving them feedback.
Let’s think about some things that you will need to know about your direct reports:
- What are their Values?
- What motivates them to be their best?
- What are their personality preferences? (MBTI)
- What are their current career goals?
- How do they see their skill level as measured against their competency model?
- What is challenging about their current projects?
Use these questions to open up the dialogue and understand how your direct reports sees things from their perspective. Once you understand their perspective, you have created a connection between the two of you that opens space for you to begin to offer your perspective.
These conversations can’t be scripted. Use your curiosity and listen and learn. Formulate your any further questions from your direct report’s comments. Remember to use open questions: What, How, When and avoid “why” questions.
You have 21 days left in 2018, take some time to prepare for offering feedback during one-on-ones with your direct reports by getting to know them better.
We wish you a day of Intent Awareness, Innate Curiosity, and Best Choices for Meaningful Change. Now go out there and be a Great Boss.