360 Reviews

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘criticism’?  Do you start to feel uncomfortable?  Do you start to sweat and heat up?  Do things like self-esteem and ego start to activate?  What about the words ‘critique’ and ‘review’?

What if I told you criticism was a good and positive word?  This word gets a bad rap.  For most people this is a negative word.  It stirs up negative connotations and uncomfortable feelings.  To be fair, most people only criticize when they have something negative to say or add.

It is all in how you take the criticism.

Criticism is positive.  Embrace the feedback you are receiving, both good and bad.  With it start making changes and adjustments.  Look at it as a consistent feedback loop.  If you work on the negative criticism, improve things, then no one can bring up that negative critique ever again.  It is gone.  If you don’t work on the criticism, don’t worry about.  If you choose to specifically not work on what is lacking, then it shouldn’t ’t bother you, so why would the criticism bother you?

As a leader, believe in 360 reviews.  A lot of people do not. Most organizations complete a top down review of all of their employees. You are probably very familiar with that, it's when the CEO reviews the managers, those managers review the employees, etc. down the corporate ladder.  A 360 review would then have employees review the managers and those managers review the CEO, back up the ladder.

Regardless, if the organization believes in it or not, you can still offer it up within your team.  Be comfortable with asking your employees to review you.  For example, when review time comes around and you send out the meeting notices for each employee ask them for a review.  Give them time, 10 to 15 minutes at a good point in the meeting, to give you that feedback, and sit there and listen.

Project leads can add team member reviews to their projects.  Add them periodically such as prior to each tollgate closure.

Turn criticism into a positive word.

Special shout out to my high school art teacher, Mrs. Fox, for she was the first person to really explain critiques this way.  This post comes from that lesson from that day.