Another way to look into the Mirror

We each have three sets of data. 

• What we know we know. 

• What we know we do not know. 

• What we do not know that we do not know.  

The last one is our Achilles Heel. 

A consistent theme in an execution centric culture has been and will be that owner-CEOs and other construction executives should take a hard look into the mirror regularly. And specifically, when something is wrong or off at your company or with one of your reports.  

Historically a company's health status has been two dimensional. What is going good at your company and what is going bad at your company. Below Michael Girdley provided inspiration that a third dimension should be considered when looking in the mirror and an efficient solution on how to address each of the three dimensions on a month-to-month basis. 

The third dimension is what you do not know about your company that you should know about your company. Do not kid yourself this dimension exists. And it should make you uncomfortable. You can find comfort in the knowledge that all data sets can be addressed once found.  

Note how Mr. Girdley addressed the “unknown unknowns.” He hired a business coach. There are many ways to address the “unknown unknowns.” A board of directors, a healthy C-Suite, a confidant, or peer group are a few ways to address the “unknown unknowns”. 

The information below is reformatted from a series of tweets by Michael Girdley. His tweeter handle is @girdley. The tweets have been reformatted to be easier to digest in this format.  

For annual data gathering, I realized: The "unknown unknowns" are the problem. These are blind spots I can't see. This is where my business coach, @tomcuthbert, comes in. Yearly, I ask him to do a 360 on me. He interviews the 6-8 people I work with most closely. He anonymizes that into a report. And gives me takeaways during a 45-minute meeting. 

I leave that meeting with a 1-page report. The good, I need to reinforce. The bad, I need to work on. Here’s mine from last week: 

Areas of Opportunity 

• Would like more time with him (some folks need this) 

• Manage time better (tied to #1) 

• Less time together concerns 

• Assumes opinions are well thought out (make sure I’m clear about what’s strongly held versus isn’t) 

• Increasing bandwidth limits time in relationships (underlying concern by some that scale will hurt ability to work with teammates) 

• Improve soft skills (empathy, sympathy, conversational ability stuff, mediation stuff, etc.) 

• Be objective and vocal, even though you have less visibility (need to be a sounding board, contrarian available to them) 

• Onboarding into this world (new people need steppingstones) 

• Coaching and 121s and listening skills (creating a thread between all the companies, leadership connections, cross-pollination, review process with data) 

• System to see people as whole people -> system 

Questions to Discuss 

• Who do you trust? (as my world gets bigger, I’ll need to trust more people in more ways) 

• Who do you need in your future life? (5-10-15 years out) 

• Who is in your life now that needs to be in your in the future?  

Areas of Strength 

• Focus 

• Helpful when asked 

• Coaching, both good feedback and area to improve 

• Advice when asked, offering it less (in context) 

• Emotional highs and low leveling out 

• Even keel 

• Much improved at difficult conversations 

• Few blind spots 

• Always smiling, happy, optimistic, excited, promoter 

• Built brand and public persona 

• Work together to achieve joint vision 

• Individual relationships – all are different. 

• What relationships are needed in the future 

• Transitioning to new relationships 

Observed Improvements 

• Thinking bigger 

• Stepped out of day to day 

• Purposely deferring 

• Not being viewed as the “go to” 

• Thoughtful in critiques 

• “Putting arm around you” vs. “Kicking you” 

• Ease of interaction 

• Letting go of operational details 

• Less disruption with lower level employees 

• Open to pushback and feedback. 

• Stages of listening 

• Doesn’t go to the solve 

• Sincerely listening to what people are saying 

• Preoccupied, not a negative 

• Always makes himself remarkably available 

• Trust growing with leaders 

• Open to other solutions 

• Knows boundaries 

• No ego 

• Good cadence of communication” 

Note the application and execution below.  

“On to the second part… Reinforcing these things throughout the coming year. I do this simply. I send this report to myself in an email. I read it. Then, I set it to return to my inbox in 30 days. 

Each month, the performance report pops up. I reread it. Reflect on my current performance. Implement changes to build new habits. Then, I snooze it until the next month. 

My results have been great over the past 5 years. The first few years were pretty humbling. I had no idea of some (embarrassing) mistakes. But, over time, the improvements compound! 

This is how I created a feedback machine for myself:  

• Have someone you trust do a 360 on you  

• Put that together in a report  

• Use learnings to "coach" yourself to be better  

• Set that report to pop in your inbox each month  

• Do it again next year! 

@FullValueSub You can find over 3,000 posts focused on improving and addressing challenges of trade contractors by the authors of Craft of Execution.