Annual Check-Up

“You can’t be your strongest with­out the bru­tal truth.” — Chap­ter 9, Your Oxy­gen Mask First

I haven’t met many peo­ple who love going to the doc­tor or den­tist but almost every­one knows that annu­al check­up to assess your health is necessary.

One of the most impor­tant habits, to keep com­pa­nies I work with around the world from get­ting com­pla­cent on poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous issues, are annu­al check­ups. Some­times more often or less, depend­ing on the com­pa­ny leadership.

We keep it simple:

1. Before quar­ter­ly plan­ning ses­sions, we do a quick 7- to 10-ques­tion Issues and Oppor­tu­ni­ties sur­vey of exec­u­tives, lead­ers and front-line employ­ees. The results give us a sense of the sen­ti­ment in the com­pa­ny and clar­i­fy the tough issues that need to be on the table. It saves a ton of time, helps us to do our job bet­ter and ensures we don’t just do sur­face work.
2. We add an out­stand­ing 8‑question assess­ment to help us to under­stand lead­er­ship behav­iours, and if they are improv­ing per­for­mance or erod­ing the com­pa­ny from the inside out. The cor­re­la­tion of the assess­ment results to their func­tion or dys­func­tion is uncanny.
3. 360 reviews on CEO and key lead­ers. For sim­plic­i­ty and impact, we ask between 9 and 12 ques­tions for per­spec­tive on how well the lead­ers are doing, how they live core val­ues and how they could be notably more effec­tive. We’re not fans of long, sta­tis­ti­cal 360 rat­ings — we go for tan­gi­ble examples.

For more weighty sit­u­a­tions, or to help accel­er­ate the growth of a high per­former, we may go for deep­er insights by inter­view­ing 6 to 10 oth­er peo­ple, who work with that leader.

Con­vert Insight to Action

In all cas­es, we make sure the infor­ma­tion gath­ered is pulled it into plans for growth of indi­vid­u­als and the com­pa­ny, that we close the loop, and thank the peo­ple who gave us their time and ener­gy giv­ing us feedback.

Feed­back can make peo­ple ner­vous but get­ting the truth on the table helps them to be more effec­tive, sus­tains the good things they do and ensures the adjust­ments they need to improve.

As a leader, you have a choice about whether to learn about all the good and bad things going on. But if you keep push­ing ahead with­out know­ing, there’s always a seri­ous long-term price to pay for the short-term bliss of avoidance.

The Chal­lenge

• When was the last time you and your orga­ni­za­tion had a good checkup?

PS For fur­ther insights on the val­ue of 360 feed­back, I encour­age you to read Chap­ter 9 of my book (Get Tough Feed­back).

PPS Let us know if we can help you to gath­er more valu­able insights about your com­pa­ny or leaders.