Roman's miles

Finding the truth about yourself. The questions

After publishing my post on finding the truth about yourself I've got a host of requests asking me to share the questions I asked. Before I list them I want to remind that I accompanied the questions with single-choice answers ranking from 1 to 5 with an exception for the last three questions (free form). About 50% of the respondents provided answers to the free-form making me thinking of eliminating such types of questions.

1. How reliable and accountable is Roman? (1 - not reliable, 5 - reliable)
2. How Roman is result-oriented in proposing and making decisions - opposite to making rush, reaching formal indicators, finding compromise, etc? (1 - eye-washer, 5 - result-oriented)
3. How would you evaluate Roman as a team player? Is he supportive and sharing (5) or one who plays a solo role (1)?
4. How would you evaluate Roman's communication skills (ability to pass the message, present, negotiate, etc.)? (1 - worst, 5 - best)
5. How would you evaluate Roman's leadership qualities (ability to find a problem, propose a solution, drive it, and motivate others)? (1 - worst, 5 - best)
6. How creative is Roman in problem-solving sessions? Is his approach constructive and pragmatic (5) or negative and pessimistic (1)?
7. Would you like to work with him in the same team? (1 - don't want, 5 - would love)
8. What are Roman's strengths?
9. What are Roman's weaknesses?
10. What would you recommend to Roman to change or develop in his skills to become more professional?

I think you should tailor the questions to the qualities you want to develop or verify and not sure what questions I'll ask next time.

I want to answer also to the folks who commented that the review is unnecessary since either a good boss must provide such feedback for you or you already know everything without asking. Unfortunately not all of us are blessed with such a boss (but even if we're a review doesn't harm). To the second point, I have a friend who thinks he's close to be the perfect team player and a great leader but folks worked with him don't want to do it anymore. Had he made such a poll he would have faced the very inconvenient truth and could have hopefully change.

I wish you wouldn't find the results inconvenient if you do and, since reviewing yourself doesn't harm I advise you to find courage and try it. [Relatively] convenient truth about yourself motivates you to keep up and the voted areas for improvements show you the direction for perfection.

Technorati tags: personal relationships, self improvement, Q&A

How to find [inconvenient] truth about youself?

It's copy-book truth that the easiest way to find who you are is to ask the people around you. For somebody who develops leadership qualities and grows his professionalism it's vital to be realistic about how others perceive him. If you're frankly interested how you look in your colleagues' eyes - ask them.

But it's not always easy: neither for you nor for them. Expressing genuine truth requires trustful relationships and demands certain boldness and confidence from the one providing feedback. Your bosses, your subordinate, and your peers may not be ready to tell you the truth openly in a face-to-face conversation.

To easy their situation consider an online questionnaire. There are many sites offering wizards and analyzers for building polls and aggregating results. I recently did it first time and want to share with you my observations.

1. Do a very short questionnaire. A dozen of questions - the most. You're asking a favor from the people to help you to identify weak areas - don't steal more than 3 minutes of their time.
2. Ask anonymously, don't request any details from the answering. The idea of the online questionnaire is to find the [inconvenient] truth about you, not to collect compliments.
3. Ask applicable questions only. Don't send a questionnaire to superiors asking how good you are as a coach or to subordinates asking how good you complete the tasks. The quiz'es target is to collect reliable information.
4. Send the request only to people that know you and can provide reliable feedback (former and current bosses, first-tier peers, folks reporting to you).
5. Ask questions leading you to action, use the questions wisely (don't ask if the fact that you know 4 languages helps the team or if the fact you're too young or too old disturbs them - you can't do anything with neither of them).
6. Try to avoid free-form answers as options. Ask specific questions and rank possible answers from 1 to 5. Shorter or larger ranges will confuse the audience.
7. Send the request via a BCC list. Keep the anonymity between the recipients too.
8. In the request ask to answer the quiz by specific date. Even small tasks people tend to put off and eventually forget.
9. Build a representative list of respondents. If you send your request to 12 people and 6 of them answer the result set can be too small to reflect reality about you. Think about recipients before sending the request.
10. Treat the results seriously and act on them. People expect you to change when they reveal you the areas requiring additional development.

I did my first experiment yesterday. Built a quiz of 10 questions at zapsurvey (free up to 10 questions), sent it to 30 people, got 10 responses today. Nothing shocking in the answers but surely some interesting finding.

Good luck you in your discovering:-)

Update: I published the questions here

Technorati tags: personal relationships, self improvement, Q&A