Featured, Get-it-Done Guy Blog
I’m writing a Get-it-Done Guy episode on criticism. I’d love to include some listener examples of criticism you’ve received in your own voice. It needs to be pretty short, and suitable for family listening. Real examples are preferred. For instance, “You just don’t know what you’re doing.” “Your suit looks great, if you’re color-blind and have no taste.” etc.
Please call 866-WRK-LESS (866-975-5377) and leave your quote. I’ll use the best couple in the podcast. Please also leave your name and email address so I can contact you for permission.
Thanks!
Featured, Get-it-Done Guy Blog
Conventional wisdom has it that you should sandwich negative feedback between two pieces of positive feedback. You can read about “the hamburger method” here.
Shelle Rose Charvet points out that most people already know the method. Now, when they hear positive feedback, they simply bypass it and wait fo the shoe to drop (then they ignore the final piece of positive feedback, which is obviously just there to soften the negative feedback). She advocates giving feedback in a way that avoids direct negative statements yet still accomplishes the goal, to stimulate behavior change. You can read Shelle Rose Charvet’s “The Feedback Sandwich is Out to Lunch.”
What do you think? If I were to include a “giving feedback” method in the Get-it-Done Guy book, which do you think would be best to include?
Get-it-Done Guy Resources, resources
Byron Katie, best-selling author and creator of The Work of Byron Katie, shares her insights on how to hear and accept criticism from others.
Click here to hear Stever’s interview with Katie, “Accepting Criticism Gracefully.”
Katie’s books
Videos of Katie
The YouTube videos that used to be embedded here are no longer on YouTube. To see many, many videos of Katie, search for BYRON KATIE on YouTube.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
CEO, leadership
Reprinted from the 1988 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report.
Their performance, which we have observed at close range, contrasts vividly with that of many CEOs, which we have fortunately observed from a safe distance. Sometimes these CEOs clearly do not belong in their jobs; their positions, nevertheless, are usually secure. The supreme irony of business management is that it is far easier for an inadequate CEO to keep his job than it is for an inadequate subordinate.
If a secretary, say, is hired for a job that requires typing ability of at least 80 words a minute and turns out to be capable of only 50 words a minute, she will lose her job in no time. There is a logical standard for this job; performance is easily measured; and if you can’t make the grade, you’re out. Similarly, if new sales people fail to generate sufficient business quickly enough, they will be let go. Excuses will not be accepted as a substitute for orders.
However, a CEO who doesn’t perform is frequently carried indefinitely. One reason is that performance standards for his job seldom exist. When they do, they are often fuzzy or they may be waived or explained away, even when the performance shortfalls are major and repeated. At too many companies, the boss shoots the arrow of managerial performance and then hastily paints the bull’s-eye around the spot where it lands.
Another important, but seldom recognized, distinction between the boss and the foot soldier is that the CEO has no immediate superior whose performance is itself getting measured. The sales manager who retains a bunch of lemons in his sales force will soon be in hot water himself. It is in his immediate self-interest to promptly weed out his hiring mistakes. Otherwise, he himself may be weeded out. An office manager who has hired inept secretaries faces the same imperative.
But the CEO’s boss is a Board of Directors that seldom measures itself and is infrequently held to account for substandard corporate performance. If the Board makes a mistake in hiring, and perpetuates that mistake, so what? Even if the company is taken over because of the mistake, the deal will probably bestow substantial benefits on the outgoing Board members. (The bigger they are, the softer they fall.)
Finally, relations between the Board and the CEO are expected to be congenial. At board meetings, criticism of the CEO’s performance is often viewed as the social equivalent of belching. No such inhibitions restrain the office manager from critically evaluating the substandard typist.
These points should not be interpreted as a blanket condemnation of CEOs or Boards of Directors: Most are able and hard-working, and a number are truly outstanding. But the management failings that Charlie and I have seen make us thankful that we are linked with the managers of our three permanent holdings. They love their businesses, they think like owners, and they exude integrity and ability.
Reprinted with permission from Warren Buffett from Berkshire Hathaway
annual report, 1988
Copyright © 1988 Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett on CEO Measurement.
Reprinted from the 1988 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report.
