Part of my mission is to elevate the enablement industry and in order to do that I think it's important for me to share not only the lessons learned or the success stories - but also what I'm currently working on for my personal growth.
I recently had a development conversation with my boss, our company's Chief Revenue Officer, where she expertly delivered constructive feedback in four areas. This was a masterclass - I have never had someone deliver feedback in a way that felt relevant and constructive without making this perfectionist feel like I've dropped the ball. The feedback was positioned in a way that was forward thinking, providing the ability to see around corners for upcoming challenges as I move to the next phase of my career. My boss shared her experience and relevant examples from earlier in her career where she learned these lessons first hand. I left feeling like I had been developed and had a new perspective on some of my common activity.
I have always wanted to be a leader that was transparent about what their goals were - because I know my team can help me achieve this next level of success. I also want them to hear what feedback sounds like at my level as I truly believe they all have the potential to be future leaders of enablement.
Without further ado, here's the feedback:
(1) Ensuring that the team leverages data to validate our successes. Tale as old as time in enablement. We've spent a lot of this past year building foundations and are now armed to take our impact stories to the next level!
(2) Make sure new hires are ramped before hiring more. This was solid advice as we grew the enablement team from 2 to 17 and I made a conscious decision to hire high-achieving individual contributors prior to building my leadership bench. It's what the business needed to accomplish extreme amounts of change where enablement was listed as a dependency.
(3) When escalating frustrations, talk about the process not the people involved. It's so easy to share feedback and tell the story by using names of individuals. Sometimes that comes off as assuming bad intent of cross-functional stakeholders versus focusing on the breakdowns in process. Looking at it through a systems-thinking lens helps keep any challenges strictly business and removes the personal element, often times saving the relationship aspect!
(4) There is risk associated with being too close with the team. It's no secret I adore my team and we enjoy each other's company in and outside of working hours. Part of this feedback is also due to the maturity of an organization and the increasing responsibilities with confidentiality. My approach may have to shift from bringing the team along the decision making journey to simply sharing the result of the change.
Now watch out - because when I have clarity and focus, nothing can stop me from demonstrating growth in these categories! I'll report back with progress soon... 💪