This article is for fellow SME owner-managers to better assess their own strengths and weaknesses.
How to assess your own strengths and weaknesses
Here is a tool for personal development:
The Johari Window
You know it | You don’t know it | |
Others know it | Common knowledge | Your blind spot |
Others don’t know it | Your unique knowledge | Nobody knows |
The question that the johari window asks is what do you do about your blind spot?
Knowing your blind spot
Are you in a rut? Easy to get into, yet surprisingly difficult to get out:
If you are good at sales, you are less likely to be an expert in finance.
If you are good at tech, maybe you need to work on your people skills.
If you are a good specialist, maybe you need to work on your general management.
As MD or CEO, you and I are responsible for scoring up to 10/10 in all areas. What are your departmental scores and what is your own MD score?
What motivates you
What would it be like if you were already near 10/10 in all areas:
Would you feel stronger as a business leader?
Would your team appreciate that level of leadership?
Would their performance go up too?
As business leaders, our performance leads to business efficiency (read profit) and growth (read valuation). How much do you want either of those?
What next
How do you best get things done:
Does it need to be blocked out in your diary?
Are you a ‘to do list’ fiend?
Do you need to be accountable to someone else?
Effective leadership is about demonstrating it too. What is your action plan to improve your weak business areas, and what are you doing about it?
Summary
If you want your business to be efficient and/or growing, you can’t afford to have ‘johari window blind spots’. I get experts to help me; do you?
P.S. DON’T DESCRIBE THE JOHARI WINDOW LIKE THIS
On Feb 12 2002, Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Secretary of Defense said:
"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know." 🤣
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