Seek feedback

- One of the hardest things any leader has to do is to see themselves as others see him. And that is really much more difficult than you think. It's been really hard for me because lot of times I feel like I have no idea how I can read people, how they're receiving the ideas I have and how we're really engaging. And it's the only way I know of to do that, is to get honest feedback from people. Who can you in your life count on to give you honest feedback? To say, "Bill, you're gone off track." Going all the way back for me it was those seniors at Georgia Tech, but I found a lot of mentors that will tell me, "Bill, are you going the right way? "I seeing changes in you. "I don't know why you're doing this. "You get too caught up in a title "or trying to reach this goal. "And I don't feel like I have the real person anymore." Or my wife will tell me, "Why did you try to impress all those people? "Why are you dropping names about having met "with Elon Musk or Bill Gates, or someone like that? "Why don't you just be yourself?" Yeah, I do get caught up in that. So what do you do to get feedback? I encourage you to ask people close to you for honest feedback about how you're coming across. Start with just one person. Say, "How am I coming across to you? "What things do you see in me?" Because one of the things we all have in life are blind spots, where others can see things in us and we can't see those same things. The only way to overcome your blind spots is to have people around you that will point them out to you. I've had a men's group that's met for 41 years in a living area of a church not far from where we live. It started as a prayer group. We don't pray much anymore, but one thing we do is we give each other honest feedback. We talk about what's really important in our lives. And that honest feedback is so helpful to me. I'll give you an example. A number of years ago, I was at Honeywell and I was en route to the top. I was one of the two candidates to become the next CEO. The decision was three or four years away, but all of the sudden I wasn't acting myself. I was trying to grab for that brass ring of getting to be CEO, something I'd always dreamed of being of a big company and I was dressing a different way, wearing cuff links, which I don't wear, trying to impress people out there and I'm never going home to my wife. I had an experience where I saw the real Bill George in the mirror and it was pretty ugly. So I went home and told my wife, "Penny this." She said, "Bill, "I'd been trying to tell you this for a year. "You just refused to listen." See, it's the people closest to you that see you as you are and I did refuse to listen. So the next morning I went to my men's group and told them what I was feeling and said, "Yeah, we'd been seeing these changes in you. "Why did you turn Medtronic down for a job?" And you'll see the ego coming out here, "Well, Medtronic's become a mid-sized company. "I thought I was going to be head of a big company." And he said, "Why don't you give it a shot?" I'll tell you, I looked hard at Medtronic. I made the change from Honeywell to Medtronic. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and I realized it wasn't important to be CEO of a really large company. It was important just to be with a group of people I cared about where we have a common goal to go make a difference. And that opened up everything that's happened in my life for the last 25 years. All because I finally had some self-awareness and got some honest feedback that I actually listened to and decided to take the advice and make a major change in my life and it's helped my family, my relationships, my friendships and I've been able to accomplish things I never dreamed I could do. But I had to close that door at Honeywell before I could walk through the open door at Medtronic. So now, look into your life. Who do you get feedback from? Who's going to help you when you're going off course? Because your life may not be everything you want it to be, but you feel like, "I'm in a box. "I can't make a change." Actually you could. You can quit your job. You can find something else. I'm not going to encourage you to quit your family, but you can improve relationships in your family if you realize you're going the wrong way. But you need to take that step. So start today to get honest feedback from people in your life. Write down a list. Who are the people, your truth tellers, that will give you that honest feedback? And they will tell you the truth and aren't just there because they're impressed by you, but because they really deeply care about you and they will tell you the truth. And then go start with one of them and then a group of people and ask them for that feedback. And I think you'll find you're a much more effective leader when you do that. You're much more authentic. You're much more real and a lot of the baggage you're carrying with you, you can shuck aside and just be real because people told you what was important and you can learn to see yourself as others see you. And that's a great gift when you can do that.