I work with you to identify blind spots in your management practice. By finding what you're currently missing you will build a path to success.
Double Down on Your Super Powers
|
It's the end of Forte season at Amazon right now. Forte is one part of the yearly review process where you get (and provide) feedback for peers, supervisors, and customers. My Forte identified areas I'm confident about, while also revealing blind spots I hadn't recognized. This dual perspective is key: well-rounded feedback helps you get a truer snapshot of reality. There are two key pieces of text required for any Forte feedback: Super Powers and Areas for Growth. Feedback is short, typically 60 words or fewer, and we try to keep it focused. Super Powers Super Powers are short statements about what others see as exceptional talents in you. An example would be, "Sharon is amazing at solving incoming tickets. Her deep understanding of our stack means she just knows where the problem is going to be." The point is to highlight the places where you are having a positive impact and capture it. Growth Areas Growth areas identify where you could improve. These aren't normally weaknesses; you would have been working on these all year with your manager. Rather, they're aspects where focused energy could yield better results. For example, "David has had trouble during customer meetings. He doesn't always have the most recent data at hand and regularly needs to follow up later." Strategic Advice I have the same comment in the preamble to all of my Forte meetings with team members every year: Please don't go straight to the Growth Areas and focus on them. Take time to read your Super Powers. Acknowledge your strengths. While it's fine to find places for improvement, I advise team members to identify only 1-2 Growth Areas and set specific actions to improve. Only aim to bring them up to a working standard. But improving Growth Areas is a double-edged sword—you're pouring energy into areas that you do not engage with naturally. It becomes work. However, there's a more effective approach. I advise team members to find their Super Powers and double down on them. These are places where you already shine. If you can take that energy and double it, you will excel. Your engagement will go up. Your skills will improve significantly with little extra effort. Think about your last review. What Super Powers can you identify? Consider what would happen if you put your energy into improving what you already do well naturally. |
Blind Spot Tools
I work with you to identify blind spots in your management practice. By finding what you're currently missing you will build a path to success.
I have millions of ideas constantly popping up. If I don’t do something about them they constantly cycling through pushing out constructive work. That’s why it created this prompt. I created a project in Claude and add the following as a project level prompt. Then as each idea occurs to me I drop it in as a new chat. If I feel like it I can continue the conversation, if not I can always come back later. Find ways to get the tools to help you. Photo by Wang Douglas on Unsplash —— You are an...
AI vibe coders all have the same thing to say. If you want good results, you need to have a good definition of what you want. -Vibe coders everywhere What I find ground breaking is what this points to as a blind spot. Getting good results has always been about knowing what you want to be building. If you don’t know what you should build, stop. Really, stop right now and figure it out. This is even more important when dealing with people than AI. If you think giving a vague outline to people...
It’s intern season again. They are joining your company and team hoping to gain knowledge on the path to employment. You are hoping they can deliver on a valuable but not critical task. Not every internship works out though. Most people might tell you that the top problem with interns is not having the skills needed to do the job. That’s not my experience. My experience is that the top issue is interns fail at is asking for help. You’ve probably experienced it yourself. You give them a task...