I refer to our 360 process as the “shovel to the face day.” A BTL 360 is not like any you’ve ever encountered previously. You do not receive any number. You do not receive any ranking comparative among your peers, and you don’t get a score from your boss, your buddies, your employees, your outsiders, or any other group. The BTL 360 that I reviewed with my client this week, was a 20 page narrative of the interviews I conducted, on his behalf, to squeeze some semblance of truth from 10 people with whom he works. Some semblance of truth, however minute it might be, is always a shovel to the face kinda day. The higher up in the system you are, the harder the shovel to the face seems to feel. You see, your team is filled with “people of the lie,” as M. Scott Peck so appropriately puts it.
Your team mostly lies to YOU.
Your team is not married even to truth in anger, much less truth in LOVE. Your team, yes your team, is married to “spinning some kinda shit” and they’ve been mastering this craft for so long that they don’t even recognize that they’re addicted to holding back, giving partial facts, and fake smiling their way forward. Where, by the way, did they learn this trick? Moving on…
When my client took in a real dosage of how his top ten really sees him, he told me that it didn’t feel like the shovel to the face that I had told him to expect. He looked down, his eyes filled, but just a little, and then he looked me in the eyes. “Chet” he said, “You’re looking at a bleeding heart.” His lips shook slightly, his shoulders relaxed, and he let out a deep breath, the kinda breath one musters when they’re just this side of surrender. “I can’t believe,” he continued, “that people are so superficial. They smile at me…”
He couldn’t finish. He just couldn’t.
We covered a bunch of ground over the next three hours. We read and we wrote. We sifted through the shit and found some semblance of truth buried in the brush and weeds of his people’s words. We began to develop a strategy for how we go forward. Slowly, my client, will let some of this into his CORE, and he’ll send some of it right on through. He’s coming up with his development plan, he’s developing his communication plan to his ten, and he’s discovering what a precious and difficult objective it is to bathe in truth in LOVE. Few folks have the courage to face fact. Few want to know about their integrity gaps. Few want to understand what it really feels like to follow them. AND, fewer still are willing to wallow in what they discover once they begin to hear some semblance of truth.
Are you one of these few?
My client, I’m so happy to say, is one of these few. My client is a super stud. My client is building real strength. My client is looking in the mirror, feeling the pain that some semblance of truth inevitably brings, and realizing that, in the end, he will be blessed to have lived this thing we call life, with one or two real friends. Real friends that walk alongside. Real friends that build each other with big doses of truth in LOVE.
God, help me be a better friend to a few. God help me hear more truth about me, regardless the pain. God help me bathe in this truth. God help me pass this gift along to my family, friends, and clients…
What are you habituating in your work and life, truth in LOVE, or some substitute that feels better until it, all of a sudden, does NOT?
Tell me more…
BUILT TO LEAD 
We (our team together) read this blog. We liked it. we each shared what it meant to us personally. I, the leader, wanted to read this together because I feared it could be happening to me/us?? Turns out that we are making progress and agree that we are all accountable to speak up truthfully. what was interesting was the question “what would happen if we asked our clients to do the same”. I said I really feared that one. Expanding the circle of 360 to our wives, children, and family not just work seems to have even higher stakes??
Thank you for your jolts. MM