From Inspired Startup
I play poker occasionally and the achilles heel of many poker players is that they think they are better than they really are. They’ll play in tough games where they’ll lose in the long run. The players that honestly assess how poorly they play will avoid situations where they are bound to lose and play games that their skill level will excel at. I’m not a great poker player, but generally I can assess pretty darn quickly if I’m the sucker at the table and admit it. (Stop playing those A9s, it’ll kill your bankroll 
The same applies to your personal review.
If you aren’t accurately assessing your core strengths and weaknesses with a very critical eye, you’ll get beat. You’ll be overmatched and worse yet, set the company off on the wrong course. Do the tough thing and ask your staff to be critical of you and rate you without repercussions. If you don’t have staff, ask your advisers, your customers, or anyone you think can give you a real 360 degree view of you. Do your own self assessment of what you did well, what you did poorly in the past year and give yourself a rating. Do it in writing. Do it honestly and be hard on yourself. Would you fire yourself? File it like you would for any other employee to review every month or quarter.
It doesn’t do any good to stop after doing your review. You need to also come up with an action plan. Never stop learning or growing every day. What are you going to do to improve on your strengths? What are you going to do to cover/improve your weaknesses? Should you hire someone better than you or offload the responsibilities to current staff?
Once you have your action plan, who is going to keep you accountable? Meet with them once a month or even more often. Don’t do it yourself, it’s just too hard.
If you’re like me, life is much more interesting and fun when we’re honest with ourselves and we’re constantly improving. How are you improving yourself each and every day?
About nathan kaiser
