I was listening to the only podcast I’ve found any value in, Total Picture Radio, and heard about Checkster. Checkster is a service that surveys up to 10 people you specify about your strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to learn if your own perception matches reality, and in general where you can improve.
At the time I heard about it I was mowing my lawn and my first reaction, possibly brought on by mosquitoes and thirst, was that it sounded like a waste of time. But after a while I thought about it and realized that to live with weaknesses without even knowing about them was pretty stupid, and on the positive side I might learn of strengths I didn’t know about. So I decided to give it a try.
The site has the usual account creation process, with an email confirmation, and then you answer a short questionnaire about yourself. When you’re done you enter up to 10 people who you’d like to answer a similar questionnaire about you. When at least 3 people have responded, they want a minimum of 3 to keep you from figuring out who said what, you get some results.
I’m eagerly awaiting my results, as only two people have responded after a few days. That’s the first problem with the system: It assumes the people you survey are interested in giving honest feedback. The second problem is that they only give you 10 people to survey, so you have to have at least a 30% response rate to get any results at all. 30% is pretty high for any generation older than 25 or so. In fact, I suspect I will have to contact people personally to get them to go through it.
The last problem is that I suspect that regardless what the invite email says, people will not believe they aren’t tied to the results. Are you prepared to give a coworker some “constructive” criticism if they’ll know it came from you? I think for too many people the answer will be no.
Still, it’s a neat idea and perhaps if more of us give it a try people will be more willing to engage.
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