Uber, the increasingly popular taxi app, is making headlines again due to the fact that, as well as allowing passengers to rate their experience at the hands of each driver, it also allows drivers to rate their passengers.
So, if you take a ride with an Uber driver, you can be rated on things such as size of tip, attitude and clarity of communication (just don’t say Melville Street when you mean Melville Place or you may be marked down!).
It’s a bit like workplace appraisals, but in reverse. At work managers rate members of their team, sometimes informally – which is the best way, through regular one-to-ones, so that feedback becomes an intrinsic element of the way they work together – but, more usually, at the dreaded Annual Appraisal.
But how often are managers rated by their team members? If you were to ask your direct reports to give you marks out of ten, what would you be brave enough (or confident enough) to ask them to rate you on?
Would it be on your technical ability? Would you want to know if they really value your job knowledge – if they see you as an expert in your field and love the way you “always know the answer”?
Or would you ask them for feedback not about what you do, but on how you do it? And, if so, what kind of things would you ask them?
- “Do I treat you with respect?”
- “Do I listen to you without judging?”
- “Do I talk to you when things are going well or only when things are going wrong?”
- “Do you feel you can come to me when you need help?”
- “Do I make time available to have meaningful conversations with you?”
- “Do I really know you and the ambitions you have?”
Six simple questions that you might want to ask your direct reports. On the other hand, it might be easier to be rated by an Uber driver.
Taxi!