JASON Witten is an NFL legend, a future hall of fame player, who signed with the Las Vegas Raiders for the upcoming season.
His 17th, in case anyone is counting. Having had so much experience as an elite sportsperson (he was selected for 11 pro bowls) you’d imagine that he’s seen quite a bit in terms of team build, cohesion and individual personality with sufficient experience to comment.
In a recent interview, Witten was talking about what he wanted to see in the first week of training camp, when all the players get together collectively for the first time.
Interestingly he eschewed the easy clichés and platitudes and said: “The thing that I look for when I go to a team is just ‘Are you trying to improve? Do they have the self-confidence to be critical of themselves? Do they want to be coached?'”
He wasn’t looking for bravado, machismo, or players talking big about winning the Superbowl; he was looking for character, capacity for reflection and growth.
Too often we find people mistake confidence for infallibility; a belief that you cannot look too closely at what you have done previously, in case you find something that was less than brilliant; perhaps worried that others could see this as a sign of weakness.
When something goes wrong at work, how often do you really, honestly examine your part in it?
A project doesn’t get delivered on time, a customer is lost, or a new system isn’t implemented correctly. We find it’s easier to blame technology, other people, market forces or ‘the powers that be’.
If we do this without examining our own role however, we run the risk of repeating the same mistakes over and over and getting the same results time and time again.
However! It’s a common fallacy that being critical always means looking for the negative (that’s really more about self-depreciation). A dictionary definition of ‘critical’ states: “expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults”.
So when we are being critical (especially self-critical) we should not just evaluate what went wrong, we should also evaluate what went right and what had little impact wither way.
Sometimes we do in fact have the success we aim for; the project comes in on time, we secure the new customer etc. So why not learn from that also?
It’s like a footballer who scores a goal and says: ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time’.
If they were self-critical they could evaluate just why they were in that place at that time.
They could understand what they did to create that space, how they positioned themselves to receive that ball, where they placed that shot, what they did in the preceding moments. Then they can start to consciously replicate what worked well in the next game.
Being self-critical is not inherently positive, negative or otherwise. It’s about looking at each piece of work and examining the good, the bad and the average, no matter what ratio they appear in.
It is also about being brave. You need confidence and courage to do this, to understand that there may be areas where you can improve.
So the next time you finish a piece of work, regardless of whether it succeeded or not, try to take a step back and criticise by using the following steps:
• What was I trying to achieve?
• What was the outcome?
• What were the component parts?
• What was my role in these?
• What did I do that worked well, worked poorly or had little end effect?
• What can I affect next time round to improve the ineffectual or poor parts?
• How can I apply what I have just learned to future projects?
Have the confidence to be critical.
Barry Shannon (bshannon@cayan.com) is human resources director at TSYS Cayan in Belfast.
