1. What are your skills?
2. What do you believe other people think are your skills?
3. What do other people really think are your skills?

If you have any self-awareness you can easily answer the first question. You can at least get your own view of it, and with that self-awareness you are probably quite accurate. The second question is also yours to answer. It tells how you believe other people perceive you. The last question others must answer, since it is how other people really perceive you.

To compare the answers from the three slightly different questions could be very interesting. If they are matching it could mean that you have excellent self-knowledge and that you act who you are.

If your own apprehension differs from what other people think, they might not have the correct apprehension about you. But others will treat you according to how they apprehend you, regardless if its correct or not. If you want others to apprehend you like you think you are and treat you accordingly, you must also act who you are.

To really investigate this is called a 360 degree feedback and is common within coaching. It is done by letting people around you, e.g. in your project, fill in a questionnaire (anonymously). Since I coach a handful of people within our organisation that are having key assignments, I have started to put together a 360 form of my own. It’s not ready yet, but the concerned persons will know when it is.

Read more about coaching:
Coaching for Performance, John Whitmore

Coaching för bättre resultat, John Whitmore (på svenska)
Coaching the Alpha Male

Posted by Jens on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 2:12 pm.