Business is going really well here at Boo HQ. New colleagues are settling in, interesting and life-affirming projects are happening and it all seems rather wonderful….

However, in the last two weeks I have received two pieces of participant feedback (from unrelated experiences) that challenged my happy unicorns and rainbows state. The volume on that mean inner critic got louder for a bit and I had to work extra hard at managing my emotional reaction to it – let’s be honest, nobody likes to hear stuff that doesn’t paint them in the best light!

Over the last 6 years we must have delivered learning in one form or another to over 3000 participants and we have consistently been given rave reviews from participants and their organisations. In the grand scheme of things I know we are doing really well and our customers are happy but I also understand that we can always and should always do better!

By falling short on the expectations of two recent customers we have an opportunity to do better and enhance things for everyone. It is tough to hear when it hasn’t all been as brilliant as I had hoped but I genuinely value the feedback and actively encourage more of it! Without the courage of others to challenge us and tell us what didn’t work well we wouldn’t be able to improve our programmes or our customers’ experience.

So why am I telling you all this? Surely it would be easier to gloss over the negative stuff?

It’s simple, I am role modelling what I say on our leadership programme that it takes hard work, the ability to really listen and a great big helping of emotional intelligence and resilience to successfully lead an organisation.

More importantly it also takes helpful, developmental and constructive feedback from customers to make it amazing.

To those brave enough to tell us the tough stuff we are eternally grateful.

Becci x