Big companies have regular performance reviews. However, if you’re in a mid-sized or small company, or you’re an outside consultant, you probably don’t have that at all.
So, there’s no downside to asking how you can improve.
On the upside, you may get good suggestions that will make your boss or client happier—and will make you a better professional and do better work.
On the downside, you may get suggestions that are not that helpful or make no sense. In those cases, you realize that you may not need to necessarily change your work, but how you communicate about your work to your boss or client. And even that is helpful.
See? There’s no reason not to do it!
In fact, it seems like there are two reasons why this isn’t more common.
First, most people just don’t realize they can.
Second, most people think that if the boss or client has suggestions for you, he will just tell you and give it to you! And while that’s true for both some boss-personalities and some types of suggestions—it’s not true for all. Between those two cases (bosses who don’t mention suggestions regularly, and some types of suggestions that are just hard to bring up in the everyday course of working)—some key tips will likely go unsaid.
If you still don’t think that’s valuable, just pretend you have an employee, like a chef. Imagine if once every three months, the chef asks you, “I just want to know what you think I can do to make my work with you even easier and smoother? And to make even better food for you?” Knowing nothing else about that chef, isn’t that the precise type of chef you’d want to hire? Of course, it is. So why don’t you be that chef yourself?
