For ambitious young people, money spent on university buys time to get job offers upon graduation compared to others without a degree who would spend years of experience to get the same job.

For mothers, money spent on expensive, disposable diapers buys time to rest instead of washing smelly cloth diapers.

For busy executives, money spent on taxi buys time to sleep in so they can skip the 1-hour train ride.

For cancer patients, money spent on chemo treatments buys time to spend with their beloved family and friends.

And what is more precious than time? A resource that’s once lost, will be lost forever. A resource that is unpredictable, because we can’t know how much time we have left in the world.

Is there anything possibly more important than time?

My dog, Oliver, is the sweetest bichon friche who just turned 11 years old. He can no longer control his pee due to old age, among other issues.

To make sure he’s healthy, we need to feed him with a special food, take him out to pee a few times a day, brush his teeth, brush his fur, walk him 2x a day, clean his legs from the walk and the pee, apply some lotion if his skin is irritated, and diaper him before bed.

It’s not cheap nor convenient to take care of Oliver, but we do it anyway because he brings joy to our lives. He brings my family together. He makes me laugh everytime he gets jealous when I pet my other dogs, and he makes me so “gemes” (Bahasa slang for “overcome by cuteness”) every time he sticks his tounge out adorably when sleeping, or when he follows me into the bathroom.

It’s not easy nor quick to take care of Oliver, but we do it anyway because every single little moment taking care of him is special and it gives us peace in knowing that we’re doing what we can to make him live even longer.

I’d like to think that love is more important than time. Imagine living so conveniently – having anything you want – A fancy car, a successful business, a gigantic beach house in Bali, the freshest sashimi every night directly shipped from Japan, a rare owl as a pet – you can get all of them in an instant. But you only get to enjoy it alone or with people whom you don’t care about.

Does it matter if you don’t have love? If there’s no love, you would probably feel empty and alone despite achieving what you wanted.

I’m always reminded of the quote from the movie ‘into the wild’ :

“Happiness is only real when shared” – Christopher McCandless”

When you eat the most delicious burger you’ve ever had, or see the most glorious sunset, would if feel better if you enjoy it alone, or share the experience with your loved ones?

I don’t know about you, but I would prefer spending 10 minutes enjoying a great meal with my family rather than spending 10 days alone. I’d choose to live only for 2 years, surrounded by people who love me, rather than 100 years without ever feeling loved.

Getting an honest feedback

A survey done by Know Your Team with 15,000 employees over 4.5 years concludes that there are two blind spots that leaders overlook because they’re not receiving honest feedback from the employees. Firstly, 76% of employees feel stifled, they believe there’s an area outside of their current work that they could be contributing in. Secondly, 65% of employees feel that the company is behind the curve, they see that there are areas of improvement that could be done.

So what are 2 main reasons why employees are not giving the feedback that leaders need to improve the company? The answers lie in fear and futility. Employees are scared of saying something that their leaders might not want to hear, and even if they do say it, they believe that the company is not going to do anything about it.

Knowing these eye-opening facts, here are tactics leaders can use in order to get those honest feedback from employees that the company needs:

1. Ask for advice instead of feedback. Most employees fear giving honest feedback to their leaders. If we ask for advice, we would automatically place them as an expert of a subject, so they would be more willing to voice their opinions.
2. Ask specific questions. When we ask ambiguous questions like “how are you”, we usually get ambiguous answers like “i’m fine”. To get specific answers, we need to ask specific questions and better yet, put a time box. For example, “in the past 2 weeks, what is the 1 think that you could have done better?”.
3. Take action. Show our gratitude to our employees whenever they give us feedback, even if we disagree with it or will not act on it. If we decide to not act on a feedback, explain to them why. Start by acting on something small!

Giving an honest feedback

Often times, leaders avoid giving an honest feedback as it is a difficult, personal conversation that is perceived as negative. Little did we know that according to Know Your Team’s survey, leaders who give feedback are rated 5x more effective, their teams are 3x more engaged and 80% of employees want to hear more feedback.

Here are tactics to make the process of giving feedback easier and more effective:

1. The Don’ts. Don’t conceal our feedback with positive affirmations, keep it straight forward. Don’t do it in public, it is best to do it one-on-one. Don’t delay giving feedback.
2. Come from a place of care. At the start of the feedback, mention the true intention of the feedback, such as “I want you to be successful and progress well in your career”, “I care about the outcome of the team and project as a whole”.
3. Come from a place of observation. We may not know the reason behind our employees’ action, so it is important to state “this is what I’ve observed” or “this is my take on the situation” and elaborate on specific actions that our employee did, such as “I noticed that you did A, B and C”.
4. Come from a place of curiosity. At the end of the feedback, we may include “what do you think? that’s just what I noticed, I’m not sure if there’s more to this story. I would love to hear what you think.”