I'll be honest with you. For years, I would have rather reorganized my entire kitchen than sit down for our quarterly One Thing activity.
And I'm the COO.
We picked up the One Thing from our EOS implementer, Scott Elser, and the concept is simple enough. Everyone comes prepared with two things for every person in the room: something they genuinely admire about that person, and one thing that person could do to help the company get better. You go around the table. You give it. You receive it. You do it again.
On paper, totally reasonable. In practice, at least for me at first, it felt a little bit like a trial.
Why This One Is Different
Here's the thing that makes the One Thing unlike any feedback process I've been through before. You cannot hide behind a document.
No anonymous survey. No HR form sent at 4:59 on a Friday. You look the person in the eye when you say it, and they look at you when they hear it.
That sounds intense because it is. But something really interesting happens when feedback has a face attached to it. It stops feeling like a verdict and starts feeling like a conversation. The person sitting across from you isn't a review system. They're someone who has watched you lead, who has worked through hard quarters and good ones alongside you, and who showed up because they actually care what happens to you.
Eye contact does something a feedback form will never be able to do. It makes the whole thing human.
Your Dread Is Almost Always Worse Than Reality
If you have any self-awareness, and most leaders do even when they pretend otherwise, you already have a pretty good idea of what your edges are. The fear isn't really about being blindsided. It's about having something confirmed out loud, by people whose opinions actually matter to you.
What I've found every single quarter is that the feedback almost never lands the way I imagined it would. It's usually more specific, more thoughtful, and a lot more generous than the version I'd been running in my head. The story I was telling myself about what they might say was almost always worse than what they actually said.
That gap between the dread and the reality? That's worth paying attention to.
The Quarter That Changed Things
This last quarter was the first time I genuinely looked forward to the One Thing. Not in a "I've made peace with it" way. In a real, I-cannot-wait kind of way.
A big part of that comes down to the work I've been doing on quieting my ego, something Ryan Holiday writes about in a way that really stuck with me. It's ongoing work, not a destination. But something has shifted. When you stop needing to be seen as perfect, feedback stops feeling like an attack.
"When you trust that the people at the table are thinking of you as a human being and not a performance metric, what they have to say becomes something different entirely. It becomes a gift." That's exactly how I felt sitting at that table this quarter. I listened to my team tell me what they see in me, where they think I'm capable of more, and where I still have room to grow. And I felt genuinely grateful.
Not politely grateful. Actually grateful.
How You Receive It Is Leadership Too
Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough. How you receive feedback is itself a form of leadership.
When someone works up the courage to tell you the truth, your response either makes it safe for them to do it again or teaches them to keep it to themselves next time. Getting defensive, deflecting, or going visibly quiet shuts a door. Sometimes permanently.
The goal isn't to receive feedback perfectly. It's to receive it in a way that makes the other person feel like they did the right thing by being honest with you. A simple "thank you, that means a lot" or "I've been thinking about that too" goes further than you'd think.
Teams that feel safe telling their leader the truth are the ones who help that leader become someone worth following.
The Bottom Line
The One Thing used to feel like something I had to survive. Now it's one of the most meaningful hours of my quarter. Not because the feedback is always easy to hear, but because of what it represents: a room full of people who care enough to tell you the truth to your face.
Stop hiding behind the form. Stop softening everything into anonymity. Look your people in the eye and let them look back. That's where real trust gets built.
Ready to Build a Team That Leads Like This?
At StringCan Interactive, we believe strong culture and strong marketing go hand in hand. If you're looking for a partner who shows up with honesty, strategy, and genuine investment in your growth, we'd love to talk.
Connect with StringCan Interactive today, and let's figure out what's possible together.
