Finding your edge through a culture of feedback
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Ruby Conference 201649 / 67
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00:00
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Coma BerenicesJSONXML
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:02
What is a culture of feedback? I'll first give you three definitions. One, organizational culture, generally just like a set of practices or attitudes that
00:24
we sort of work together with as a group and transmit over time, and these things end up dictating how we do our job, or at least influencing how we do our jobs. Feedback, I think, is just skillful communication that ultimately is meant to serve some developmental purpose for the individual or the team in question.
00:43
And then lastly, when we think about a culture of feedback, we're putting those two things together. So it's a culture in which people witness, support, and even provoke one another to grow their capabilities and adapt to challenges through practice. So it's happening every day, ideally. And in a culture of feedback, we have to think about the fact that
01:01
everybody matters. I went to Google, and I wanted to know why is feedback important to organizations in general, and there was so much information and so much to read, and I had to distill this into a few key points. But in a culture of feedback, we bring a lot of awareness to how we are interconnected at an organization and how, on different teams, we're going to influence and be influenced by one another.
01:23
Also, generally speaking, a culture of feedback promotes growth. It's sort of a core founding principle of a feedback culture, and I don't mean the growth of the size of an organization or its profits, although those might be awesome side effects of promoting a culture of feedback. I'm talking specifically to an individual, a team, or
01:41
a department's capacity to do more, to be smarter about how they work, to grow their capabilities. So that brings me to the idea that it actually promotes what's called a growth mindset. There's a Stanford psychologist named Carol Dweck who first came up with this idea, and she researched it to prove that people tend to have one of two mindsets
02:02
when they're trying to learn something new. They either have a static or a fixed mindset that they don't really believe that they can change and grow their intellectual capabilities, or they have an idea, a belief, that if they just try, they're ultimately going to be able to do that. In a culture of feedback, you really need to be able to do that. I believe that you can grow your abilities.
02:21
So it ends up creating mindsets where people persist in the face of setbacks. They don't give up easily, they keep learning. And that's really important in our culture, excuse me, I have a bit of a cold. In our industry where we are constantly having to learn new technologies, we have to believe that we can learn these things and keep growing.
02:42
And we also need to believe that we can learn from criticism. So instead of shutting down and closing ourselves off, we actually take in criticism and keep growing. And if you're in an office like mine where we work with XP or Agile, then you're going to already be doing a lot of this already. You have a prototype or you have a goal, a project set up, and
03:03
then you work on it, you test it, you put it out there in the world, and you get feedback, and you keep iterating. It's really no different in a culture of feedback. You just have some kind of goal, you start to work on it, you get ideas about how to change and grow. You iterate, you test it out with people, and you get feedback. Maybe you reached that goal, maybe you didn't, but
03:20
if you have a growth mindset, you can just keep going. So what does this all really mean in practice? And honestly, that depends. So you can end up kind of stepping up to this this way. No, I'm going to talk about Brenni Brown first. So Brenni Brown, she's my favorite presenter and writer, and she says, imperfections are not inadequacies,
03:41
they are all reminders that we are in this together. So depending on how you hold this quote, you can end up feeling like this. So if you actually are terrified of showing people your imperfections and you feel really vulnerable and scared, you're going to shut yourself off and not lean on other people for support. You won't take advantage of that culture of feedback. On the other hand, if you realize that showing your vulnerability,
04:02
showing your true self, your imperfections is an advantage, then you're going to end up with this kind of experience of being fearless and being connected to more people. So that brings me to finding your edge. So you need this kind of fearlessness to work an edge in a culture of feedback. I mean, imagine that you actually didn't feel terrified when you had to give
04:22
somebody really difficult feedback. So one of the ways that we can start to look at our edges and discover them is through using self analysis. We want to start inquiring sort of within ourselves but also within our communities about what our edges could potentially be. And so some people who are a little bit more heady, a little more
04:41
intellectual, this is the approach you're going to want to take. And just, I thought up a sprinkle of questions, just a few questions here for us to use if you're into this and you want to start doing some journaling to discover what your edges might be. So here's one question, where do you stop trying? When I was first working on getting a job as a software engineer or
05:01
when I was first working at my company, I tended to kind of pull back when I was learning new technologies. And I knew it was coming from a fear of having to learn too many things all at one time. So there's an edge, it's not about learning the technology, it's about how I approach learning that technology. Where do my thoughts turn self-defeating? And there are kind of two edges here, because if you're one of those people who's constantly self-critical,
05:22
I know I've dealt with imposter syndrome in my career so far. But if you're constantly beating yourself up, there's an edge. You need to start learning to work with how you think. Also, you might notice that there are moments when you're beating yourself up, but it's because there's a new skill on the table that you need to be learning. And for some reason, you haven't been willing to step up and learn it. And what conversations are you not having?
05:43
This is definitely my favorite question. And this is the one that a lot of people, if you're afraid to give feedback, you're gonna bump up against. You know, where do you actually notice that you don't really approve of something that happened, you think it's not serving somebody or you, and yet you keep quiet about it. So in one of these questions, I assure you, you can find an edge
06:02
if you start to really question yourself around them. So when I'm finding my edges, I tend to feel like I'm kind of wearing a mask. I feel like I am separate from the thing that I want to be. I'm witnessing it, the lived potential in other people, that I can't experience in my own body.
06:22
So take this, want to be a horse person. You know, they're experiencing something like that, you know, feeling kind of separate or fenced off from who they want to be. You know, if this person really wants to become a horse, they've got a bunch of obstacles in their way. They might have to learn about Therianthropy, which is the mythology around shape shifting, you know, turning a human into an animal.
06:42
This person might need to deal with people's judgments, you know, people who aren't going to believe that it's possible to become a horse. Or worse, if this person tries to become a horse and they fail, and those people gloat or laugh because they were right. This is some things you have to consider. And also, if this person decides to become a horse,
07:03
then there are some questions that they have to look at as to when they're on the other side, once they've achieved that goal. So, you know, what would it be like to communicate from a horse body-mind? It's going to be really different. What would... Other questions? Would it hurt to become a horse? I think it probably would.
07:21
And a lot of times when we're developing our edges, it doesn't feel comfortable, it feels really uncomfortable, and sometimes even painful before we reach the other side. You know, we end up with some experience that acts as a trigger to provoke an emotional response, and it tends to be on the negative side, at least for me. And if you're one of those people like I am where I tend to really connect with my emotional experience,
07:41
it's like a tell-tale sign that I'm bumping up against an edge. So one of my edges over the years has been presenting. So when I first was experiencing people presenting on a stage, I would get really envious. This is my number one cue. OK, I'm envious, I want something. But before, when I would experience that envy,
08:02
I would avoid the opportunity to present. And I would tend to avoid those people too. I would separate myself from them and other myself. Oh, those are the people who can do it, those are the people who are more capable. I'm not one of those people. And so I would end up being terrified of this opportunity to present every time it came up. Today, however, I've learned to transform those emotions
08:22
into their adjacent positive qualities. And so now, when I feel envy, I'm like, OK, now I need to get into action. This just means I want that thing. So I've turned that into drive. Avoidance, I've turned into acceptance. You know, I'd accept that I have to start from somewhere.
08:42
So just like any culture of feedback, people are going to have to realize that whatever their imperfection is, they've got to acknowledge it, be willing to be with that, and start from there. I find I'm way more connected, especially in a culture of feedback, because people are willing to give me support and guidance as to how to improve. One of the ways I practiced this talk
09:01
is I gave all of my colleagues who are watching it signs to hold up as to when I was speaking too quickly or not taking breaths or whatever, and it was a really fun way to engage my community to help me grow. And of course, fear. I always feel fear. I'm shaking right now. But the point is is that I don't let it stop me anymore. So it's a kind of fearlessness that I really enjoy.
09:22
And I tend to approach, I mean, look at me. I'm at RubyConf, right? I'm really stoked that I'm at RubyConf. And I feel like I'm facing this edge now like this. So I'm a base jumper taking this leap off this incredibly high edge, but I have a ton of support. I have a parachute to bring me down. I have a culture of feedback to lean on.
09:43
So I don't approach my edges like this anymore, like this person feeling really alone, terrified, and if they take even one step off, they're gonna fall to their death. I used to feel like that. But if working our edge has the potential to feel like a fearless base jump, why aren't we all taking that leap
10:00
and working our edges at our companies? And I don't think the answer to this question is easy. It's quite complex, but generally speaking, this is what I think. Most organizational cultures just don't feel safe enough to explore our edges in. So I read this great book called An Everyone Culture Becoming
10:20
a Deliberately Developmental Organization. It's a bit of a tongue twister. And they say that individuals in these organizations, typical organizations, they hide parts of themselves, avoid conflict, unwittingly sabotage change efforts, and suddenly enforce a separation between the me at work and the real me. I like that. If we think about it, I wanna be a horse person.
10:41
And then they say, it goes as far as to say that in a typical organization, everyone is doing a second job that no one's getting paid for, just to look good, to stay safe, and to avoid being vulnerable. So I'm not really here to argue for making your organization a DDO, but I do believe in what they stand for.
11:01
And so they strive to support employees to close that gap. They don't want them to feel like they have to wear that mask when they come to work. And they really use weakness as a potential asset. They see it that way. And even when people make errors, they see them as opportunities. So instead of people having to hide their insecurities, they can be really open about them,
11:21
or the mistakes they make. And basically they think, okay, I made this mistake, so now we can see that. Now I can actually work on becoming a better employee, which is gonna serve the organization overall. And the consensus is, if we do these things, we're gonna increase employee satisfaction. So the more opportunities we have for feedback,
11:41
we're going to create also awareness, transparency, trustworthiness, and integrity. And so we're gonna move the direction of a DDO. But honestly, I think we can go, like if we're using this graph here, we can go halfway there, just with a culture of feedback, and we're gonna be stellar. So probably the most important thing is, in this culture, we have to learn how to give feedback,
12:02
and how to receive it well. And I'm gonna break this down into three parts. The first one is sort of the nuts and bolts of a feedback conversation. What do you say when you give feedback? And we wanna start with the ask acronym of actionable, specific, and kind. Hopefully that's easy to remember. So actionable, specific is about something
12:21
the recipient has the ability to change. We don't wanna give them feedback about the color of their eyes that you want them to change them from brown to blue. It's pretty useless, and they can't do anything about that. Also, we wanna make sure that we explain what the recipient has to do differently. So it's really important. We don't wanna give someone feedback, and then not tell them how to do it better.
12:41
It's gonna make a lot of problems for them moving forward. They're gonna feel insecure, and they're not gonna know what to do. Next, the feedback should be specific. So we wanna focus on the impact, not the person. And I like using the example of, if you're talking to a small child, you wouldn't tell that child, hey, you're a bad girl, when they do something wrong. You would say, you did a bad thing.
13:01
You wanna state what happened that was done well or not well. And this is drawing attention to what you were able to observe. I don't know if anybody here has read Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, but he focuses a lot on teaching people how to see what happened, and not infer. So if you talk about someone's intent or their emotion,
13:20
typically that thing is gonna be pretty vague, and you're gonna be making assumptions unless you're checking with people. So you wanna stay close to what you were able to observe. And then you wanna avoid using absolutes, like always and never. If you use this language, you're gonna end up kind of telling a lie, because it's pretty much impossible to accurately say that somebody always
13:40
or never did something. And last, feedback should be kind. So it's discreet when appropriate. If we're gonna end up giving somebody really hard feedback, if it's hard for them to hold, try to do that in a space that feels safe for them. And it should be positively intended. And for this, you really need to know yourself.
14:01
When you're walking into a feedback conversation, are you thinking that you wanna help this person move and grow forward, or is there a part of you that kind of wants to see them fail? I mean, maybe you were involved in something that you're giving the feedback around, and if you have any secret desire to watch them go down, you should probably hand that feedback off to somebody else.
14:21
And feedback should be timely. Make sure it's really close to the time that it happened, that you're giving the feedback about. And that it's not at a time when they could potentially be pulled out of their kind of grounded space if they're working on a deadline or something. So make sure that you choose the time or you check in with them and set up a time that works for you and them.
14:41
And it should be empathetic. Feedback should be given by somebody who can hold the space when somebody is receiving something difficult. So imagine they have been given news that's really upsetting to them. You wanna be able to sit with them through that and make sure that you're not trying to rush them or get them to get over it, kind of thing.
15:00
And lastly, it should be unassuming. I'm speaking a little bit to what I said before. Don't make assumptions about what they think or what they were feeling. Check in with them, make sure it's not something you're assuming you know. So there is one caveat about kindness in relation to feedback, and that's that kindness is a terrible reason not to give feedback.
15:20
And I'm gonna use this four quadrant map here to talk about that and other things. So Kim Scott, she is a woman who opened an organization called Canada.org. I encourage you to go visit it. And she's an advocate of us learning how to speak our minds. And she says that if we are not giving kindness because we're so afraid, that we're ending up using ruinous empathy.
15:42
And if you notice the axes here of caring personally, it's the vertical axis, and challenging directly, ruinous empathy is on the left-hand side, so it's caring a lot, but it's not being willing to challenge. On the right-hand side, this is the place you wanna be. You know, you wanna be caring personally
16:01
and able to challenge directly, and I wanna tell you a quick story. It's from this article called The Surprising Secret of Being a Good Boss. So in it, they talk about Kim Scott. She's relating to Sheryl Sandberg, in this example, Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. They just finished a presentation at Google that was given to a bunch of executives. And they left the room, and the presentation
16:21
went really well, and Kim was raving about it. And Sheryl Sandberg said, yeah, but you said I'm a lot. And Kim said, yeah, I get really nervous, and I say I'm a lot when I'm presenting, but it's okay because everybody received the presentation really well. And Sheryl said, well, no, you said I'm a lot. And Kim did it again, she kind of brushed it off,
16:41
like, oh, it's not a big deal. I say I'm when I get nervous, and so it only matters if people don't like what I did. And Sheryl had to stop her and turn to her and be like, hey, Kim, when you say I'm a lot, you sound stupid, you know? And Kim was really surprised, and really like, it really actually landed for the first time, and she got it.
17:01
She's like, I need to actually start practicing in a way that helps me not say I'm a lot. So because Sheryl Sandberg and Kim Scott had a great relationship, Sheryl was able to challenge her in this way, and Kim could receive it in a way that wasn't harmful. On the bottom right quadrant, we have something called obnoxious aggression,
17:20
and this one's kind of fun. I mean, it's not in the caring personally high care, but it's definitely a high challenge. And Kim Scott says that if you can't offer radical candor, the second best thing you can do is be an asshole. So, you know, you don't want to go to the rudest empathy side. You actually want to be a bit of a jerk. And I remember times in my life
17:40
where I was offended by this, but as I've gotten older and matured emotionally, it's like when you have a friend who is willing to tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear, they're like gold and you don't want to let go of them. And sometimes even at the office, people maybe don't have a great relationship with somebody, but they're willing to tell you what they think still can be like gold.
18:01
Manipulative insecurity, I'm not going to go into just because of time, but I encourage you to read this article or to visit her site. So giving feedback that is actionable, specific, and kind is a great start to giving awesome feedback, but it isn't enough to ensure that you won't end up doing this. So when I look at this slide, I think of somebody stepping into a feedback conversation
18:21
and kind of puking their emotional experience up all over their recipient. So I brought a few questions here for you to ask yourself if you're about to enter into a feedback conversation that should help you avoid this. So it's ultimately going to start with you, that conversation. So check in, how emotionally grounded are you both?
18:41
So if there's yelling happening, name calling, people are emotionally like overly distraught, those are cues that people need to get grounded. And so you don't want to give feedback at this time. And are you aware of your personal values, privileges, and biases? And for this, I want to point to a TED Talk by Susan Collin Tuano,
19:01
the career advice you probably didn't get. And I'm using this example only because it's an easy one for me to explain because I think that I could put a whole talk together based on this idea. But for example, there is a bias in how men and women are mentored up in the senior levels of executive teams.
19:20
So if we look at, she gives some research that shows that 50%, men and women are leaders about 50%, 50, 50 in the mid-range management. But the missing 33% that she points to is how women and men are mentored as they move into leadership roles. And she says that as people move up, women tend to be mentored for their competence,
19:41
to develop confidence, and men tend to be mentored to develop business acumen and to understand the financials of a business. And of course, this is gonna cause a problem for women. And if they've just been given the first skills, they might not need the confidence mentoring. But the point that I'm making here is that when we enter our feedback conversations, we might be giving feedback to people
20:01
that might be biased. And so we really need to look into our own kind of experience of privilege and our own biases before we give people feedback and make sure our biases aren't speaking. Next, am I in a position of power and can I use that wisely? And for this one, I wanna tell you a story about when I first finished university.
20:22
I got a job working at a home for young single moms. I was a counselor there and ended up being the woman who ran the program. And the women who came to the program were struggling with addiction and homelessness or coming from violent relationships, that kind of thing. There were eight suites, eight women, eight children
20:40
at any given time. And they spent a year with us in the program. So one night, we were all getting ready to go to an event. It was early evening and I was in this van. The van was running and there were seven women and their kids piled into it, it's a giant van. And one of the women was late. And she has typically had problems being late in the program. And she'd almost finished the program too.
21:01
She was near the end. And so I turned off the van and I stormed up the stairs and I knocked on the door and I was obviously feeling frustrated, annoyed by this experience. And she opened the door being really apologetic. I'm so sorry, I'm always late, I'm so sorry. And I said something to the effect like, get your shit together and get down here.
21:20
What I didn't realize I was doing in that moment was threatening her. So I had the power to make a phone call to have her child removed from her care. I could get her evicted from this program, which she'd done very good in. She had overcome an addiction. And she ended up telling my supervisor what had happened. And my supervisor took me out for a coffee
21:41
and I was given some feedback about how I had shown up for this woman and how I communicated. The great ending to this story is that the way that the feedback was given was impressive. There was a ton of empathy. There was an invitation to have a conversation about what had happened. And an invitation to solve it together.
22:00
I was asked to make an apology. But the best part of it, I was also asked to study a new communication skill. So I studied non-violent communication. And then the expectation of my company was, you need to create a program that teaches this to other people. So this was a really amazing experience for me because it's actually kind of informed how I've shown up for the rest of my life.
22:21
So make sure when you enter a feedback conversation you have sat with, what power do I have here? And how is this person gonna receive this coming from me? So are you willing to have a conversation like my supervisor in that story did? She really invited me into talking about what had happened and then she had a ton of empathy.
22:40
This video is actually Brené Brown again. It's Brené Brown on empathy. It's like a three minute teaching video about the difference between empathy and sympathy and I highly recommend it if you haven't watched it already. And really it shows the value of empathy over sympathy being that we can really relate to how somebody feels. If we can really relate to how somebody feels and just be with them in that experience
23:01
without trying to move them along and change it because we're kind of uncomfortable which is more what sympathy ends up being. We don't like to be with people when they're uncomfortable because it brings up a lot of our own experience of discomfort. So instead we wanna work on being empathetic and sitting with people in that grossness. And lastly you wanna check in after the fact.
23:21
If you've offered support or made agreements really it's important to have integrity. Don't let them down, show up and be your word. A whole bunch of things you're gonna get to avoid doing if you check in with these questions before you enter a feedback conversation. I'm not gonna go through all of them. So now that we understand how to give feedback
23:40
I wanna flip to the other side of the conversation. How do you end up receiving feedback effectively? How do you receive it well? So the first thing is you need to know how to relax the perfectionist mindset. Brené Brown again says, healthiest driving is self-focused, how can I improve? Perfectionism is other focused.
24:00
So our initial response is what would they think? So if I was to in this moment now tell you I'm gonna give you some feedback about how you're being as an audience. What comes up for you? Do you think, oh great, I get to learn how to be a better audience member or do you kind of go, uh-oh, I did something wrong? There's a clue there.
24:22
You need to choose the growth over the fixed mindset and I've already spoken to this but it's really important that you're able to enter a feedback conversation thinking about, okay, maybe I'm not perfect here but if I just keep taking steps in the right direction I'm going to improve. And you have to see opportunity to grow with help from,
24:41
see feedback as an opportunity to grow with help from other people. And ultimately, trying to improve all alone is gonna be a lot harder because we don't have all the right ideas. I mean, I'm a pair programmer. I pair every day and I don't know what I would do if I had to code all the time on my own. We get so many more ideas just by working with people on how to fix problems.
25:01
It's no different in a culture of feedback. When people step in and work with us we're gonna improve a lot more. And we need to stop playing defense, whether that's passive or active defense. You know, in my life I've struggled with this one. I used to be really, really defensive outwardly. I could, when I get upset or I feel vulnerable or someone's threatening me,
25:21
you know, my words could get really defensive. I yelled a lot. Or you can actually, some people are just violent. But you can be violent on the inside too. So you could be in a conversation with somebody where you're feeling vulnerable and you start stonewalling, which is just not looking at them, not giving them your attention, not staying present for them.
25:40
Or you could be judging them inside or kind of making it not important inside. So there's different ways of being defensive. And you need to become aware of your experience. Over the course of my life I've done a lot of meditating and it's probably the best way to start really connecting with what's true for you. So you start to understand how your thoughts are affecting your emotions
26:01
and how your emotions are affecting your thoughts. And until you really get still and start to pay attention, you know, it's not as easy to trust what you think you know. And we have to be empathetic towards self and others. Starting on the other side, we wanna have empathy for the people who are giving us feedback even. So they might not be doing a great job
26:22
or they might be being an asshole about it. But you know what? If we can be empathetic and hold that space for them even, we're gonna get a lot. We're gonna end up getting more than we expect we could. And even towards ourselves. When I first learned how to meditate, I studied with a Buddhist teacher who reminded me each time I would say things about myself that were less kind.
26:41
She would point to the statue in her room of Kuan Yin. It was of Kuan Yin, this is Kuan Yin. And she would say, turn the stream of compassion within. So this statue, this example had an urn that was turned upside down and streaming water. And so she would remind me to turn that compassion inside and the more that we're able to be kind to ourselves when we make mistakes,
27:00
the less likely we're gonna make them again. And then lastly, we wanna take what works and leave the rest. This is a really important point because not everybody is gonna give us feedback that is really gonna resonate. And we don't have to use that feedback. Most times, feedback, there's gonna be something that is important for us to pay attention to
27:21
and that we can use and develop ourselves with. But sometimes the feedback is actually about the person who's giving it to us. And as we practice in a culture of feedback, we'll get more and more attuned to which one of those the feedback is. So if that's happening, we really don't need to use that feedback. But in any case, we always need to do this
27:41
with an idea of gratitude and respect and appreciation for what people are trying to offer. If we do all these things, we're gonna do a great job and we're gonna build a culture of feedback and hopefully get over our fears of giving other people feedback. So I have a bunch of resources that are included in my slides that I wanted to point to.
28:03
And also, just I wanted to remind you that there is an opportunity to practice giving feedback that is actionable, specific, and kind if you wanna do that now so that you build that skill right away at the link at the bottom of the stage. So with much gratitude, thank you very much for your time today. And I wanna open up the floor for questions
28:23
if there's time. What kinds of things do we do to build our culture of feedback?
28:40
Yeah, I'll give you a few ideas. So we use something called 15-5 that everybody in the company, well everybody at least in San Francisco does weekly. And that's an opportunity to talk about things the company could be doing better or what experiences we've had pairing with people. But we also do retrospectives, so whether that's with our larger team
29:01
or in our smaller teams, we do them both. The larger team, we do it monthly, and our smaller teams, we do it every week. And we also have, every one of our staff has a mentor or what we call a coach in our office. And we do this because it helps people be more accountable to what they're working on. And the coach is responsible
29:22
for passing along feedback as well. Or also, if the person that is being coached needs to be providing feedback, then the coach works with them on how to improve what they're going to say. They can practice it. Or sometimes the coach ends up giving the feedback on their behalf. More like compassionate, be more compassionate towards ourselves.
29:42
So we wanna be kind. So the question is, it seems like a bit of an oxymoron to say that we should have empathy towards ourselves. And so I think what I mean by that is when we have an experience of being upset with ourselves, we have to treat ourselves as though we would maybe a small child or somebody else
30:01
who's going through a difficult time. And instead of being like, oh, you're so stupid, you did something wrong. It's like, no, it's okay. The inner monologue, what you're saying to yourself is really key in these moments. Like, no, okay, I made a mistake. Okay, cool, I can work on this. And I'm gonna be kind to myself and be respectful to myself and not grab all over myself through the process.
30:23
Does that make sense? The question is, how do I encourage other people to give me feedback? I'm really vocal about it. I sit down at a pairing session and I say to somebody, if I haven't paired with them before, I ask them questions about what they like, what they don't like, and I say, please tell me if I'm doing any of these things. Let me know.
30:40
I really want feedback. I really wanna be growing. I'm really just, I repeat it again and again and again. I'm one of the coaches at my office and I say to my coachees all the time, if I'm doing something that is making you uncomfortable, please let me know. It's just constantly letting people, making people aware of that. So you wanna know how you encourage somebody
31:02
who's being an asshole to be nicer? Okay. I would start to, first of all, I wouldn't take it personally. That's number one.
31:20
Second of all, I might very cautiously start to say, point out what I'm noticing and never assume I understand their intent. I'm not gonna say, hey, you're kind of being an asshole or you're trying to be an asshole about this. I would probably say, I'm noticing that your voice is raised here. I've noticed that you used this language.
31:41
Can you tell me what you're experiencing right now? What are you feeling? And I might invite them into a conversation that has them express a little bit more about what's going on for them inside and then flip it a little bit so that I'm being more empathetic and trying to kind of figure out what's going on for them. I think I would start talking to my supervisors.
32:01
And that's what we're doing in our offices. We're connecting a lot with senior management who are helping us start to look at what it means to get feedback and to build more of a growth mindset in our community. So like, and I would, like if you read the, if you read becoming, the book on becoming a developmentally,
32:22
deliberately developmental organization, you know, it talks about getting people into the mindset of, mistakes are just opportunities to grow our capacities. And so they, I mean, of course, there are always, there are going to be some consequences depending on what's happening.
32:40
But I think we need to encourage senior leaders to look at it from the point of view that everybody has got something to offer and they're really good at, and everybody has something they're gonna need to continue developing. So we need to ask for the invitation to kind of start to soften where those lines are and to give people lots of opportunities and lots of the benefit of the doubt. I think you gotta start with talking to the people
33:02
who are creating these systems and also start getting people to be more aware of what it is to give and receive great feedback. So starting to maybe present and talk about this in your organization through education. All right, well, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you.