Turn Feedback Into a Partnership
Taking a partnership approach helps both sides reach their destination.
If it seems like feedback is one-sided, that’s probably because it is.
Traditional feedback operates with a sense of hierarchy. The giver holds the power and the position. He or she spends most of the time talking and tuning. The process feels more like “tell and sell” than “listen and learn.” At its core, this type of feedback sparks fear, not joy.
In today’s post-pandemic workplace, this approach is no longer viable. Employees work with less visibility and greater flexibility than before. Tasks are more complex and interconnected. And there’s an expectation (especially among younger workers) that feedback is delivered more frequently and with a coaching outlook.
The time is right for a different mindset and message around feedback — one that turns performance into a partnership.
A new focus for feedback
Drawing on the power and principles of “feedforward,” this partnership approach can help redefine our beliefs and behaviors around feedback — from ratings to relationships, accountability to agency, and blame to contribution.
As a feedback partner, it’s the manager’s job to show others where to look but not tell them what to see. Partnership feedback is guided by powerful questions, active listening and genuine dialogue. It requires a measure of humility and curiosity on the part of the feedback giver, whose primary focus is helping others navigate towards a better understanding of their own potential and future possibilities.
Because this process can often feel winding, I think about it in terms of a shared journey between a scout (employee) and a guide (manager). Each partner has distinct roles: The guide maps the coordinates and checks the conditions. The scout chooses the path and sets the pace. The journey unfolds in three stages, and neither side can complete it without the other.
Stage 1: Summit
Performance partnerships start at the summit, the moment of peak. Managers take the lead by asking their reports about an action or outcome that left them feeling energized and excited. While it may seem counter-intuitive to begin the journey at its end, the sequence is intentional: Starting with strengths stimulates positive emotions in the receiver and uplifts, rather than upends, one’s sense of self. Unlike traditional feedback, which puts deficits at the forefront, a partnership model seeks to identify and operationalize individual assets and accomplishments.
Some of the questions manager-guides might ask their employee-scouts include:
- What are you most excited about right now?
- Tell me about a problem you solved.
- Looking back a few months, what are you most proud of?
Stage #2: Trek
The next stage in this performance partnership is the trek. Having recalled and relived a peak moment, the manager-guide and employee-scout retrace the steps that made that outcome possible. As the saying goes, success has many fathers. Few people reach the top of the mountain by themselves. This is where feedback can provide a useful account of the people and conditions that contributed to an individual’s success.
Ask others who or what made this possible. It may have been the product of a quiet collaboration. Or the result of a redesigned schedule. Getting to the destination is a visible achievement. But paying attention to the trek — the process itself — reveals hidden triumphs. It reinforces the idea that good things tend to come from supportive ensembles, not individual heroics.
These are some of the ways manager-guides and employee-scouts can plot the path:
- Did you struggle along your way? Who helped you?
- Did I or others play a role in your journey?
- What else might have made this moment possible?
Stage #3: Climb
The final stage of the performance partnership is the climb. Doing something one time is a moment. Doing something time and again is a pattern. To scale success, we need to focus on future actions that can help us return to the mountain top. This is the fundamental goal of feedforward: to point people towards a future they can still change and control.
Ultimately, it is the job of the employee-scout to make it back up the mountain. To promote the agency of others, a good partner offers support, but not a lifeline. It’s far more effective for the manager-guide to help describe the road ahead rather than prescribe a specific route. And by listening to what the employee-traveler needs to be successful, he or she will be in better position to support that journey and assess progress along the way.
To help others scale success, these prompts are especially useful:
- Are your goals aligned with our business objectives and key results?
- Where do you see yourself headed? Why?
- Do you have the time and resources to continue your journey?
Progress through partnership
Turning feedback into a partnership not only levels the field, but it clears the way for more collaborative, constructive conversation about work. When managers act like “mirror holders,” they not only expand the way others see themselves, but they deepen their own understanding of events and actions that might otherwise remain out of view. Instead of debates over the past, feedback becomes a discussion about the future.
As a feedback model, performance partnerships don’t require major investments of time or money. They fit alongside current performance management systems. And they can produce much-needed insights about how work gets done. Isn’t it time we traded power for partnership?
A Better You (Part 3)
Four podcasts to help you turn downtime into primetime for personal growth.
This is the final installment of A Better You, a special summer series featuring popular podcasts from I Wish They Knew, a show where leaders share big ideas that deserve more attention in about the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. (Or the amount of time they wish they had to enjoy it!)
The first edition featured great insights on discovering our hidden influence, developing a plan for productivity, growing sideways in our careers and finding that missing spark of motivation.
Last week’s edition provided useful tips on turning workplaces into communities, becoming everyday innovators, making your office less toxic and leading with consistent body language.
This week, I’m excited to share one last batch of podcasts to help you reflect and rethink as summer fades away.
Now heard in 35 countries around the world, I Wish They Knew features world-renowned business leaders, media personalities, bestselling authors and education reformers. It explores big ideas in short conversations – from learning to loss, purpose to public speaking, work to wellness, and, of course, feedback.
I hope these episodes help you become…a better you!
Build together, not alone (Pamela Slim)
To build a business or an organization, you need an ensemble. And the best way to do that is to identify your ideal customers and partners, then build together. Pamela Slim shows us how creating the “widest net” helps us operate within high-potential ecosystems, forge strong collaborations with strategic partners, and nurture relationships the right way.
Perfect your persuasion skills (Jonah Berger)
The key to changing someone’s mind isn’t to push harder, but to push aside hard issues. Jonah Berger explores the science and skills of persuasion and why the most convincing people help others convince themselves. Berger offers practical ways to put people in control of their decisions while still guiding them to a desired outcome — from helping others let go legacy thinking to creating options to boost adoption rates.
Cultivate your confidence (Nate Zinsser)
Confidence is a skill that can be taught, improved, and applied by anyone to enhance nearly every aspect of our lives and careers. So what’s getting in our way? Nate Zinsser shares principles he’s used to help West Point cadets and elite pro athletes develop a “confident mind” — and his cognitive tools and techniques will help you turn setbacks into comebacks.
Negotiate the sweet spot (Leigh Thompson)
To get the most out of our negotiations, we need to optimize, not compromise. Leigh Thompson describes a more effective approach to finding the “sweet spot” in every negotiation and outlines practical steps we can take to maximize the value of our position. Whether you’re negotiating a high-stakes deal with business partners or a highly sensitive issue with loved ones, Leigh offers research-backed advice to help you walk away with optimal results.
New episodes of I Wish They Knew air weekly. Subscribe to never miss another wish!
For better feedback, be a mirror holder
Try to enlarge someone else’s view, rather than your own.
Getting others to accept our feedback can be challenging, especially when we have tough news to share. Deep inside the human mind, negative feedback can cause others to become defensive, angry, and self-conscious. It can weaken their overall effectiveness at work. And it can even drive them to seek out others who affirm, rather than challenge, their positive self-view.
Throw in a host of delivery problems – lack of frequency, rater bias, and high-stakes settings – and it’s no wonder why managers either dodge feedback altogether or disguise it as “praise sandwiches” that end up doing more harm than good. The result is a feedback culture built largely around evasion, deception, and, worst of all, fear.
From my work with leadership teams, it’s clear that performance management cannot simply be corrected with better messaging. It needs to be replaced with a different mindset.
How can managers help their employees improve? By shifting their approach from “window gazing” to “mirror holding.” Knowing the difference can redeem performance management — and even bring some joy to getting feedback.
Window gazing: Telling and selling
As its name suggests, “window gazing” is a process of telling and selling. Imagine two people standing beside the same window, gazing out at the same landscape. Ask them to describe what they see, and they’ll tell you two different perspectives. That’s perfectly fine. Two equals, two views.
But what if they aren’t equals at all? What if there’s a power imbalance in their relationship, like the kind that exists between manager and employee? When those views collide, only one will prevail: the one who holds the power, and with it, the “right” perspective.
This is an all-too-common problem with performance conversations. Managers who do a lot of window gazing offer a view that’s extremely limited and lopsided. They, not their employees, are the ones who decide where to look and what to see. Because their field of view is constrained – omitting details that neither they nor their employees can easily recall – managers often lose sight of the larger landscape.
As a result, feedback formed by window gazing ends up being highly particular but severely myopic. It comes across as judgmental and picky. And because we’re prone to quickly forget what we learn, window gazing is an unreliable measure of performance, since it accounts only for what the person giving feedback can remember.
And yet window gazing remains the default setting of many managers. They approach performance management as a series of prescriptions – what to keep, what to change – based on an understanding they’ve created mostly by themselves, without much input or insight from their employees. Why should we be surprised when people treat this feedback loop with disdain and distrust?
Mirror holding: Listening and learning
The good news is that by adopting a different mindset toward performance conversations, we can change their tone and trajectory. Instead of telling others what to see, we can use our role as feedback providers to help others see more clearly for themselves. I call it “mirror holding.”
Mirror holding is the conscious act of making your view smaller to allow someone else’s view to become larger. As the one holding the mirror, there’s not much to look at – all you can see is the mirror’s opaque backside. The real view belongs to whomever is sitting across from you. The closer they look, the clearer the image staring right back at them.
Unlike traditional sit-downs between managers and employees, this approach places a strong emphasis on development and coaching, not just ratings and critique. Mirror holding produces two-way conversations that are directed by managers but ultimately controlled by employees. They are the ones who decide what’s seen and shared. They are given the opportunity to exercise greater voice and choice in how the conversation unfolds.
But make no mistake: Mirror holding does not diminish the role of managers. In fact, it gives them greater opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of their employees. Instead of acting with power, managers approach as partners – listening, prompting, and coaching their employees to define and describe their past performance and future priorities. Their job, quite simply, is to hold the mirror long enough for others to recognize what it is they’re seeing – and then take the steps to bring that image to life.
Window gazing takes in a view that cannot be changed. Mirror holding produces a view that still can.
@joemhirsch
Becoming a mirror holder
Making the transition from window gazing to mirror holding takes deliberate practice, but it’s something every leader can do with the right amount of effort and intent. Here are three practical tips to help leaders start holding the mirror:
Ask more, talk less:
Mirror holders spend more time asking and less time asserting. Their feedback is guided by questions, not assumptions. Rather than try to force a change, mirror holders attempt to provoke an insight, tilting the feedback dynamics from power to partnership and from blame to inquiry. When leaders make their own voices smaller, they make other people’s voices louder.
Questions should be non-leading and simply worded. “Tell me about a time this quarter you felt energized” or “What helped you do your best work?” are good openers. And then let the conversation flow from there. When feedback becomes a two-way exchange, both sides end up learning more about the other.
Listen and look:
While the goal of mirror holding is to help others see themselves more clearly, it’s also important to be vigilant about what they say – and, more importantly, what they don’t. Pay attention to the details and direction of the conversation. Does the feedback receiver seem to be holding back? Placing emphasis on certain episodes or encounters? What does that individual’s body language and tone of voice suggest? Listening for those signals and looking for those clues will help mirror holders adjust the frame for the best possible view.
As a mirror holder, it’s your job to be a first-class “noticer.” Staying attuned to verbal and non-verbal cues of others is how you’ll help them discover things about themselves that may be obvious to everyone else but them.
Shape the path:
At its best, mirror holding can build and sustain more positive and collaborative relationships between managers and employees. Having given others room for reflection, it’s the responsibility of managers to shape their path of progress. Staying with a “describe, not prescribe” approach, mirror holders should steer the conversation toward actionable improvement by asking others to imagine what future success looks like. That pushes the feedback receiver to make concrete observations that serve as the basis for concrete next steps.
But unlike the forced format of a traditional appraisal, it’s up to the individual to decide which path to take. All a manager did can do is mark the trailhead and shape the path. Ultimately, people change what they feel they can control – and by providing others with greater voice and choice in how feedback is sized and scoped, managers increase the likelihood that people will act on the information that is reflected back at them.
The best feedback helps others understand their strengths and provides the encouragement and guidance to build on those strengths. Mirror holders set the conditions for positive and lasting change. Making that small adjustment in your mindset can produce a world of difference in your message – and just might help others see themselves in an entirely new way.
A Better You (Part 2)
Four podcasts to help you lead and live with purpose.
It’s amazing how far we can go when life stands still.
Last week’s post kicked off a month-long series on becoming “A Better You.” Featuring four popular episodes from my podcast I Wish They Knew, the round-up offered great insights on discovering our hidden influence, developing a plan for productivity, growing sideways in our careers and finding that missing spark of motivation.
Summertime is the perfect time for rethinking and reflecting. The stillness of summer provides just the right amount of time and space for self-discovery – which just so happens to be the theme of I Wish They Knew.
Now heard in 35 countries around the world, the show features world-renowned business leaders, media personalities, bestselling authors and education reformers. It explores big ideas in short conversations – from learning to loss, purpose to public speaking, work to wellness, and, of course, feedback.
Which is why I’m excited to share another batch of episodes to help you become…a better you.
Turn workplaces into communities (Christine Porath)
Is the modern workplace increasing our happiness and belonging or making us feel lonelier and more disconnected? Christine Porath has a message for our moment: Work needs to be a community where individuals share concern for one another. Christine shows that with the right amount of information sharing, purposeful practices and compassionate candor, work can flourish – and so can the people who do it.
Creativity is everybody’s business (Josh Linkner)
Creativity isn’t a hidden talent that belongs to a select few – it’s a native force that resides in all of us. Josh Linkner shows us how to become everyday innovators and turn creativity into a discipline that can be practiced and learned. Josh breaks down the beliefs and behaviors that lead to creative breakthroughs, how to develop big ideas through testing and experimentation, and how leaders can foster creativity throughout their organizations.
Make your office less toxic (Liane Davey)
From difficult bosses to annoying coworkers and outrageous clients, workplace toxins drain our energy, inhibit our work, crush our spirits and diminish our productivity. Liane Davey is here to fix that by helping us learn how to fight “the good fight.” Liane offers powerful and straightforward techniques for creating healthier conditions that allow us to do and feel our best at work and beyond.
Become a more followable leader (Mark Bowden)
The best communicators understand that how they speak matters just as much as what they say. To become truly followable, leaders need to communicate with consistency. Mark Bowden shows us how to become more followable by earning and keeping the trust of others and offers practical tips for anyone hoping to exert a positive influence on the people with whom we work and live.
New episodes of I Wish They Knew air each week. Subscribe to the show to never miss a wish!
A Better You (Part 1)
Use downtime as primetime to get better. These four conversations can help.
For many people, August is quiet month. Work feels a bit more relaxed. School is out for most kids. Summer trips still beckon. But this downtime is the perfect time for reflection and rethinking: What could I be doing better?
Better habits. Better routines. Better relationships. Better goals.
A better you.
Two summers ago, I did what everybody else seemed to be doing and launched a podcast, I Wish They Knew. The show focuses on big ideas that deserve more attention. Each episode features short-forms conversations with thought leaders and lasts about 15 minutes – about the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. (For some, the amount of time they wish they had to drink a cup of coffee!)
Almost 100 episodes later, the podcast is heard in 35 countries around the world and has featured world-renowned business leaders, media personalities, bestselling authors and education reformers. We’ve covered a lot of territory, from to learning to loss, purpose to public speaking, work to wellness – and, of course, feedback.
The show has helped people around the globe and from all walks of life answer a simple question:
What do you wish more people knew?
For the next few weeks, I’d like to use this space to share some of the big ideas that deserve your attention – in about the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee.
Here are four wishes from recent guests to help you…become a better you.
Your hidden influence (Vanessa Bohns)
We tend to believe that influence belongs only to the most visible or powerful people in the room. But as Vanessa Bohns explains, we have more influence than we think. Explore why people doubt their power to persuade, how we undermine our own influence, and the surprising (and even outrageous) things we can get people to do on our behalf.
Make a productivity plan (Jeff Sanders)
Why do we always feel like we’re working so hard and yet have so little to show for it? The sad reality is that we’re busy but not productive. Jeff Sanders shows us how to fix that by developing deep focus and getting our priorities in place. From choosing the right tasks to setting the right environment, you’ll learn how to develop effective habits and routines to feel more personally and professionally accomplished at the end of each day.
Grow sideways in your career (Kelli Thompson)
We’re told that professional success follows a series of upward steps. But what if our career ladders are pointing in the wrong direction? Kelli Thompson challenges us to rethink our assumptions about career growth and shares a career alignment tool to help us know if we’re pointed in the right direction.
Find your real motivation (Todd Henry)
Why do we do what we do? It turns out the traditional view of motivation – a system of rewards and repercussions – doesn’t account for the highly nuanced, deeply ingrained factors that drive our behaviors and beliefs. To understand motivation, says Todd Henry, we need to crack the code – literally.
New episodes of I Wish They Knew air each week. Subscribe to the show to never miss a wish!
Use feedforward to find your big idea
By looking at future possibilities instead of past failures, we move people and ideas forward.
Feedforward is the new fuel of feedback. It’s more than just a play on words. It’s an entirely new playbook for how we think about people, performance and potential. It activates our most human desire for agency and achievement. And it focuses on a future people can still change, not a past they can’t.
Shifting our perspective can make all the difference. When we start to focus on future possibilities instead of past failures, there is no limit to our potential.
Setbacks are starting points
Spencer Silver should know. Silver worked as a research scientist for 3M, the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer goods. Back in 1968, Silver was trying to develop a new type of glue for the company’s line of adhesives. After tinkering with different solutions in his lab, Silver ended up with an adhesive that was, to put it charitably, unusual. It didn’t dissolve. It didn’t bond. And it didn’t stick to most surfaces.
Would you buy glue that didn’t stick? Probably not.
Which is exactly what other research scientists at 3M told Silver after he showed them his strange glue at a product demonstration. So Silver went back to his lab, started over, and pretty much forgot about the glue-less glue.
Look for hidden potential
But not everyone did. Around that same time, another scientist at 3M named Art Fry had a problem of his own. He was a member of the choir at his St. Paul church and routinely kept losing the bookmarks in his hymnbook during services. He was at Silver’s product demonstration and wondered if the “glue that didn’t stick” might just keep the bookmarks from slipping out of the book without damaging its pages.
He was right.
Silver and Fry soon began collaborating on an early prototype of a “temporarily permanent” glue. Most of their models failed to catch on with company executives, but Silver and Fry stuck with it. (Bad pun. But too irresistible to pass up.) They finally caught a break in the late 1970s when 3M began testing their glue an office product with 3M secretaries.
It was a hit!
Silver and Fry’s adhesive launched in the early 1980s under the name “Press and Peel” and was applied to small, canary yellow pieces of paper – which, according to legend, happened to be the color that 3M had overstocked at the time.
A decade later, the product gained more fame and even a new name – and the Post-It note has become a fixture of how we work and live ever since.
Feedforward: Shift your view
Imagine how differently things would have turned out had Spencer Silver and Art Fry listened to the skeptics. Your glue is useless. It has no market value. There’s no way this can work. The feedback they received pointed only the mistakes and missteps of the past. It looked backward, not forward.
But instead of dwelling on past failures, Silver and Fry looked forward to future possibilities. There wasn’t anything wrong with their glue – just the way people looked at it. Once they changed the view, Silver and Fry got their breakthrough.
Feedback is only a burden because we’ve got it backwards. The creation of the Post-It note shows that feedback flourishes when it operates in future tense, where promise and possibility still reside.
If we want to move people and ideas forward, then we need to adopt a matching mindset and message. There’s hidden potential waiting to be uncovered. And when we adopt a feedforward approach, we might just be surprised by what we find.
Creativity thrives with feedback
Dead-end feedback shuts down creativity. This approach can change that.
Feedback is the fuel of personal growth and development, but it’s also a critical driver of creativity. Anyone who does creative work knows this. At the same time, giving feedback about the creative process can have a chilling effect on how ideas are conceived and expressed. Judging someone’s creative expression is a delicate act that may end up shutting ideas and creative energy down.
Creativity isn’t easy
Pixar Studios knows this challenge better than most. Over the years, it has collected more than twenty Academy Awards for hits like Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo. Its feature films have earned nearly $14 billion at the worldwide box office, with an average worldwide gross of $680 million per film. The memorable characters and storylines that Pixar dreams up have delighted moviegoers of all ages.
But creating full-length animated films is no small feat. A single scene lasting just four seconds requires about one hundred frames, which can take up to a week to produce. At times, the process can seem more forensic than artistic. Story artists comb through every detail of a scene, scanning for things that probably go unnoticed by viewers – the placement of a prop, perhaps, or the way a character’s eyes roll.
The margin for error is high. As production unfolds, bits and pieces of the story – from camera angles and lighting to sound effects and motion capture – get reviewed and revised by film editors, technical directors, and creative designers. All that trimming adds up: It took Pixar’s team five years to scope more than 146,000 images before bringing Toy Story 4 to the box office.
Raising the idea count up
Despite the painstaking process of creating stories on screen, Pixar has found a way to share feedback without hold ups or hang ups. They rely on a feedback approach they call “plussing.” Rather than writing off concepts completely, people are encouraged to be candid and collaborative. Instead of shutting down ideas, animators try to add on to them with suggestions for improvement.
So when the creative director for Toy Story 4 didn’t like the initial design concept for Bo Peep (it took ten design concepts to finally get the right one), he asked the story artist, “I like the way you drew Bo Peep’s bonnet. What if it curled up a bit on the edge?”
While that might seem semantic, the feedback effect is significant. “Plussing” is an active feedback system that’s built on candor, caring, and a steady openness to the hidden potential of ideas. It holds ideas up for scrutiny without the sting of rejection.
Walt Disney captured the magic of “plussing” more than 60 years ago in an interview describing the planning of Disneyland:
A picture is a thing that once you wrap it up and turn it over to Technicolor, you’re through. Snow White is a dead issue with me. The last picture I just finished—the one I just wrapped up a few weeks ago—it’s gone; I can’t touch it. There’s things in it I don’t like? I can’t do anything about it.
WALT DISNEY
Disney went on to say: “I wanted something live, something that could grow, something I could keep plussing with ideas, you see? The park is that. Not only can I add things but even the trees will keep growing; the thing will get more beautiful every year.”
The power of “yes and”
“Plussing” takes a page from improv comedy, in which partners keep their sketch alive by “accepting all offers” and mining for little wrinkles in each other’s ideas. The driving force behind these creative exchanges is a simple two-word refrain: Yes and.
People who operate with a “yes and” approach use their words to amplify ideas, not silence them. For improv comedians, this means searching for the just the right angle to keep ideas alive. But the magic of “yes and” thinking can be just as useful in other interactions, whether they’re taking place at work or in our homes.
Imagine what would happen in your next meeting if you tried to amplify someone else’s idea instead of just silencing it completely. Or if you patiently worked through a problem with your child by accepting his or her suggestion while still surfacing alternatives.
With just a simple tweak in our feedback, we help others think about ways to turn the corner rather than leaving them stranded at dead ends. And while this approach has worked wonders for Pixar, it can be applied as a collaborative feedback strategy to help just about anyone challenge their initial assumptions and come up with a better version than the one they had before.
Whether it’s big-screen success or small wins in our work or relationships, “plussing” can be a powerful way for us to lift up other people’s ideas and even our own relationships.
Ten Commandments of Feedback
Feedback can be divine when we follow these rules.
We have such a hard time giving and receiving feedback, you’d think it was a divine decree.
Some prefer to dodge and disguise it. Others choose to defy and deny it. Depending on where you work, the feedback culture can range from cautiously polite to positively caustic — and that’s assuming people bother to share any sort of feedback at all.
After years of helping organizations apply a feedback fix, I’ve found these ten rules to be particularly instructive. The list isn’t sacred or chiseled in stone, but the practices can improve the feedback experience for both givers and receivers– and may just help you discover the joy of feedback once and for all.
1. Hold the mirror.
“Mirror holding” is a dramatic shift in the tone and trajectory of feedback conversations. Instead of telling their employees what to see, managers show them where to look. The best leaders I’ve worked with don’t force a change. They provoke an insight. They treat feedback as an opportunity to expand the view of others, not enlarge their own.
2. Look forward.
Feedforward is the process of pointing others towards a future they can still change instead of a past they can’t. The future is a place of possibility and potential. That’s exactly where leaders should be guiding these conversations about work. Work quality improves when people believe their future is clear, exciting, and something they can create. There’s a reason a car’s dashboard is bigger than its rearview mirror!
3. Listen and learn.
“Know it alls” like to think they have all the answers. “Learn it alls” like it to get answers from others. A simple way to turn feedback into a conversation is to adopt a learning mindset. Stay curious. Be humble. It’s amazing what we learn about ourselves when we’re just a little less certain about our own beliefs.
4. Ask for it.
Too often, feedback arrives too late. Take matters into your own hands by asking for feedback. And ask often. Giving people multiple opportunities to deliver feedback eases their comfort level and increases the likelihood they’ll share something useful. Feedback is too important to leave to chance. Get it on your terms.
5. Widen your circle.
After getting negative feedback, the last thing you want is more criticism. But that’s exactly what we need, and it pays to seek input from critics and challenge networks. By reaching out to others for their insights and input, you’ll deepen your understanding of the feedback you received. We need objective voices to help us find the signal amid all the noise.
6. No time lapse.
We forget things almost as soon as we learn them. This “forgetting curve” wipes out nearly 90% of information that’s not actively retrieved. When feedback is time lapsed, the effects can be devastating: Neither the giver nor receiver can truly recall what happened. The result is blame, shame and pain. The recourse: Make friends with frequency.
7. No sandwiches.
There’s nothing wrong with a little praise — just a praise sandwich. Not only does it dilute the message (we don’t know what others are saying), but it diminishes trust (we can’t rely on what they’re saying). For better results, try serving a feedback WRAP: The combination of candor and collaboration offers a more satisfying experience for givers and receivers alike.
8. No pile-ons.
Too many choices and a myriad of decisions literally shut down our ability to process and perform. When feedback feels like fire hose, it shuts people down. Instead of piling on, set a few targets at a time. It’s easier to track and execute, raising the odds that real improvements will happen.
9. No uniformity.
With feedback, one size fits none. Experts and novices have different feedback preferences, as do men and women. Right-sizing our feedback means taking these and other realities into account. I’ve found it helpful to ask others how they wish to receive feedback — written, verbally or a combination of the two. People are unique. Their feedback should be, too.
10. No obsessing.
Don’t waste time obsessing over details — it distracts you from the larger lessons. Instead of parsing the message for hidden meaning, simply thank the person for giving you the feedback and make a plan of action. Too many people get stuck on what happened and fail to think about what needs to happen next. Don’t obsess. Progress.
Jerks at Work: A Better Approach
Before you blame and shame, try to name the cause of jerky behavior.
Jerks at work: A sad but stubborn fact of office life. Office jerks cause all sorts of havoc, from minor annoyances to full-blown office showdowns. These experiences slowly deplete our energy, drain our emotional well-being, and make it downright unpleasant to show up for our jobs.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Tessa West, a social psychologist at NYU, joined me on I Wish They Knew to provide some insights and instructions on how to handle office jerks — without losing our standing or sanity. (You can listen to our full conversation below.)
When dealing with jerks, people tend to fall into two camps: direct confrontation or passive acceptance. We either take a forceful stand or simply stand down. But relationship science may offer a more nuanced and optimal path: detached deliberation.
Detached deliberation is the process of analyzing another person’s intentions and assessing the larger context in which it occurs. Before we blame and shame others, we need to name the behavior and its origins. Every big problem begins as a small problem, and it’s worth considering how an organization’s culture, values and norms may be contributing to the way people act towards others.
Not all jerks are made equal. In our podcast, West identified several “profiles” of office jerks and provided guidance on how to deal effectively with each one. Here are her tips for handling some of the classic offenders:
1. The Kiss-Up/Kick-Downer
Kiss-up/kick-downers get to the top by any means necessary, which may mean sabotaging you. Bosses love them because they’re top performers.
Jerks may do this:
- Belittling you in front of higher-ups: They start out small, often with comments questioning your expertise: “Do you really know how to land that client? You only have two months’ of experience.”
- Reserving nasty behavior for one-on-one time: Expect little acts of sabotage, inappropriate favor asking and misdirection.
- Offering favors to overwhelmed bosses: If your boss needs a job done off-hours or someone to serve on that dreaded committee, the kiss-up/kick-downer will step up.
What you should do:
- Find allies who can give you a reality check: The best allies are well-connected at many levels of the organization, and can give you an accurate picture of how widespread your “jerk-at-work” problem is.
- Approach your boss wisely: Because kiss-up/kick-downers know how to charm the people in charge, there’s a good chance your boss is on their side. Collect detailed data on your experiences. Make your report about their behaviors, not about your feelings.
- If you’re the boss, create rules that give everyone an equal shot: These rules will reduce the likelihood that people will kiss up and kick down to get ahead.
2. The Credit Stealer
Credit stealers are notoriously two-faced. They may seem like your friends, but will betray your trust if your idea is good enough to steal.
Jerks may do this:
- Waiting for moments of ambiguity to take credit: Group meetings, company lunches, informal feedback sessions are prime times for stealing credit when informality is high and accountability is low.
- Pretending to be someone you can trust: They can be mentees, allies and so-called friends. New bosses who feel threatened by your success are also likely candidates.
- Not always being intentional: Credit stealers can also be regular folks who have biases that make them overestimate their role in decision-making. What feels toxic to us feels justified to them.
What you should do:
- Become someone your boss goes to for advice: In meetings, focus more on contributing solutions than on identifying problems.
- Make sure the right people are heard: This is just as important in combating credit stealing as it is weeding out individual credit stealers.
- Decide what each person will do before starting a project: Credit is determined by the discrepancy between two questions: What did you agree to do, and what did you actually do? When people know these questions are coming, they’re less likely to steal credit.
3. The Bulldozer
Bulldozers are seasoned, well-connected employees who aren’t afraid to flex their muscles to get what they want.
Jerks may do this:
- Asserting power early: They might take over during the first five minutes of a meeting when everyone is introducing themselves, or when the team is trying to come up with a plan.
- Finding teams that can’t function without their expertise: A bulldozer is the only person who can work that new software everyone hates. They also know all the passwords.
- Bullying vulnerable bosses into submission: Bosses who are overworked, out of touch and hate conflict make ideal targets.
What you should do:
- Don’t wait for everyone to establish their voices before you: When you do speak, get to the point quickly.
- Inform your boss about the bulldozer: Use the “loss frame” approach: Express concern for those who aren’t getting a chance to speak up. Whose perspective are you missing out on by letting one person dominate the conversation?
- Help other people get their voices heard: Some bulldozers are truly clueless about how much time they take up, and can often be persuaded to use their skills to encourage contributions. Focus on ways you can help amplify those other voices.
We spend too much time at work to be chronically unhappy or uneasy about our workplace relationships. By practicing detached deliberation, we can get to the core of what’s driving jerky behavior — and find better alternatives to the approaches we’re using now.
To Earn Trust, Extend Trust
Show others you trust them.
Do you trust your employees? Better yet, do your employees trust you?
The research case for trust is clear: Employees who are less trusted by their manager exert less effort, are less productive, and are more likely to leave the organization. Employees who do feel trusted are higher performers who go above and beyond role expectations. Plus, when employees feel their supervisors trust them to get key tasks done, they have greater confidence in the workplace and perform at a higher level.
There’s no single measure or indicator of trust, but you basically know it when you see it:
Over the years, I’ve come to realize a not-so-tiny truth about trust:
If you want to earn trust, extend trust.
Or, put another way: Trust gives way to trust. If you want your employees (or your friends or family members, for that matter) to trust you, show them you trust them.
Easier said than done. But here are are a few ways you can forge high-trust relationships at work (and beyond) to create happier, healthier dynamics between you and others.
Trust, but verify
First, don’t assume that your employees have placed their trust in you. Learn to read their trust levels by understanding the risks and vulnerabilities they face. Take an inventory of the practices, policies, and controls found in your organization. (Here’s a nifty trust diagnostic that I’ve used with my clients.) When you look at policies from the perspective of the employee, are they designed to engage employees or to protect the organization from them? The picture may surprise you.
Give some ground
Second, recognize that trust starts at the top. Earning trust is best achieved through a series of incremental steps, like adequately scoping assignments, granting resource authority, and showing a healthy tolerance for mistakes. Rather than taking harsh corrective action, treat employee mistakes as opportunities to facilitate learning. People won’t trust you if they can’t be themselves around you.
Proactively partner up
Finally, if you want people to trust you, it’s crucial to communicate openly and honestly with them. Managers are often reluctant to share information and explain their decisions for fear of premature leaks, second-guessing, or dissension. Being transparent signals that you trust people with the truth, even in difficult circumstances. Trust can’t live in the dark.
How leaders can build trust
Leaders get the trust they deserve. If they commit to trust-building behaviors, they’ll create high-trust environments. People will do better work and feel better about the work they do. By contrast, leaders who practice trust-busting behaviors will end up producing low-trust (or even zero-trust) cultures where people wither and withdraw. The list of trust-busting behavior is long and varied, so let’s focus on the trust-building behaviors that get the best results.
First, be honest. Tell people the truth, even if it’s to your disadvantage. When communicating with others, use truthful non-verbal communication. Look people in the eye, and and use open body language. What we show matters more than what we say.
Next, communicate openly. Talk to your team members in an honest, meaningful way. Listen deeply for what’s being said (and what’s left unsaid). If you have important or relevant information, share it immediately with others. And be sure to meet face to face on a regular basis. People feel reassured when they know what’s going on.
Finally, forge relationships. Create a forum (WhatsApp group, Slack channel, etc.) for sharing “human” content like stories, quips, videos or memes. It may not be related to work, but it builds a stronger sense of community and comity. And find time to get together outside the office. Don’t underestimate the power of casual social activities after work.
Trust is hard to earn and even harder to keep. But if we carefully consider how our actions (direct and unintentional) play into people’s decision to trust us, we’ll not only do a better job at reading the trust landscape, we’ll get better results – and relationships – from the people closest to us.