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The other kind of credibility issue that triggers reactions has to do with values and identity. We don’t want to be the kind of leaders—or the kind of people—that they are. So why would we take their coaching?
There are often aspects of their counsel that are helpful or even wise, even as you choose to implement them in a way that is more consistent with your own values.
Trust: Their Motives Are Suspect “Trust” in this context refers to the giver’s motivations, and is fundamental to our willingness to consider other people’s coaching, accept their evaluation, or believe their appreciation genuine.
Mistrust can get triggered in several ways. Sometimes we fear that the giver’s intentions are nefarious.
That’s fine, we’ll check “feedback received” and be on our way.
We care deeply about others’ intentions but we simply can’t know them.2 And so we go down the rabbit hole of trying to guess, and burrow around in the dark. When we finally emerge, we’re still uncertain, or worse, we think we know their intentions when we don’t. It’s not that we should therefore assume good intentions.
Indeed. The advice was identical, but the person giving it changed. And that removed the relationship trigger that blocked the feedback when it came from his girlfriend. In Fred’s view, Eva rather enjoys bossing him around, something he enjoys rather less. And she has never been on crutches, so what does she know? The café stranger? A whole different story. Why would the stranger say anything unless she was trying to help? And she established right up front that she had walked in Fred’s (orthotic) shoes. Credibility. No ulterior motives. Feedback taken.
Those You Least Like and Who Are Least Like You The other surprisingly valuable players in the feedback game are the people you find most difficult.
Why in the world would you listen to feedback from them? Because they have a unique perspective on you. We tend to like people who like us and who are like us.3 So if you live mostly without friction with your mate or work well with a colleague, chances are you have similar styles, assumptions, and habits. Your preferences and expectations may not be identical, but the two of you fall into an easy complementariness. Because of this ease, you are often at your best and most productive with them. They can’t help you with your sharpest edges because they don’t see those edges. The woman in
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We need honest mirrors in these moments, and often that role is played best by those with whom we have the hardest time.
Want to fast-track your growth? Go directly to the people you have the hardest time with. Ask them what you’re doing that’s exacerbating the situation. They will surely tell you.
HOW WE FEEL TREATED BY THEM The first type of relationship trigger derives from what we think about the feedback giver. The second type comes from how we feel treated by them.
Whether professional or personal, casual or intimate, we expect many things from our relationships. Among these there are three key relationship interests that commonly get snagged on the brambles of feedback: our needs for appreciation, autonomy, and acceptance.
Autonomy Autonomy is about control, and in telling us what to do or how to do it, givers can trip this wire in an instant. Often our boundaries are invisible—to others and even to us—until they have been violated. That’s when the contours suddenly crystallize.
simply realizing that we’re triggered not by the advice itself but by being told what to do will help us address the correct topic. We can have an explicit conversation about the appropriate boundaries of autonomy instead of a pointless argument about whether your suggested grammatical changes to my e-mail make sense.4 Acceptance It’s the paradox at the heart of many feedback conversations: We find it hard to take feedback from someone who doesn’t accept us the way we are now.
This is complex terrain. The givers want us to change in some way. We want to know that it’s okay if we don’t. You say you love me in spite of my flaws; I want you to love me because of them. One dynamic that contributes to the challenge is that the giver and receiver may define acceptance differently. What to the giver seems like a recommendation for a small behavioral tweak may feel to the receiver like a rejection of Who I Am.
RELATIONSHIP TRIGGERS: WHAT HELPS? The goal here isn’t to dismiss the relationship issues that trigger reactions. As we’ve said, sometimes the second topic is at least as important as the first. The goal is to get better at realizing when we’ve got two topics on the table, and to address each on the merits rather than letting one get tangled up in, or cancel out, the other. There are three moves that can help us manage relationship triggers and avoid switchtracking.
First, we need to be able to spot the two topics on the table (the original feedback and the relationship concern). Next, we need to give each topic its own conversation track (and get both people on the same track at the same time). Third, we need to help givers be clearer about their original feedback, especially when the feedback itself relates to the relationship.
SPOT THE TWO TOPICS The first skill is awareness. We can’t give each topic its own track unless we are aw...
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GIVE EACH TOPIC ITS OWN TRACK Okay, you’ve spotted the two topics. Now what? Signposting At the point at which you realize there are two topics running simultaneously, say that out loud and propose a way forward. Just like the signal that directs train traffic at the switch, you’re offering a directional sign to mark the junction where two tracks—the two topics—are splitting.
The template for signposting is this: “I see two related but separate topics for us to discuss. They are both important. Let’s discuss each topic fully but separately, giving each topic its own track. After we’ve finished discussing the first topic, we’ll swing back around and discuss the second one.”
LISTEN FOR THE RELATIONSHIP ISSUES LURKING BENEATH THEIR “ADVICE” Even when we are alert enough to resist switchtracking, we can fall into another common trap: We stay on the giver’s topic (their track), but we misunderstand what that topic is. This happens in part because of the often-clumsy way givers raise their concerns. Our giver says he is giving us “friendly advice” to help us improve, when really he is raising a deeper relationship issue between us. We take the comment at face value and assume we understand. But we don’t.
So when you receive coaching, a question to ask yourself is this: Is this about helping me grow and improve, or is this the giver’s way of raising an important relationship issue that has been upsetting them? “You might want to be more responsive” might mean: “I’m frustrated that you don’t return my calls.”
This is not to say that every piece of coaching you get is really hurt feelings in a coaching disguise. Don’t simply assume there is always something deeper going on. Instead, check: Are we on the same track? What is the real topic here?
Once you are aware of relationship triggers and switchtrack conversations, you will see them everywhere. Like a mouse in a maze, you’ll start noticing just how many places feedback conversations can split into two and sometimes three topics at once.
Summary: SOME KEY IDEAS We can be triggered by who is giving us the feedback. What we think about the giver: Are they credible? Do we trust them? Did they deliver our feedback with good judgment and skill? How we feel treated by the giver: Do we feel accepted? Appreciated? Like our autonomy is respected? Relationship triggers create switchtrack conversations, where we have two topics on the table and talk past each other. Spot the two topics and give each its own track. Surprise players in the feedback game: Strangers People we find difficult People we find difficult see us at our worst and
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WHO IS THE PROBLEM AND WHO NEEDS TO CHANGE? Feedback is often prompted by a problem: Something isn’t working. Something isn’t right.
When something goes wrong, we need to be able to talk about it so that we can figure it out and fix it. But here’s where things get strange. When we are the ones giving the feedback, we know we are offering “constructive criticism” and helpful coaching. We’re confident that we’ve correctly identified the cause of the problem, and we’re stepping up to address it. Yet when we’re on the receiving end of this kind of feedback, we don’t hear it as “constructive” anything. We hear it as blame: This is your fault. You are the problem. You need to change. And that feels incredibly unfair, because we
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Even for the most thoughtful among us, it’s not easy to put our finger on exactly why these perspectives feel so different. It has to be more than just a matter of which side of the feedback conversation we’re on, doesn’t it? It does. But to see why, we need to understand relationship systems. SEE THE RELATIONSHIP SYSTEM
When something goes wrong in a system, we each see some things the other doesn’t, and these observations are not randomly distributed between us. When something goes wrong, I tend to see the things that you did that led to it, and you tend to see the things I did.
So you’re blaming me in good faith, and I’m indignant and turn around and blame you in good faith. We each see, genuinely, what the other is contributing to the trouble, and we each believe we shouldn’t be taking all the heat for the problem. That’s Systems Insight Number Two: Each of us sees only part of the problem (the part the other person is contributing). Systems Insight Number One is this: Each of us is part of the problem. Maybe not to the same extent, but we’re both involved, each affecting the other.
It takes the two of you being the way you are to create the problem. That’s how systems work. A systems view helps us understand what’s producing the frustration or difficulties or mistakes (and hence prompting the feedback) in the first place. It helps us identify root causes and the ways everyone in the system is contributing to the problem. And it explains the contradictory reactions we have as givers and receivers. Receivers react defensively because they see clearly the giver’s contribution to the problem, and givers are surprised by the receiver’s defensiveness because the receiver’s
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If we’re going to have better conversations about feedback, we need a better handle on the ways that giver and receiver (and often others) are contributing to the problem under discussion. This helps us move beyond blame and defensiveness and toward understanding, and it also produces more durable solutions. Often when we look at a relationship system, we discover simple things each of us can change that will have a big impact on the whole. And
TAKE THREE STEPS BACK Let’s look at systems from three different vantage points—from close in, medium range, and wide angle. Each view enables us to see different patterns and dynamics in our relati...
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Two Steps Back: Role Clashes.
Three Steps Back: The Big Picture.
ONE STEP BACK: YOU + ME INTERSECTIONS Feedback is often expressed as “This is how you are, and that’s the problem.” But in relationships, “This is how you are” really means “This is how you are in relationship to how I am.” It’s the combination—the intersection of our differences—that is often causing the problem.
These differences often become dynamic systems, creating downward spirals of action and reaction.
Neither Sandy nor Gil sees the system. From the inside, what we see is the other person’s behavior and its impact on us. We see ourselves as merely responding to the problem that the other person is creating. Intersections—differences in preferences, tendencies, and traits that cause us to bump into each other—account for a significant proportion of the friction and feedback in both personal and professional relationships. Marriage researcher John Gottman reports that 69 percent of the fights married couples currently have are about the same subjects they were arguing about five years ago.1
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Our own preferences, tendencies, and traits can sometimes be outside our awareness: how we manage uncertainty; how we experience novelty; what makes us feel safe; what recharges or drains our energy; how we experience conflict; whether we are detail- or big-picture-oriented, linear or random, volatile or stable, optimistic or pessimistic. In fact, we may not even realize that our own tendencies are tendencies until we are in the company of someone who is different.
We also don’t see our own system patterns, although people outside of them can often spot their contours easily. You are exasperated with your kids: Why do I have to ask you seven hundred times to get your shoes out of the middle of the kitchen? Your father-in-law is visiting and offers some (uninvited) coaching: “You need to follow through. You need to be consistent.” This is enough to send you over the edge—you are following through by asking them 699 more times, after all. Previously, you had been giving up and moving the shoes yourself. And yet your father-in-law sees something in your
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Taking one step back means stepping outside your own perspective to observe the system as your father-in-law does. Instead of focusing on what the other person is doing wrong, notice what you are each doing in reaction to the other.
As you do, you’ll begin to spot the larger patterns. Continual pestering, which you thought was the “following through” solution, is actually reinforcing the problem.2 TWO STEPS BACK: ROLE CLASHES AND ACCIDENTAL ADVERSARIES The first step back looks at you and the other person, and the way your tendencies interact and intersect. The second step back adds another layer: This is not just about yo...
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one—roles have an effect on behavior that is independent of character. A role is like an ice cube tray into which you pour your personality. What you pour in matters, but so does the shape of the tray.
One important role pattern is called “accidental adversaries.”3 If two people bump into each other enough and cause each other enough frustration, each will begin considering the other an “adversary.” Each attributes the problem to the personality and questionable intentions of the other. But often the true culprit is the structure of the roles they are in, which are (accidentally) creating chronic conflict. If we are each at one end of a rope and our job is to pull, then merely doing our jobs creates a tug-of-war.
Accidental adversaries are created by two things: role confusion and role clarity. As organizations change and responsibilities shift, roles get messy quickly. It’s no longer clear where my position ends and yours begins.
It’s impossible to overstate the extent to which role confusion exists, even in the most well-run organizations. Three of us think we’re in charge of task A, and none of us thinks we’re in charge of tasks B, C, and D.
Sometimes role clashes arise not from confusion but from clarity. The tension is embedded in the organizational structure itself. Compliance officers and traders at a bank will often be in conflict, not just because of rogue traders or overly cautious compliance officers, but because the very nature of their roles puts them at odds. Other common examples are Sales and Legal, surgeons and anesthesiologists, architects and engineers, and HR and everyone. As one HR executive joked, “In HR, we’re not happy until you’re not happy.”
At the organizational level, these role tensions serve important purposes, but at the interpersonal level they can be destructive, especially if people are misidentifying the source of the conflict. It’s essential to disentangle the individual from their role by taking two steps back and asking: How are our roles contributing to how we see each other, and to the feedback we give each other?
