Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues

by Carole Robin

bludgeon

we encourage you to reflect on what stops you from effectively using feedback.

Most interpersonal issues are complex and layered. Remember, you only know your feelings and your needs. You have only part of the story.

And there may be a lot that I may not be aware yet, in my own domain, myself.

When feedback conversations don’t go well, we conclude that we were right to see them as dangerous.

A fallacy, a self fulfilling prophecy.

the problem was not in what we raised but in what we didn’t.

Or how we have raised it. How is sometimes more important than what.

the important distinction is between how you feel and what actions you take. You have little choice about the former, since feelings come up whether you want them or not. But you have much more choice about the latter.

Feelings are never “wrong.”

I don’t think I agree with this. Feelings are real. They may be expressing the reality of the moment. They may also be ambiguous, ambivalent, uncertain. I may have to work with them to bring clarity and develop ownership. Once I identify, clarify, and own them, they become my reality. I have also seen people with a significant dark-side. People with multiple personality disorders. How real are their feelings?

legitimacy of your feelings,

“I know you’ve had a run-in with your boss, but I am feeling annoyed at how you are responding. What can we do about this?”

This comment may also be annoying. The person is saying ‘we’, but it will be understood as a clear ‘you’. I would have said something like, ‘... I feel annoyed about (your behavior) ..., and would like to talk to you about it.’

An old TV car-repair ad said, “Pay me now or pay me later,” with the latter being the more expensive repair. Don’t you want to respond to Sharon now, before it gets worse?

We often have multiple feelings in a particular situation, and they can appear to be in conflict.

both feelings are true,

Instead of withholding your feelings, express both of them.

until both emotions are fully expressed, they won’t go away.

I would have changed‘won’t’ with ‘may not’. That would be the more appropriate certainty level here.

fester

emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness and the ability to recognize our feelings as they arise. The capacity to manage (not suppress!) our emotions comes next.

anger is a secondary emotion. When someone feels too exposed to express certain emotions, such as hurt, rejection, or envy, it often feels safer to express anger.

it can be very useful to recognize anger if you can resist moving to blame and accusations and explore what lies underneath it.

When you move from a guess, to a strong hunch, to certainty, you create a story that guarantees curiosity will disappear.

Once we make up a story, an attribution is an easy leap.

Once attributions are made (for which we select confirming data, as previously noted), we often jump to labels.

Attributions and labels oversimplify and are dangerously reductionistic, as they create a very specific lens through which we see someone else.

Creating an alternative story might introduce enough uncertainty to drive you back to curiosity.

It is my story and unfair to you. What is your intent when you tell me about your achievements?” You are acknowledging these are your stories and not an unequivocal truth. But this only works if you can allow for the possibility that your story is wrong.

There are four critical stages when it comes to addressing complex issues. First is getting the other person to take the issue seriously. Second, they have to be willing to fully share what’s going on for them. Third, you want to arrive at a mutually satisfying solution, not just settle for the minimum that will end the discussion. Finally, you need to determine if the relationship is in need of some repair work, because when the discussion has been contentious, it is easy for each person to feel bruised and the relationship to suffer.

Each stage is helped by following the feedback model, and each stage can be sabotaged by violating it.

the only mistake is refusing to learn from your mistakes.

STAGE 1: GETTING THE OTHER PERSON TO TAKE THE FEEDBACK SERIOUSLY

People will usually consider your concerns if they see that your intent in doing so is in their best interests.

“This is how your behavior is affecting me.”

“Your behavior is not meeting your goals.”

“You might be meeting your goals, but you’re paying some unnecessary costs.”

“Am I doing anything that is causing your behavior?”

STAGE 2: SHARING ALL THE ISSUES

The task now is to explore the issues. “Issues” is plural because frequently the first point raised isn’t the only, or necessarily the most important, area of contention.

Not only can the person initiating the feedback have several issues, but raising them may trigger the other person’s concerns.

Sanjay could then respond defensively with a counter-accusation, and they’d be well into the blame game. Neither would be curious, because the objective would be to win. They’d have forgotten behavioral feedback entirely.

When problems are complex and intertwined, things can feel messy. Imagine there’s a muddy swamp, and you need to cross it to get to the high ground on the other side. At first, you carefully look for rocks to step on so as not to get mud on your shoes. But halfway across, the rocks end. You have a choice: “Do I go on and wade through the swamp, or should I turn around?” Turning around ends the discussion, with one person stalking out of the room or, just as dysfunctional, saying, “Let’s just agree to disagree.” The latter might make sense when it comes to politics or large ideological differences, but not in the context of building robust relationships.

it is possible to press on when each side is locked into a defensive position. It can still feel messy, but you can stop the escalation in order to separate out the intertwined issues. If that doesn’t work, you can temporarily set aside the content of the argument to ask, “What’s going on—why are we stuck?” This allows you to process how you got into the swamp in the first place and how you can productively move forward to the dry ground.

both parties need to look at the specific behaviors that led the discussion off course and then share what feelings came up. This is also a good time to reiterate that your intent in giving the feedback is to help both the other and the relationship. Then you can get back to problem-solving.

STAGE 3: RES...

Rather than searching for “an answer,” it is important to recognize that there are multiple desired outcomes. First, you want to ensure the discussion has solved the initia...

Second, you want the discussion to improve your problem-solving ability. This may include understanding how you got into this problem in the first place, but it also should examine how you went about resolving it. Were there places you got stuck, or was it more tortuous than necessary? The objective is to increase, not decrease, each person’s willingness to raise difficult issues in the future.

The third and fourth objectives deal with aspects of the relationship itself. Do you know each other better because in the discussion you’ve shared relevant parts of yourself?

And finally, has your relationship improved as a result of the effort?

STAGE 4: REPAIR

You may need to do some repair work on the relationship. The process may not have been an easy one; things might have been said that caused hurt or regret. Has the importance of the relationship to both of you been lost in this process? Has one or both of you felt devalued?

Saying “I’m sorry” is often a critical component of repair, but many people can’t bring themselves to say the phrase.

Beyond apologies, affirming the other, and the relationship, matters: “Even though we find ourselves in this pickle, I want to be sure you know how much I value you and our relationship.” A genuine expression of empathy is also important to repair: “I’m hearing how hard this conversation has been for you, and I really appreciate your hanging in there.”

And last, check back the next day to see if any of these stages need revisiting. With time for the issue to settle, does it feel as complete as you thought? Are there any lingering issues that got pushed under the rug in the haste to reach resolution? If nothing else, checking in signals concern for the other and the relationship, and that, in itself, is a form of repair.