A Question That Will Help You Face Uncomfortable Facts. Sometimes, it just feels easier not to know.
A recent Wall Street Journal column calls attention to the research on what psychologists call information avoidance, also known as strategic ignorance. It’s the totally understandable yet often destructive human impulse to run and hide rather than face uncomfortable truths. The examples offered in the article mostly center on health: You know your tooth is aching, or your heart has taken to randomly racing, or your knee kills you when you run. But you’re afraid to see a doctor, because of what they might tell you. Easy fix: Don’t see a doctor! This is clearly not the wisest long-term strategy, and so the piece offers some suggestions from the psychological literature that have been shown to help people muster the courage to face hard truths.
But the third question is less obvious, which also makes it most interesting: What’s important to you? This at first seems like a non sequitur. Behavioral principles for delivering effective feedback. Having a workplace environment in which feedback is given and received productively is critical to performance, but it can be difficult to cultivate that culture.
Here's how behavioral tactics can help managers avoid missteps and deliver more effective feedback. Introduction In 2001, theatergoers flocked to see a movie that would eventually generate more than $550 million. It was about a 30-year-old accountant who is disillusioned by his job and life. But then one day, his mother sits him down and shares with him a book of his childhood drawings. Do you remember the movie? That’s not how you recall the story line though, is it? That is because this version of the movie was never made.
Although most of us don’t have our sights set on producing the next blockbuster film, there are clear benefits to cultivating a workplace in which feedback is given and received in the productive manner described by Catmull. To address this delicate balance, we look to the behavioral sciences for guidance. Understanding how you are perceived as a leader. Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions: 10 Tips for Doing it Right. Understanding Feedback: The 'GPS Direction' To Leadership Success. How To Ask For Feedback That Will Actually Help You. “So,” I asked Mary*.
“Do you have any feedback for me? What can I do better the next time?” We had just finished delivering a leadership training to senior executives at a large financial services company. My working relationship with Mary was a little tricky; she was my co-trainer and also my client since she worked full time at the bank.
Mary did have some feedback for me, which was insightful and useful. I did. “You don’t understand,” she told me, and then explained all the reasons why she had acted the way she did. How Leaders Can Ask For Help And Keep Their Team's Confidence. It’s a stereotype that men would rather be lost than stop and get directions, but it turns out asking for help carries a psychological penalty for guys.
A study from researchers at Duke University, the University of San Diego, and the University of Pittsburgh found that male leaders who ask for help are perceived as being less competent. When female leaders solicit help, however, the negative image didn’t apply. "What drives this perception is that help-seeking is atypical for men but not for women," says Dave Lebel, assistant professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, and coauthor of the study.
"Asking for help isn’t behavior fitting a leadership role, and it isn’t behavior fitting a male gender role. Seek Feedback Everywhere. 3 Ways to Encourage Employees to Give You More Feedback. When you're the boss, bad news, unpleasant as it is, can be incredibly valuable... and incredibly hard to come by.
Without knowing what's going wrong in your business, you can't fix things, but employees are generally hesitant to be the bearers of bad news. And as Claire Lew, CEO of Know Your Company, pointed out on Signal v. Noise recently, they're often even more reluctant when they suspect that you might not exactly welcome this sort of negative feedback with open ears.
"The biggest reason I didn't give my boss feedback is I believed that even if I did speak up, nothing would change. I believed my boss wouldn't do anything with my feedback. "Futility has been found to be 1.8 times more common than fear as a reason for employees not speaking up to their managers. So what's the remedy for this fear that negative feedback will simply be ignored? 1. 2. "Expose your decision-making process," advises Lew. 3. How to Get Feedback When You're the Boss - Amy Gallo - Best Practices. The higher up in the organization you get, the less likely you’ll receive constructive feedback on your ideas, performance, or strategy.
No one wants to offend the boss, right? But without input, your development will suffer, you may become isolated, and you’re likely to miss out on hearing some great ideas. So, what can you do to get people to tell you what you may not want to hear? What the Experts Say Most people have good reasons for keeping their opinions from higher ups. “People with formal power can affect our fate in many ways — they can withhold critical resources, they can give us negative evaluations and hold us back from promotions, and they can even potentially fire us or have us fired,” says James Detert, associate professor at the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management and author of the Harvard Business Review articles “Debunking Four Myths About Employee Silence” and “Why Employees Are Afraid to Speak“.
To Get Honest Feedback, Leaders Need to Ask - Jim Kouzes , and Barry Posner. By Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner | 8:00 AM February 27, 2014 “The only way to discover your strengths,” wrote Peter Drucker, “is through feedback analysis.”
No senior leader would dispute this as a logical matter. Weekdone weekly progress reports for managers and internal communication for teams. StickK. How You Can Turn A Performance Review Into A Great Learning Experience. Nothing can improve your performance like solid feedback can.
However, none of us likes being criticized, judged, or told what to do. And our first instinct is usually to ignore feedback or even do the opposite. I never said life was simple, folks. Don't Get Defensive: Communication Tips for the Vigilant. Accept Criticism. Post written by Leo Babauta.
Follow me on twitter or identica. Every day, I get emails and comments that are amazingly positive and encouraging, and in truth these messages are the very thing that sustains my blogging. However, I also get negative comments now and then: criticism of my writing, and not nice criticism either. How to Take Criticism Well - WSJ. How to receive feedback with grace & dignity.docx. Thanks for the Feedback - Soundview's Summary-in-Brief. Q&A Interview - Thanks for the Feedback. Feedback: Evaluation Challenge. Survey Report. Mindtools - Feedback Matrix Worksheet. Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well eBook: Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen.