Truth Be Told
First of all, this blog maintenance thing requires a lot of discipline. I don’t know how people do it every day, and sometimes I manage to forget all about it until I get an email telling me there’s a comment posted.
Some days have themes to them. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, the theme just emerges over and over again. Today it was about feedback. You’d think that most people would rather give it than receive it, but really, the opposite is true — at least in people who are reasonably secure and mature (I prefer not to work with the rest).
I think the main reason work relationships (probably any relationships) break down is because people irritate one another over time and it builds up because they don’t discuss it, and first it turns to distrust and then it turns to bitterness. One thing I try to remember is that there’s no such thing as a trust-neutral interaction. Everything you do either builds trust or breaks it down. Everything. Now I don’t think you have to give someone feedback every time they wake up on the wrong side of the bed or accidentally irritate you — we all need room to be the flawed humans we are. But in general, if someone does something that’s destructive to the individual relationship or the group’s effectiveness or to the customer’s trust, you can’t just observe it and walk away.
In many environments it’s not “safe” to tell another person directly that you’re upset with them, and that’s too bad, because conflict just simmers under the surface in those places. Back when I was consulting I could always tell when I was in an environment with high turnover and low customer service and product quality — you could feel the tension in the air and it was like a cancer to everything they did.
But in an environment where there’s a good level of trust and people can bring up an issue before it turns into a cancer — and in a way that’s respectful and ensures the other person’s dignity — you find a level of friendliness and easy-going camaraderie that’s inducive to high quality service and products.
So here’s the interesting part. When you get a bunch of mature people working together, they don’t mind someone coming up to them and saying, “Hey, do you mind if I share an observation with you?” Real winners, what we call “A” players in our organization, are so motivated to excellence that they want the observation. Hiding from the truth didn’t get them where they are. And they appreciate a well-delivered observation if it helps them reach a new level of personal best. But these same “A” players — who don’t mind accepting and owning a criticism — are incredibly reluctant to give such an observation to someone else.
It requires both character and willingness to take a risk to offer an observation to someone you respect. You have to trust that they won’t get mad at you or react badly or resent you later. And it takes a LOT of mental rehearsal to figure out the way to start the sentence, how to approach the other person, the right tone to strike to make it clear that you appreciate them and that you’re genuinely trying to help. A real “A” player knows this is hard. And it’s an “A+” player that takes the risk often enough to be able to give these observations naturally, in the course of working together, so it doesn’t even feel like feedback.
In my experience peers can coach each other — and peers frequently have the most to offer each other — but it has to be safe and it has to come from a good place. When members of a team really want the team to succeed, and aren’t worried about receiving greater recognition than the other team members, and genuinely enjoy it when their peers get recognized for their excellence, the feedback happens. When the feedback happens everyone is correcting and improving on a constant basis. If it’s a sports team that can do this, they win. If it’s a family that can do this, they stick together. And when it’s a busines team that can do this, they make money.
Too bad THIS isn’t the kind of thing they teach in the B-Schools. I’ll trade a pocketful of theory for this skill any day.
(c) 2006. Andrea M. Hill
