The 1159: The Weight of Words (Pt. 2)

Weekly Recap

Hi! Hope you had a terrific week!

First, I just wanted to say thanks for reading these. I checked the open rate of the last email and it blew my mind. I share these emails more to process my own thoughts and hopefully encourage a few readers along the way, and you being one of the regular readers is just crazy cool to me. Super appreciate you!

Well, this week was honestly a blur. I spent a chunk of time writing some new articles that hopefully will go live on my business website next week. It’s been fun to revisit the fundamentals of business and think about theory and systems again. Not for everyone, I know, but it’s what makes me tick, so that’s been a highlight!

Our Feedback Has Weight

Yes, I’m doing a part 2. (The Weight of Words (Pt. 1) for a recap)

My initial thought was to make part 2 about words to others, but I feel like I didn’t quite bring the thought about inputs to a close. So today, that’s we’re diving into… processing inputs, specifically criticism.

Before I begin, you’ll realize that these thoughts can be applied to sharing (not just receiving) feedback/criticism. I’ll point back to a few of these thoughts in future emails.

This one is long… sorry not sorry. 🙃

…

 

Feedback. It can be a killer.

I’ve had the privilege of working with creatives for the last 7+ years and this is consistently a topic that either gets discussed with a sense of uneasiness or is avoided altogether.

Receiving honest feedback — specifically any form of criticism — can be brutal. It feels like it attacks a piece of who you are.

After all, especially in the world of creativity, what’s being critiqued is a part of you.

Feedback. It can be a killer.

So throw it out? Avoid it completely? Ban it at the federal level in an attempt to redeem what little we have left of mental health and sanity?

No, let’s not.

In fact, feedback is one of the most incredible gifts to a person who is longing to LEARN, and deeply desiring to GROW as a person.

Feedback can be the perspective on life we otherwise wouldn’t have had if we locked ourselves in our studio and never came out.

But yet, I’m guessing when you read that section above about feedback being a killer you probably thought of a scenario, or two, where you felt that cutting up and exposure of a piece of who you are.

So how do we get to that place where feedback, whether constructive or not (remember, it’s not always puppies and rainbows), ENABLES us to reach new levels of growth like never before?

Here’s ONE model that I’ve found helpful, specifically when dealing with criticism (the focus of today’s email). It’s not objectively the best one, or the only one, but it does help. I’ve actually found great success using this when leading teams.

Receiving Criticism with a Growth Mindset

Let me explain this model in a story.

Let’s go back to the recent time I was leading the operations at a company that owned several coffee-related businesses. It was fairly standard; I dealt with a lot of the feedback from the team, and what I couldn’t answer/resolve was passed on to my superiors.

Alright, it’s a sunny July day, and an assistant manager at one of our brick-and-mortar locations asks to sit down and discuss something they believed was a major issue in their department, necessitating higher leadership intervention.

Ok. So meeting gets scheduled, and I sit down with them, laptop opened and ready to take notes. They open with a “___ is happening and it’s causing the team to be uncomfortable and it needs to be fixed yesterday”.

Right to the chase. I honestly appreciate that.

Well, the issue referenced happens to be a new process we recently implemented to try and fix another issue. Don’t they get how much work we put in to fix that initial problem? Don’t they realize solutions take time to work out the kinks?

Cue up an internal desire to become extremely defensive.

What will determine the success of this conversation, team morale, process improvements, and overall carrying out of the company vision comes down to three steps:

1. Identify the Problem

Easy. The assistant manager was quick to do so, in fact. The recent process we implemented is causing another problem that is deemed to be status-critical.

We want to call a spade a spade here. Beating around the bush only delays a solution.

So in a way, someone being clear about what the “problem” is, is actually a great benefit because it gives us the clarity to know where/what to fix.

But here’s the thing, no one likes being told what the problem is, it’s negative. (The worst is actually being called the problem… please don’t do that to people, it NEVER helps bring about a solution. The Story Spiral helps with this actually, maybe that can be an email series for April if I get permission to share it).

But it’s necessary to identify the problem, otherwise, what are we fixing? Why are we even meeting right now? Why should I spend time on this?

Clearly identify the problem.

So now, how do we generate buy-in (which basically means we get people to agree that the problem exists and needs to be fixed, followed by real action) that is positive in nature?

2. Highlight the Opportunity

This step is almost always skipped. By both leaders AND subordinates.

I forget it often. Especially in those times where the problem has gotten so big that I’m now emotionally overwhelmed.

But this step is ESSENTIAL.

I was taught this by a former employer who led a ton of training for Starbucks prior to owning the company I worked at. The Starbucks motto: “A problem is not a problem. It’s an opportunity.” (I’m a logic-oriented problem solver, so I think identifying the problem and calling it so, is still very needed, but I get where they’re coming from with this motto, which is why I include it in my model)

Unless people realize the opportunity that exists to fix a problem, you can kiss any chance of change goodbye.

Important note as the receiver of criticism: not everybody (actually, very rarely anybody) will highlight the opportunity for you. So you have to be proactively thinking with a growth mindset about what the benefits are of changing
“x”.

Most of my time in meetings like the one above, I had to highlight the opportunity myself because it wasn’t always provided. Which is totally fine, I have to work hard to highlight the opportunity when I present problems to people, and still forget to… it’s not a very natural step IMHO.

But once I saw the opportunity, I was able to sit on their side of the table, see the problem the way they saw it, and work on a solution that yields positive results.

This leads us to:

3. Offer a Solution

You will find, especially in leadership (coming from a short 7+ years, I know, but it’s been consistent those 7+ years for me haha), that few people will offer a solution when they tell you the problem.

It’s not that they don’t want to help, it’s generally just that they only see the problem at the moment.

They don’t only see the problem, but man, they feel the problem. Often, very personally (like in scenarios of workplace feedback/critique).

It didn’t take long before I began requiring this at every meeting. Not in some tyrannically demanding way, but more in a question; “so what do you see as being a good way to fix ___?”

As the receiver of criticism, asking for potential workarounds or solutions is SO VALUABLE.

I found that by doing so, it created an atmosphere of teamwork which actually helped us fix more problems, faster.

Also, people are SMART. Like really smart. Inviting their ingenuity into the scenario can produce some pretty neat results. Talk about creativity and results!

Side note: tone of voice is really key here. Being authentically curious about what solutions they see and not asking in a demeaning way also changes how successful this is. Obvious, I know, but surprisingly worth saying.

 

All that to say, using those 3 steps can really help receive, process, and respond to criticism in a more productive way.

But hey, that’s just ONE model. I’m super curious, do you have ways that you’ve found helpful when handling criticism? I’d seriously love to hear.

I’m always looking to grow and improve, and having you here reading this is encouraging because it means I have a friend who wants the same. So if you have any feedback, please pass it along, it’d be awesome to hear your perspective. Appreciate you,!

 

 

 

 

 

Have an incredible week!

-DC

 

 

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill