Learning From Perspective

“旁观者清，当局者迷。” Onlookers see clearly, insiders get lost.

Frequently used in the context of chess or any game, like any great Chinese proverb, this phrase advises caution in trusting only oneself. It applies everywhere.

"三人行，必有我师。" When three people walk, one must be my teacher.

"三个臭皮匠，胜过诸葛亮。" Three stinky shoemakers triumph over Zhuge Liang. (Zhuge Liang is the Chinese cultural equivalent to Einstein.)

"良药苦口。" Good medicine tastes bitter.

"Two heads are better than one."

"You're at the table for a reason." (Everyone else sitting at the table with you is capable of giving you advice.)

Pick an idiom, any idiom!

"Receiving feedback" was a strength listed on my midyear performance review.

The goal of this newsletter is to help others believe in their ability to learn well. The purpose of this issue is to provide tools so no one has to be stuck in the "I-Hate-Receiving-Feedback" land.

How does someone become good at receiving feedback? The same way as learning to read or drive a car.

• Mindset
• Tools
• Practice

I will briefly touch on mindset and practice before focusing on tools.

Mindset

Negative information is debilitating only when we can't do anything about it. The person who decided to tell you did so because they didn't think it was hopeless.

• Feedback is a checkpoint, not a life pronouncement.
• Face negative feedback as a favor.
• Center yourself and get to work.

Positive information is not a waste of time. Knowing:

• Helps you target that strength to make it a superpower.
• Encourages you to be less judgmental of others who may not have this strength.
• May come as a surprise, and this new information may change your relationship with that aspect of yourself.

Regardless of how the information is transmitted, what you are receiving is a "lesson." Focus less on how that "lesson" is presented and more on what you can gain. Would cake be as great in a beautiful box as in a cardboard takeout box? They gave you cake.

Whose feedback should you listen to? Everyone's. Perhaps to help you unpack the newfound knowledge, you enlist someone you trust to go into more detail. Don't discount someone's information just because you dislike them or think they have the same issue.

Practice

People, as a whole, will not believe you when you tell them you want their feedback.

The more you prove that feedback is not wasted on you, the more likely people will give feedback. Some people may always give vague feedback, and that is okay.

Feedback is a favor. Be thankful when you receive any.

Tools

First, a way to get around the PR problem of the word "feedback" is to call it perspective. Suggestions, advice, observations are other ways to frame the idea. Normalize asking for perspective. By asking, you are giving active permission for the other person.

Perception is reality. Impact matters. Intentions can help you correct the impact if it didn't match your intentions.

Be careful: Don't let ageism get in the way of your growth. You don't know where they gained the knowledge, whether from personal experience, a family member, a teacher, or a friend.

Tool Set #1: Big Picture Perspective: Thrice Yearly or Quarterly Check-in

These are least frequently shared and relate to foundational issues. Other people are frequently uncomfortable sharing advice of this type with you because they assume others have shared it with you already or fear it would only backfire on them.

Saving both positive and negative feedback is useful. Especially save these periodic big-picture feedback responses. You will see your growth and identify trends.

Perhaps you disagree with a strength people think you have. If four people say the same thing, you're probably the one who's wrong.

Remember: Try to time requests so people are less likely to think you need to do this for a performance review.

Reset times: Perhaps at the 90-day mark of a new job, don't just ask your manager—ask peers, partners, and stakeholders. Every 3-4 months after that, ask those same questions again to everyone you worked with in those past 3-4 months.

I draft a new email every round and modify it depending on whether the individual is a peer, a direct report, a stakeholder, or a project partner. If you have any questions about the feedback, the best time to ask is immediately. I have learned so much from asking follow-up questions.

Sample email:

Subject Line: Advice Please: Audrey Becoming a Better Colleague

Body: Hi John--Happy Friday!

I am hoping you can help me in my learning journey to become a better coworker. This is an exercise I started in 2017 and conduct every 3-4 months to help set my targeted learning agenda for the next 3-4 months. Some weaknesses have become strengths. Some strengths identified by generous people like you I'd never considered strengths, and now I make a point to share that strength with others.

Any and all perspectives are appreciated.

1. What redirective advice do you have for me? What can I do more of or differently?
2. What confirmative advice do you have for me? What am I doing right at the moment and should continue to work on?
3. What other observations do you have that can be helpful for my growth?

Thank you kindly,

Audrey

P.S. If you have already given me feedback last round, thank you! I am still working on it.

P.P.S. Always welcome feedback, there is no deadline for this email. If you see me do something that could benefit from a change, let me know so I can do a better job as a coworker!

Tool Set #2: Direct Report / Project Team Member Perspectives

I would not be who I am today if I didn't receive the redirective feedback I needed as a first-time manager in 2016.

The reason I believe change is possible for anyone is because I was one of the unaware, best-intentioned, and terrible-at-my-job managers. Crying after work was not uncommon because it was so hard to learn to be a good manager.

Extreme Situations

If you are in a situation where you know there is a power differential and you think your reports might be holding back key feedback, consider asking a peer to act as a go-between.

My first management mentor was a peer manager everyone respected.

1. I asked her whether she would coach me and then brought her to one of my weekly team meetings, introduced her, and let the team know to tell her all the feedback they may not be comfortable telling me so that she could coach me to do better.
2. Then I left the room.

As the team saw I was genuinely trying to get better, they started giving me feedback directly sometimes and other times still helped me grow by going to my mentor to give feedback.

I'm forever grateful to that group of people who I had the fortune to manage as a first-time manager. A year later, I received 100% positive responses in the annual employee opinion survey in all four direct manager categories.

Less Extreme Situations

1) Weekly or Biweekly Direct Report 1-on-1s

Studies have shown manager 1-on-1s are most effective when held weekly or biweekly. Sometimes meetings need to be moved but make every effort to never cancel (unless the team member doesn't need the time). This is one of the highest-return uses of manager time.

Set a generalized agenda for your 1-on-1s, including a section for feedback. Feedback for you and feedback for your team member.

If it makes sense, in addition to the normal 1-on-1 topics that may include skill-building, once a month or every two months you can have a targeted conversation about career development.

2) Skip-levels

Whether you are able to have skip-levels with one employee at a time or perhaps a small handful of employees, skip-level meetings show that you value their time and will listen. Quarterly or thrice yearly is a good cadence for skip-levels.

3) Office Hours

College professors would host office hours, and people would go with questions. In a world where people can't walk by your office to see if you are busy, a great time saver is to set aside time to be available—do quiet work while waiting on a standing Zoom/Google Meet/Teams meeting.

4) Anonymous Periodic Pulse Checks

How is your team, department, group, project team, or project stakeholders doing? Really?

Pulse Checks are best conducted on a regular cadence—depending on the team, project team, department, and specific situation, target every 1-3 months.

You want to look at trending data but also at outliers.

Remember: If you receive an 80% positive rating for 50 responses, you may have majorly failed 1 in 5 people.

Refrain from:

• Wondering who said what. You can add a question in your survey requesting a name for follow-up questions if they would be comfortable sharing more.
• Defaulting to a mindset that negative feedback is 100% the staff member's opinion.
• Hiding results of the pulse survey—what is measured is more easily changed.

Crucial: If you are going to ask for people's opinions, budget time to review what people took time to write. Do not ask for more feedback if you haven't even done anything with the last batch of answers.

App Recommendation: SurveyMonkey is my preferred survey application. It is user-friendly for both survey takers and survey builders. A free account allows ten questions, and that is all you ever need in a quick-hit periodic pulse survey. SurveyMonkey even has sample survey questions!

Tool Set #3: Targeted Perspective Requests

Targeted perspective requests are specific.

You want to be a better presenter.

Ask a peer ahead of a presentation if they could give you notes afterward. We sometimes assume every mistake we see is what other people see too. Not true! Many people do not listen for improvement opportunities unless specifically asked.

You host a quarterly town hall.

Send a survey link as part of the follow-up email after the event (perhaps you promised to share the deck and/or links). Ask folks whether you used their time productively. Ask whether there are topics they would like to see next time. After-event surveys should never be very long. Three to five questions are plenty (at least one open-ended question).

You want to understand what you could do better on the next [XXXX] for your manager.

Put it on your next 1-on-1 agenda that you would like feedback on [XXXX].

You want to be a good project leader.

Lessons Learned is useful at the end of a project but even more useful halfway or after a major milestone. Lessons Learned are frequently called retrospectives and often hosted as a meeting.

Consider letting people choose how to give feedback, whether it's in an email or at a meeting. Use a digital whiteboard (Miro is my favorite) so people can zoom in and have more space to write. Allow people to interact with the whiteboard asynchronously.

Before your sign-off for every big periodic project email, share that you welcome feedback on how the project or your part as project leader can be improved.

Summary

No news is not good news. Keep asking! You will supercharge how quickly you learn once people start believing you want feedback.

With anything unexpected, it will be harder before it gets easier. Visualizing sweeping out dirt from under a rug helps me remember that it looks worse because I am now looking harder at that dirt.

Happy mid-year! This is the 6th issue of the Learning to Learn Newsletter.

• If you have been giving me advice along the way, thank you! Keep it coming!
• If you think there is anything I can do to make these better, please tell me. Thank you!
• If you have a topic you think I could talk about next time or if you have anything else you think people would benefit from knowing about learning, send it my way!

Wishing everyone a learningful July ??

Audrey