Raw eggs and feedback may be the breakfast of champions, but they still taste like cr*p!
I had a brilliant email from a client last week. He was responding to some feedback I passed up the line from some of his factory supervisors.
It was fair to say that like raw eggs, he found it a little hard to swallow. In fact he told me that when he read the comments he felt like he had been ‘kicked in the stomach’, especially given all the effort he and the management team had been putting in, in order to engage the production teams more.
In my early twenties I was selected for the Tesco MDP. This was their prestigious three week Management Development program for high flyers in the company. During the program my bosses and colleagues were asked to complete a feedback form about me. It was the first time I had ever had this type of information presented to me. In the office I was lively, talkative, intelligent and fun. This was going to confirm it. As I scanned the data I felt myself spinning into an emotional tailspin. I even had to fight back tears as I discovered that I was disruptive, noisy, opinionated and, if the truth be known; a bit of a pain in the arse.
Feedback is just feedback.
Even as I typed out the email I felt uncomfortable. I was pretty sure it would create a reaction, and I was right. The written word can rarely convey the full range of emotion contained in the mind of the person giving feedback, which is why I get my clients to constantly answer the question ‘why am I typing?’.
The following week, back in the office, I took some time with my colleagues and got under the skin of what they were trying to tell me. Many of them were as shocked as I was that the feedback appeared so negative and they helped me to recalibrate my perception of what the data was telling me.
Of course I might have just waited until I next had a chance to speak face to face with my client but I wanted to test them. It was designed to see if they were able to acknowledge and deal with the feedback without slipping below the line. As I read through my clients email I thought that they had failed the test, until at the bottom of their mail I saw one little sentence;
“Must now get back to being above the line…..”
They recognised the role that their own thinking was playing in their experience of the feedback. They knew they could choose their response and the email was just them venting and letting off the pressure after the initial feedback shock. This was a major win.
When I reflected on the feedback I’d received and the comments from my colleagues I realised what a valuable lesson I had learned. For the first time in my adult life I saw that how I perceived myself was not necessarily the same as others. That program did create some useful triggers for me in some situations but I consciously chose not to change. Turns out I like having opinions, being loud and being disruptive. It is what makes me the person I am and attracts and repulses people in just the right ratio to make my life work.
This is what it is to be a Leader and maybe to be an adult. The ability to know yourself deeply, to acknowledge that how you perceive things is not necessarily how they are, and to be open to the idea that whatever is happening you choose your response. This is the essence of the work I do in developing your leadership capabilities.
By shining a light deeply back at you it is possible for you to see past all the nonsense you tell yourself about who you are and how the world is. It is a chance to step up and become the best version of yourself, in any situation.
I’m recruiting for my next program now so if you want to explore whether this program can help you, or one of your team members, now is the time to step up for an exploratory conversation.