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Feedback for Integration and Continued Growth

I talked earlier about keeping your version of yourself really current because over the course of our careers we get all kinds of feedback. We might be carrying feedback forward that isn't relevant to us anymore because we've changed, the context changed, our role has changed, our challenge has changed, our mission has changed. So we wanna keep these things really current so we can constantly calibrate what is my experience of myself? What is my experience that people have of me and is that what I wanted to have happen and what are the dials that I might wanna be paying attention to and how I guide my impact? And ongoing feedback is a really powerful way to do that. You know, feedback is such a strong theme right now in the world of work. But meaningful feedback depends, of course, on the quality of the question that you ask. And what I'd like for you to do is to think about who in your bench of trusted partners in your life, professional partners, colleagues, friends, managers, mentee...

s, peer mentors, the whole bank of folks in your life, how can you enroll them in helping you stay current with how you're impacting those around you using a couple of key meaningful questions. I'm gonna share these with you. These are the ones that I use, have used in my coaching practice forever. They tend to always be pretty rich and also what they do is because so often I'm facilitating something like this where I'm not necessarily giving the feedback. I'm eliciting feedback from your peers to give to you. The way these two questions are shaped, I find to be very useful because they don't call on your colleague or friend or direct report or whomever to ding you in a way that feels scary to them. Giving feedback can be really scary. If you don't have a strong and clear aim about what kind of feedback they want, it's pretty paralyzing. All of us have had moments where somebody has a crucial communications moment and that maybe happens at a meeting and you leave the meeting and you ask your colleague how did I do? And what do they say? Eh, fine. Eh, pretty good. It was okay. It's not very useful to you and you're not gonna get strong feedback when the request is so broad. What we wanna do is narrow it and aim it toward something really helpful and then the person you're asking for won't be so afraid they're giving you the wrong one or the kind that's gonna hurt you. But something instead that's very helpful and aims their attention. So here's the first question. What worked about what I did today? Tell me what worked. And secondly, what would you like to see more of from me? Now what I love about this is that it makes it so for me giving you feedback, I don't have to say what didn't work. That feels awful and mostly if I'm gonna say what didn't work, I'm gonna pull punches and I'm gonna say just the tiniest, little, itty, bittiest things because I don't wanna hurt you. Everyone knows it's a vulnerable moment to stand in front of an audience and do a thing. It also allows me to aim at what I want more of, meaning like I can tell you the parts where you were most awesome and I can say to you if you did more of that you would be a rockstar. That feels great to give that kind of feedback and it's specific enough that it's usable for you. So I can imagine somebody asked me, hey what worked about what I just did today in that meeting? Well, what worked is that you totally ran on time. That's baseline, but that doesn't happen for everybody. You really kept your front end setup really brief. I loved it that you kept it like under five minutes. But I also really liked that you started by sharing a story from our all hands meeting last week that was something that all of us were thinking, but nobody was saying. I thought that was really courageous and also had a really positive impact in the room actually and you kinda gave everyone permission to say some elephant's in the room. I thought that was great. Usable, right? What would you like to see more of? Well, as soon as you got a few questions, you sort of all of the sudden, you ended up into the small version of yourself. I'd love for you to be as courageous in sharing those stories in giving answers to questions as you were in sharing those early stories. I think you can use more of that super power when you answer questions in the room. Okay, great, super usable. And it's also maybe speaking a little truth at you in a way that it's not punitive. It's instead like what is powerful about you and how do you help me give you more of that? That feels great. Okay, so this is sort of the gift. Where am I going now? Great. I'm going to invite a few of you back and we're going to give you some feedback using this framework. Everyone's like. (laughing) Yeah. How about this? I'm gonna bring you up and I'm gonna give you feedback using this framework. We'll just keep it a little narrower like that for right now. So who would like some feedback? You're not gonna die, no you're not gonna die. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna feel really good. Come on. Okay, so go ahead and remind me of your story. Just the tiniest bit. I remember it, but I just wanna see you again. I love gymnastics. When I was a little girl I used to love flying through the air tumbling. I aspired to be like my role models. Dominique Moceanu, Dominique Doss and Miller and I love feeling that empowerment, being wonder woman. So what really works about what you do is that you pick a lot of beautiful big words that are really heart centered and I think a lot about the bigger version of ourselves. I think that's fantastic. I also love it when you do a great job of like planting your feet and being very much like I am here. What I'd like to see more of is you cut loose. Remember when she went fast last time? Like if she could pair that groundedness and that bigness with also cutting loose and being a little less careful, I think that would be a great place for you to play at. Awesome, thank you. Does that make sense? Is that helpful? Absolutely. Okay, great. (audience applauding) Let's hear one more. One more. I also wanna say this is not, not nervous for me too. It's really like, it is hard to give meaningful feedback about something so personal, the way they show up. So when we ask for feedback from our friends and colleagues to help keep ourselves current with ourselves, you know, we have to also honor the fact that it's risky to receive feedback, it's also risky to give it. So even though I like to read and play office as a kid and as an adult I get out there and go whitewater kayaking and get myself scared. Get yourself scared. Okay, so I love it when you do the big talk, but in general I love it when people do the big talk, when you talk about the bigger things, it's so powerful so much more. What I'd like to see more of from you, which is you might disagree guys, we have to play with this, but I'd like to see more often your straight face. So I'm smiling? I mean, it's okay to smile. I would just like, you so often are talking about stuff that is so compelling and right on and when you finish it with a smile, it sort of erases that a little bit. So I wonder what it would feel like for you to more often finish with something really grounded in sort of a neutral face and see how that feels. See if how you speak feels different to you when you don't make it okay with a smile. Yeah? Okay. This is the place to experiment. Really good. That's good. Okay, one more, one more. Remind me, remind me. Okay, so one of my fondest memories as a child was getting into trouble. Stealing my mother's towels and linens to go build forts in the wilderness with my friends. And I guess to introduce an ending is to invite you to tow the line every now and then, to try and get in trouble and explore and let your creativity flourish. That's great. Okay, so what works about what you do is just doing it. And what I'd like to see more of from you is that you just trust yourself. I mean, that's a thing. Like a good piece of feedback is yes keep doing that more often and my recommendation for you, just to finish my own. My recommendation for you is to get in trouble. (laughing) By putting yourself in the way of it more often, do this more often. Say yes to opportunities to speak in front of a group, small or large, whether it's giving a toast at a family dinner or whatever until it becomes like a very familiar feeling. Okay. I'm not saying comfortable. I'm saying familiar. So that when you get that single like oh I'm a little bit nervous, you're like oh I know I'm on point. That's a good sign for me. Yeah, I just feel like my heart's about to pump out of my chest. Yeah, that's right, that's right. It won't. Okay, really good. Really, really good. Okay, give a round of applause. (audience applauding) So I think my wish for you is to use one or two or three or four of these boss moves to move toward mastery for yourself. I'm curious if I could hear from a few folks about like is there one that stood out for you today that you might take on and take forward from this class? And what might that be for you? And tell me which one it is and why that one. Yes. I think the biggest one for me is speed because I know when I get excited about things I just really, really talk super fast and often leave out some important points. So kind of keeping myself in check, slowing down when I need to and I think the boss tip to work on your speed is essential just to be a more effective communicator. That's fantastic, good. Anybody else have one they're picking to play with? I loved the boss move number four, which is about the ending and I think Fiona's example was so powerful because a lot of times when we tell the story and if we just end it with like oh that's it folks, it's more about the person who will tell the story not really relating to the audiences and I think when she has like a broader ending that relates to each one of the audiences, it became a lot more relatable. Right, fantastic. Anybody else? Which one are you picking and why? I'm gonna work on the volume because I think that's something that, as you said, keeping ourselves to our most current up to date, that's like I definitely have to just work on it and see if by lowering my voice people will pay more attention to me. Yeah, that's great, that's great. That'll be fun. One more. I was gonna say working on the volume as well for the same reason of being more current, which I never thought of before. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting idea. Am I actually working off an updated version of myself or am I working off one that's 12 years old? Yeah, like the shy kid. Yes, exactly. And we carry that stuff with us. Because speaking in front of groups, especially when it's something we really want is such a vulnerable place to be, it's very easy to sort of like fetch all those things, all that feedback we got that's not so current anymore, that helps know how to be safe and that's not always relevant anymore. Really, really good. If you can take these forward and practice them in the world, identify a few people from your bench of colleagues and people in your life to help you establish that more current version of yourself and in the context of this new boss move that you might be trying to play with. I really hope that as you continue forward in whatever communications capacity you need to in your role in the world, that you can communicate like a boss for sure. So everybody knows where to find me. You can find me on my website. You can rewatch this class on CreativeLive obviously. On social I'm at diabondia and also you can get on my list on mobile texting the word impact to and you'll be able to stay in contact with what I'm doing, where I am in the world and also I'll be posting reflections and lessons on my newsletter, my brand new newsletter. And I'd love to see you on there.