The Elixir of Growth

“How do you think you did?”

This is a common question that I might ask a participant after they have finished a role-play in a training course I’m delivering.  Getting their first-hand perspective is a technique that allows me to agree with what the person might mention and therefore already be aware of, making the feedback they receive more palatable.

Another common strategy is asking for permission. “Mind if I share my perspective?” I might ask.

The participant has acknowledged a willingness to hear my perspective and therefore will be more open to what I have to say.

Then there is the infamous ‘Feedback Sandwich’, where you share something negative/constructive, with positive statements on either side, supposedly dampening the psychological stress of receiving feedback.  (https://bit.ly/31yOqlG)

Over several years, I have learned and practiced these techniques, giving less thought than I probably should have, to why they are necessary in the first place. I spent so much time worrying about how to make feedback more tolerable, that I missed the real issue, why is it that people are so ill-prepared to receive feedback in the first place. It is after all, just someone’s perspective. 

Perhaps my time would have been better spent conditioning people to understand that feedback in all its forms exists, whether they like it or not.

If we are to be successful in making meaningful change in our life, our biggest ally in that effort, is feedback from others.  Learning to distill feedback down to its purest form, the elixir of growth, then, becomes an invaluable process to learn.

To distill it, we must examine the process and understand, how what starts out as a simple observation, gets refined, repurposed, and repackaged along the way, ending up, potentially wildly different from how it started, as our interpretation.

The Feedback Process

Before it gets dirtied by the person providing or receiving’s words, emotions, or experience, feedback begins as a simple observation.  Then, the fun begins.

Step One – Filtered Through Experience

Culture, profession, and personality all alter the way someone will experience something.  How is the observer’s unique perspective on life giving you greater insight into what they are sharing with you?

Warren Buffet giving me feedback on my investment portfolio versus my local financial advisor will tell me more than just how and where to invest my money, it will give me insight into world views and experience.

Someone observed you doing something, and before it even reaches your ears as feedback, it is coated in their experience.  But it doesn’t stop there.

 Step Two – Laced with Emotion

Next stop, emotion town!  There is no telling which side of the bed the observer woke up on, what other issues might be demanding their attention, and how the nature of your relationship with them might impact what is shared.

Have you ever been tough with someone you love because you know you could be, or less harsh with a complete stranger because you don’t have an existing relationship?  These are just two examples of how our emotions can come into play.

Each of us has protocols and criteria we individually adhere to when providing others with feedback.  Sometimes, we even refrain from speaking up, because we have already convinced ourselves it isn’t worth our breath.

Step Three – Packaged in Communication Skills

Each of us has not only unique perspectives, and emotions that differ from day-to-day and hour-to-hour, we also have unique ways in which we communicate.  Our word choice, our sentence structure, and even how direct or indirect we phrase our feedback can be chalked up to communication style.

Often, this is where feedback fails.  People so overreact to the way feedback is delivered that they end up missing the message.

Step Four – Reverse Filtration

For the information about their observation the person is providing to end up as 100% pure elixir, we need to understand the entire process, Experience à Emotions à Communication Style is replicated by the person receiving the feedback.

How you are feeling today, what life experiences you are pulling from, and whether or not you were able to even grasp what the person meant by their specific word choices is all potentially polluting the process.

Taking steps to learn how you can mitigate potential pollution at each of these steps in the process is vital to your ability to extract the greatest value out of what someone has willingly shared with you.

On one end what starts as someone’s observation travels through the tubes of distillation and ends up as our interpretation.  The more we can do to decontaminate the process, the purer the elixir will be.