The Gift of Feedback
Vulnerable post alert…
If you work in consulting long enough eventually you will run into relationship challenges. As a consultant, you regularly walk into new teams, new organizations, and new cultures. It's reasonable to expect that not every one of those new experiences will match your style. The impacts can range from minor to significant.
'Significant' happened to me. Twice. Once in 2016. And once in the last three months. In 2016, I pushed back on a highly toxic leader. This pushback resulted in the client deactivating my badge, which I only discovered upon arriving at the client site one day. (It's quite the story) More recently, the situation was less contentious. A client provided feedback to another colleague that "I wasn't a fit for the account" and asked that we bring in a different leader. In each case, I received feedback.
When this happens, it's a challenge to step back and look at how our actions contributed to the outcome. The easy thing to do is blame the other party. It feels better. The problem is that in the rush to defend our ego we actually stunt our growth.
Nelson Mandela is famously quoted as saying, "I never lose. I either win or I learn." In order to learn from a loss, of any kind, we need to evaluate it. As I coach, I call it 'watching the tape.' I've lost some big games, as a player and a coach, in my athletic career. In every case, as painful as it was, I went back and watched the game. Sometimes it took a couple days. But I did it. And as I watched the tape, I asked myself a bevy of questions. Why did I call that play? Why did I take that action? How did my opponent respond? What could I have done differently? How do I feel now that I see that action after time has passed?
When I watch the tape from 2016, I learned that the company valued hierarchy and top-down directives. In that environment, coming in "guns blazing" might help you win the battle, but lose the war. Most recently, when I watch the tape, I realize I underappreciated that the unspoken ways of working were more important than formal processes. Looking back, for someone with a high EQ, this isn't a miss I normally make. In both cases, I learned about me. And them.
If we can learn to regulate our emotional reaction to feedback experiences, we unlock exponential growth. So the next time you receive feedback, step back and ask yourself what it tells you about the preferences, perspectives and values of others.
Watch the tape. Then line up for the next game.
