6. Exercise #2: If You Really Knew MeâŚ
⢠Each person gets 2min to complete the
sentence âIf you really knew me (right now)âŚ.â
⢠No responses except âThank youâ
7. Self-Disclosure
Will I be less
liked,
respected,
influential
(leader-like)?
Is it relevant?
Will it further the
discussion â the
relationship?
Will others
use this
information
against me?
How will
others
see/assess/
judge me?
âWhat in
my âbubbleâ
should I
share?â
Self-Disclosure
9. Authentic Leaders
âThe single factor distinguishing top quartile
managers from bottom quartile managers
was strength of affection.â
--âEncouraging the Heart: A Leaderâs Guide to Recognizing and Rewarding Othersâ,
Kouzes & Posner
Authentic Leaders
15. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityFeedback in its current form
âYouâre not very approachable.â
Attack
Control
âYou should be more approachable.â
19. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityHow to Give Effective Feedback
⢠Focus on specific, observable behavior
When you do [x]âŚ
⢠Describe the impact of that behavior on you
I feel [y]âŚ
⢠Ask about the other personâs motives or
intentions
Can you tell me whatâs going on for you?
Stay on your side of the net!
20. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityLetâs try some examplesâŚ
1. Sam, you clearly donât care about this presentation.
2. Sam, I noticed that you are looking at your phone. You are
clearly bored with this presentation.
3. Sam, I noticed that you are looking at your phone. I am
feeling anxious about what message that might send to
others in the room.
21. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityLetâs try another exampleâŚ
1. Youâre not very approachable.
2. When I asked you for time off last week, you didnât respond
very well. Youâre not very approachable.
3. When I asked you for time off last week and you said âoh
man, the team really needs you right now,â I felt guilty for
asking, even though that time off is important to me. And Iâve
noticed Iâm more hesitant now to approach you with
questions or requests.
22. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityHow to Give Effective Feedback
When you do [x]âŚ
I feel [y == emotion] that / like
And my story is [z].
Can you tell me whatâs going on for you?
24. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityThe Setup
1. Check in
â âIs now a good time?â
2. Soft Start
â Do not use praise to buffer criticism (âThe Sandwichâ)
â Do emphasize mutual goals & positive intent:
âMy intention isâŚâŚ / This matters to me becauseâŚâ
25. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityEnd with Agreements
⢠Make requests
â What are we going to try / do differently going forward?
⢠Be specific
⢠Discuss the error case
â What can we do if someone doesnât do their part of the
agreement?
26. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilityLast Reminder
Stay on your side of the net:
When you do [x]âŚ
I feel [y]âŚ
And my story is [z].
Can you tell me whatâs going on for
you?
Use the Vocabulary of Emotions.
27. Benefits of Self-Disclosure / VulnerabilitySuggested Topics For Feedback
Work Product
â Timeliness, quality, quantity,
focus area
Communication & Management
â Too much/little
â Choice of format
â Email etiquette
â Language choices,
communication style with others
â Transparency of project status,
hiring/firing/promotions
Role Modeling & Presence
â What energy do you feel from
this person?
â How do they impact others?
â What do they model well?
â Anything you worry about?
â Arrival/departure times
â How they speak/listen/act/dress
who are we
lucky to be part of a team that took this stuff seriously (communication & culture)
fortunate to be involved in the early part of a company that was well run and had a successful exit
and was the founder of a company that may or may not have been well run, but didn't have a successful exit
***feelings & emotions
music has treble and clef
1. if you only have cognition and words without feelings, you don't have the full score, the full story
2. most of the time, people are "leaky" -- however they are feeling, they are emoting non-verbally. incongruence btwn words v behavior comes at the expense of credibility. therefore want congruence (so you dont want *only* thoughts or *only* feelings -- you want to communicate both)
3. "there's no room for feelings in business" -- is inspiring pple important in business? how do you inspire people without making them feel something?Â
important for motivationÂ
Suppressing leads to lack of congruence â we are leaky.
Iâd like everyone to pause for a moment. In your 2-min introduction, think about what you chose to say⌠and what you chose not to say.
Out of your entire life â your past, your future, your personal life, your hobbies, everything there is to know about you as a personâŚÂ what did you choose to share. Why? pauseÂ
What decisions did you make about what was relevant or interesting or safe to share with this person in this context?
Now youâre going to introduce yourself again⌠and this time I want you to step outside of your comfort zone and share something you didnât the first time. Imagine my hand on your back gently encouraging you to challenge yourself a bit.
ââŚhighest-performing managers show more warmth and fondness towards others than do the bottom 25%. They get closer to people, theyâre significantly more open in sharing thoughts and feelings than their low-performing counterparts.
Note that they also scored high on âthinkingâ and a need to have power and influence over others, but that didnât distinguish them from the bottom quartile.
1:21- 1:21
Johari window is a tool for thinking about how intimacy (knowledge of each other) is shared in a relationship.
In the top left corner is stuff I know about myself or my behaviour and you know about me â open/ pubic.
In the bottom left is stuff I know about myself but you donât â private.
In the top right is stuff you know but I donât â my blind spot. A lot of the stuff here is how I am perceived by you, by others. Maybe you think Iâm talking to fast and you canât follow.
And the bottom right corner is that which is unknown to both of us.
If you think about it, this has a lot of parallels to the net model we showed at the beginning â a way of thinking clearly about whatâs in your head, whatâs in my head and how those might not always be as similar a point of view as we think.
So we already talked about disclosure â a way of expanding our shared information by making more private info public.
Now we are going to talk about feedback â a way of expanding our shared information by sharing our reactions to other people.
Why is feedback scary?
Might hurt personâs feelings if they knew how I feel?
If I tell them how I really feel, they might tell me how they really feel?
Feedback is scary, weâre sharing new information with someone that might change their understanding of their behavoural landscape, of our relationship, of themselves.
So we need to talk a bi about threat response. In our next workshop, which doesnât exist yet, weâre going to go more deeply into how it turns out these brains of ours actually work and what that implies for interpersonal relationships in general and startup life. But for now, the quick thing to know is that most higher order reasoning, executive function, empathy and social relationship, all exists in a thin layer on top of what is basically a reptilian brain. And that reptilian brain basically sits there asking the question over and over again â am I safe? Am I safe? And if the answer is yes, it sort of allows higher order things to happen. But if it detects a threat, it seizes control and we experience a threat response:
We often call this the body gets ready for fight or flight. powerful cascade of physical cognitive and emotional responses to perceived danger.
Blood flow to the core, adrenaline rush, sweaty palms, tight chest, cognitive capacity goes down, creativity goes down.
Monitoring my level of fear is basically the top thing I do as a person to try to be my best self.
Setting the Context for Feedback
Groundrules Discussion (What groundrules would help me be an effective participant in giving and receiving feedback)
Â
Organize folks so that each person has two people they work with/know well
Give them time to plan feedback with each
Bring them back and do âspeed datingâ format feedbackâ two rounds so that every person has done it twice
Facilitator calls out time for switching
"Second conversation" about feedback
If an objective 3rd party jury was able to tell you that 50% of the feedback was correct and 50% was not, you have a choice about where to focus.
Our suggestion is to spend 90% of your attention on the part thatâs correct.
The only opportunity in the part thatâs not correct is in the possiblity of delicately correction an incorrect assumption.
In the part that is true is a double benefit â improve the relationship, make the person feel heard
In the part that isnât true thereâs a lot of risk: person doesnât feel heard (risk to the relationship), miss an opportunity to learn, defensiveness, a fight, etc (75% risk)