I know that Feedback is good for me BUT

I know that feedback is good for me BUT…. Have we not heard that statement or even made that statement ourselves? We know that we need to grow and improve. We know that we can’t achieve that without feedback. Hence the question, what causes the “BUT” to appear in our sentence or speech. What causes the fear or anxiety that comes with giving or receiving feedback? Which aspect of feedback is more frightening, giving or receiving feedback?

For someone who is uncomfortable with setting expectations, giving feedback can be challenging. It is challenging because in order to give feedback, there must be an expectation of what it should or could be. There must be an aim or desired outcome from the feedback. The outcome must always be to help the person improve and NOT to just criticise or pull them down. One of the reason for not being able to set expectations is simply because you don’t know or have an expectation of what improvement would look like. When that happens it’s difficult to give good constructive feedback. Therein lies one of the keys of giving feedback.

For someone who struggles in themselves whether from self-doubt, fear or pride will have great difficulties in receiving feedback. Receiving feedback will naturally place us in a super defensive position which will result in NOT receiving or listening to anything that is being said. The outcome there is a slow process towards growth and resentment.

There needs to be a good balance of humility and self-confidence with clear expectations and outcomes in order to be able to give and receive feedback. Humility to receive, digest and decide on an action plan based on the feedback. Self-confidence to know that the feedback will not “destroy” your future ability to perform and to be able to put the action plan in the appropriate perspective and self-awareness.

What can we do to be a little bit more comfortable with feedback? The simple answer is to learn and practice. Learn some techniques in giving and receiving feedback and then putting it into practice. Learning the tools will give you a framework and confidence to get started. Practice will help you to make it a natural part of your skills repertoire.

A quick snap shot of giving feedback will consist of 4 key areas:

  • Be specific: Be specific with the observed behaviour or action that you would like to give feedback on. For example, “I have noticed that you have been late for the last 2 meetings.”
  • Outline the significance of that behaviour as it relates to you:   Following on from the above example, “I feel that you could be missing out the discussions as I value your input.”
  • Seek to understand the person’s viewpoint: For example, ” What is your take on this? “
  • Suggestion a solution or alternative: For example, “I would like to suggest that …..”

As a start it will probably feel very unnatural but once you are comfortable with it, it is a very quick process which should take no more than 2-3 minutes. After all, no one wants to hear an hour of feedback. I will conducting a workshop around Feedback in October and you can find out more here.

Just as important as being able to give feedback is receiving feedback. Receiving feedback is a skill that can be developed as well. There is no benefit for you to just be able to give feedback as the growth and benefit is for the person that you are giving feedback to. The benefit for you is in receiving feedback from others.

The most important rule to receiving feedback lies in Active Listening. Active listening is one of the hardest skills to learn as it requires total focus on your mind to just listen. Listen and NOT listen with the aim to respond with your perspective or preparing a brilliant comeback in your mind. Listen without any judgements, reflections and retaliation. Once you have heard the feedback, clarify any areas that may be vague or that you would like to seek further information with the goal of listening for areas of improvement. I dare say that none of us have reached perfection yet and therefore there is always room for improvement. With active listening, even if the person is not very good at giving feedback, you can still get the maximum benefit of the feedback.

Don’t avoid feedback out of fear or awkwardness. Learn more about it. There are various books, articles and training programme that you can attend. Equipping yourself will help to remove the fear and with practice will give you to confidence and comfort level to give and receive feedback.

Give Receive Improve Feedback 2-Day Workshop

Feedback.  A simple word and yet it is frightening to most people.  It is especially scary for new managers or for anyone who has to give feedback.  It is also an uneasy situation for the person who is receiving the feedback.  I think that it is safe to agree that feedback is just downright uncomfortable for both parties.  Feedback is necessary in ensuring that growth and improvements are possible.

To help elevate some of the perceived challenges and fears, Salwana Ali and I have designed a 2-day workshop to specifically address some of the challenges and fears by providing you with tools, tips and tricks on how to give, receive and act upon feedback.  The workshop is designed to be practical with everyday scenarios to help apply the tools and techniques in a non-threatening environment.

Salwana and I have a combined experience of around 50 years of working in management roles and  have encountered our share of awkward, uncomfortable and awful situations where feedback is involved.  Hence, rest assured we understand and know what goes into giving and receiving feedback.  Our aim is help ease new managers by developing and enhancing their feedback skills.

To find out more about the workshop details, click here.

Hope to have you in our workshop.

 

3 Energy components of Willpower

When we view Willpower as a muscle, some of the muscle building theory applies such as:

  • Use it or lose it!
  • It can be developed
  • It does grow stronger with usage or training
  • It takes effort and time

In order for this willpower muscle to be trained an essential element is required and that is energy.  Your energy level of the mind and body to initiate, sustain and endure.  Remember, willpower is only needed when you desire to make changes or to create new behaviours and actions which lead to habits.  A habit is formed when all that hard work results in a behaviour pattern that is now in auto-pilot and takes very effort on your part to execute.

There are 3 top components that willpower will tap into are :

  1. Training / Usage:  Yup, we can’t get away from the hard work.  If we want to achieve a desired change, we have to put the effort into it.  Just like training for a marathon, there must be a goal, a plan and then the running.  To grow and increase the willpower muscle needs exactly the same thing – a goal, a plan and the doing.
  2. Physical energy :  The physical state of your body will determine the mental and emotional energy that you will have to maintain and persevere through the tough ride.  Where is your current physical state?  Do you know when your energy level is at its optimum?  Are you a morning or evening person?  All these awareness will help you to best plan and schedule the hardest task to do when it requires the most concentration and effort.
  3. Mental Energy:  The mental energy is required in order for you to “force” your brain to consciously act and work in a new way.  You are forcing it to create new processes to achieve a new goal.  This forcing function is hard.  It is hard because our brains are generally lazy and wants to perform as efficiently as possible.  Therefore if the brain has to work, it will generally rebel.  In order to quash that rebellion that is taking place in the mind, the mental energy that needs to be used is extremely high.  To focus and concentrate on a new task is hard and tiring.  Therefore in order to be successful, both the physical and mental energy bar needs to be high.

What can you do to increase your energy level?  The formula is nothing new.  It is all centers around self care.  How well are you caring for yourself?  Energy levels are determined by the following:

  • Diet:  One of the factors of a healthy lifestyle is what we consume into our bodies.  What types of food we are eating will impact our energy level.  There are a ton of research and articles on what is the recommended balance diet we should aim for.  I dare say that consuming a well balanced diet is important to maintaining good energy level and a healthy life.
  • Health:  What is your current health?  When you are in generally good health, your energy level is stable which leads to a certain level of productivity during the day, balance mental and emotional state to face the challenges of the day.
  • Fitness:  Another no-brainer here.  You can increase your energy level just by how much movement you do everyday.  Exercise is a critical component of a healthy self care routine.  Increasing the endurance and energy level of your body will help you to focus.  An increased level of focus will strengthen your willpower level when you are in the midst of creating change.
  • Rest and Recovery.  Just as much as it is important to be on the go, our body and mind requires time to rest and recovery.  Therefore, sleep is critical along with time set aside to just reflect and rejoice.  As part of this process, it is about  rewarding yourself for the mini-wins.  Those small steps of victory that you experienced during the day.  That will help build more willpower muscles.

Perform a quick check on where you are at on those 4 areas.  Think about a time in the last month, when you had tried to make a change, what was your state of health?  Did you spend time for self care?  What was your energy level?  What was your level of willpower?  Are there areas that could have been improved upon?

More often than not, one of those 4 areas above require some attention.  The first step of any change is to be aware of where you are at.  What is your current state?  And then you can move forward with purpose.

3 Elements to Willpower

Willpower is like a muscle.  Like muscles it can be trained and developed to grow stronger. There are 3 key aspects to the development and strength of willpower:

  1. Energy:  Your energy level plays a vital role in how you engage and persevere through changes that you are focusing on.  Just like exercising, if your energy level is high, the workout is “easier” and manageable.  However, if your energy level is low, even the simplest of workout feels hard.  I am sure that you know and have experienced how much harder it is to focus or maintain self-control when you are tired.  It requires a lot of energy to concentrate and perform a task that requires attention especially if it is new.
  2. Difficulty:  The perceived level of difficulty will determine just how much willpower is required.  If a change or new habit is perceived at level 1 of 10, the required willpower is fairly low, hence much easier to change and takes a shorter time for a new habit to be developed.  Conversely if the perceived level of difficulty is 10, the required willpower is extremely high.  Therefore it is important to manage the perceived level of difficulty.
  3. Environment:  The environment that is supporting or hindering your attempts for change plays a part in either making it conducive or not for change.  The environment is made up of people around you, physical location as well as structures or routines that you have.  For example, if you want to make a change to your eating habits, surrounding yourself with junk food is going to make it hard for that change to take place.  It would be a supportive environment if you remove all junk food and replace it with healthier options.

How would you overcome those barriers?

  • Energy:  What do you need to do to ensure that your energy level throughout the day is consistent?  Do you know when your energy level is at its peak?  When are you most productive or creative?  What do you need to do to improve your energy level?
  • Difficulty:  Perception of difficulty is a mental challenge.  It is challenge to change the way we perceive a situation or action.  How would you change your perception of the change that you need to make?  Break down the challenge to smaller manageable task until it does not seem so scary.  What is the smallest part of the task to start off first?
  • Environment:  Explore areas of the environment that you could change or make slight changes to. Think of ways to support your desired change.  Leverage on technology, redecorate or redesign your work environment, change a certain routine that is not working for you and so on.

For example, if you want to be punctual for your meetings, what changes would you need to do?  You have tried putting your watch forward, scheduled multiple alarms and so on and yet nothing has worked.  It is time for a different approach.  Ask yourself

  • What is the importance of being punctual for your meetings?
  • How do you feel when others are late for a meeting with you?
  • What is the core value that is being impacted by someone who is not being punctual for a meeting?  Could it be respect, value of time, discipline or rudeness?
  • Identify the value system that it is impacted to give you the inner motivation that is required to change your actions.  It is that key that will give your willpower the starting fuel to get started.
  • What structure can I put in place?
  • How would you ensure that you start the day on time?
  • What do you need to do to ensure the meetings are run efficiently?
  • Do you need to put more buffer time for travel or meeting over runs?
  • Be in control of your schedule else others will be in control of you.

Once you have an idea, establish the task or action that needs to take place.  Then ensure that there is also a support structure to enable the actions to take place.  Schedule the hardest task for when your energy level is the highest.

There is only ONE MUST do :  Use it!  The willpower muscle must be used in order for it to grow stronger.  You must activate the Willpower muscle and to do you will need to make the decision and effort to do it.

Willpower the key to creating new habits

Every one of us has an inner desire to grow in knowledge and in character. We want to improve and be a better version of “me”. As we strive to be better in the intangible (knowledge, experience, skills etc), what is demonstrated to others around us is our actions or behaviours. We need to “act out” our intentions in order for something to happen. To perform any task, we need to be able to perform a serious of actions. Upon performing the same set of actions over and over, we are over time and repetition developing a habit.

Habit is a set of actions to complete a certain task that has become an automatic process. We don’t have to think hard in performing a certain task. For example, brushing your teeth. When you first learn this skill, it requires a lot of focus, energy and coordination to be able to maneuvers the toothbrush to brush each tooth without hurting yourself. After performing that same set of actions over time, it naturally becomes easier until a point where you don’t even have to think about it. You can now brush your teeth and probably do something else at the same time.

That is the power of habit. Once a series of actions have been repeated until it becomes automatic, it does not require much brain “power” to work at it, it makes it very efficient. There also lies the downside of habit. It is so powerful that it is hard to break or change a habit. Trying to break or change a habit is like pushing your car uphill with the handbrakes engaged. Our brains do not like the effort that it takes to make those changes because believe it or not, our brains are “lazy”.

How would you go about changing or creating a new habit? As mentioned, a habit is formed when we want to accomplish or achieve a certain goal. In order to achieve a certain goal, certain actions need to be taken. Upon reaching the goal, you will experience a reward. Therefore to create a habit, there are 3 areas:

  1. Goal: There needs to be a trigger to get the ball rolling.
  2. Series of actions or process: In order to achieve the specified goal, there must be a series of actions that needs to take place in order to make it a reality.
  3. Reward: What is the reward that you envision for achieving that goal.

As an example, to create a new sleep habit. The goal is to sleep for 7 hours every night. To achieve this goal, there needs to be a series of actions eg no technology an hour before bed, no sugary or caffeine drinks, do some yoga stretches to relax etc. The reward is a good night of 7 hours sleep. At the start, it will be hard and our “old” habit will basically be saying “no” to every attempt. That is where willpower comes in.

Willpower is the key to creating new habits. Willpower is basically your conscious mind saying “I am going to do this no matter what.” A decision or a choice that you are committed on doing regardless of what you feel. Willpower is also like a muscle, it grows stronger with use and time. Willpower has been described as self-control or self-disciple, all of which requires a conscious decision to be made and then the commitment to follow through. The beautiful aspect of it is that over time and continuous repetition any set of actions will become a habit. To get to the habit stage, the initial stage will be like pushing the car with the hand brakes engaged uphill until it starts to go down the hill with the hand brakes disengaged. Various studies have shown that the key attribute every successful person have is self-discipline. The willpower to decide and stay the course. Without willpower, we are not able to break through any habits.

To create or change a habit:

  1. Identify the goal or desired outcome.
    1. What is the desired outcome?
    2. Why do I want this outcome?
    3. Be specific.
    4. If it is a long term goal, then break it down to achievable mini-goals.
  2. Outline your strategy or series of actions that needs to take place.
    1. Write down the actions that need to take place.
    2. Break down “bigger” actions into “smaller” ones which does not look daunting. For example, if you want to exercise for 30 minutes as the big goal, break it down to 5 minutes every day for the 1st week and work your way up. By breaking it down to 5 minutes, it will not seem as daunting as 30 minutes.
    3. Be committed to executing the plan knowing that over time, it will be easier.
    4. Stick to it and repeat
  3. Reward. Set up a reward system for yourself. Mini-rewards for each mini-milestone. That will keep you going when you acknowledge your progress.  Our willpower needs to be rewarded as it is being strengthened.

In the next article, I will cover the barriers for willpower and how to overcome them.