How many times have you gone into a performance review or read the written feedback and your brain automatically keeps score. One negative comment is like 5 points for the imposter and each positive is only about ½ point for the intelligent and hard working self. Your brain automatically calculates your worthiness for the job (and maybe in life) and either decides to rebel “They don’t value me!” or indulge in self loathing “I knew I was in over my head”. It’s not just the formal sessions where this happens, it’s also the ad hoc feedback when someone says “we should be doing XYZ” or “why isn’t this particular thing creating results?”. Our brain says “You are not enough, if you were, they wouldn’t have to make these suggestions or ask these questions”.
But what if there was another way to approach feedback that doesn’t include a company trying to over complicate performance reviews with forced processes like 2 positives, 2 negatives, always delivering as a feedback sandwich (a negative sandwiched between 2 positives) or sugar coating the feedback by making it sound really nice when it really wasn’t. All of these still serve the mindset that negative feedback is bad and people will inherently struggle with it.
I’ve been reading the book Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull and was intrigued by the candor that Pixar uses when screening movies early in their infancy. They go into these sessions with the assumption that the early screenings will be what they refer to as “ugly babies”. They walk in expecting it to be bad and it always is. If it isn’t, they aren’t pushing the creative envelope enough. They don’t sugar coat or mince words, but they rely on the shared vision that everyone wants to make the best film possible, so they dissect every part of it without holding back. They believe in the infinite potential of the end result, which gets them past all of the insecurities and niceties that are present in most company cultures.
Why can’t we have the same level of candor when we consider the growth of ourselves and our people? If you believed in the infinite potential of yourself as a leader, could you look at feedback differently, even if your brain perceives it as negative? If you believed in the infinite potential of your employees, how would you deliver feedback to them differently?
What if you stopped looking at feedback and suggestions as an indication of what you are lacking or not doing well and instead saw it as a possibility for discovering what to focus on next as you continue to grow? Approaching it through a lens of curiosity and fascination completely changes what you do with the information you have. You can still choose to discount and discard, but you’ll be doing it from a position of power and choice, instead of resistance. You give yourself the moment to step into intention and discard after anchoring yourself in values and personal integrity.
Feedback is not a measure of your worthiness or abilities, it’s simply information to fuel your discovery process. Instead of trying to be so perfect that you don’t get any negative feedback, intentionally look for patterns calling for your growth, then decide whether you want to answer the call.