Feedback and internal storytelling
Recently, I have started working with a new team in a new organization. While going through the usual introductions with the rest of the team (“Hello, I’m Cristiano, I like dogs”) I found myself talking over and over about the importance of feedback. This is hardly a surprise, as a culture of feedback is a bases of modern effective organizations.
Feedback
Feedback is the single greatest tool available to everyone to shape the community they are part of, be it a team of engineers, a family or any other form or shape in which humans congregate. It can promote positive behaviors, limit negative ones and help create meaningful relationships in the community.
Sounds too good to be true, right? There is a catch though: to reap all the beautiful qualities of feedback, it needs to be rooted in a shared understanding of reality.
Potato/Potahto
When we reflect on it, it is evident that there is no such thing as an objective reality. We know that different people experience events from different perspectives (quite literally, in the case of sight) and interpret the data in different ways, as dictated by their experience, biases and feelings. We know that our understanding of reality is not objective.
Sometimes, often, we not only know but are also aware of this lack of objectivity. We take it into account when making decisions. We look at things from someone else perspective, interpret reality in a somewhat more empathetic way. Other times, we are not so thoughtful and rational.
As narrated by the author..
One peculiar way in which we interpret reality is our internal storytelling.
Picture this: you are walking on the high street, minding your own business. Suddenly, a stranger, walking at a brisk pace, bumps into you. The stranger mumbles something that sounds maybe like an apology and walks away.
If I had to guess, I would say that you probably feel annoyed, possibly even angry at the stranger. Who do they think they are, bumping into people without not so much an apology?
What if the stranger was dressed as a doctor? Guessing again, you probably feel less annoyed. Surely, a doctor has very good reason for rushing. Maybe an accident happened and they are running to help!
The difference in the two examples above, is the story we tell ourselves. What our brain is doing is amazing: it gathers the facts (“Ouch! Someone bumped into me”), creates a narrative around the event (“This person doesn’t respect others” or “This person is running to help others”) and triggers a emotional response (annoyance or admiration/worry). All in a split second!
Note: This concept is explained much better that I can do here in “Crucial Conversations”.
Feedback and Facts
This internal narrative can have a massive impact on feedback, to the point of making it totally useless or even stopping it from happening altogether.
In the most extreme case, we give up on sharing feedback because we don’t believe the other person is interested in improving, pushing a “villain” narrative upon our counterpart. More commonly, it becomes very hard for the other person to receive the feedback and understand where it comes from, simply because they are seeing things differently.
To give ad receive effective feedback, we need to share the same version of reality. We need to get better at realizing when we are replacing facts with our perception of the same facts. The starting point is to be more aware of our internal storytelling and how it can dictate the motives we ascribe to other people’s actions.
