Just the other day, the partners at my firm pulled me aside
and they were visibly upset
about something that I had done.
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You made a decision that we can all agree on
and you were not being transparent about this.
Honestly, I did speak to everyone individually.
Hey, guys.
My name's Dami, and I'm an architect in beautiful Vancouver, B.C..
When I got that feedback, I cried.
No, I'm just kidding.
I had a lot of bad emotions.
You know, I had done my version of what I thought was right.
And it really felt like I was being accused
of being a bad architect and even a dishonest person.
As I kind of progress into my career.
And also, as I kind of built my YouTube business,
I've been getting criticism of all kinds, including ones like this.
And it's been really challenging to manage.
So lately I've been learning a lot about
how to deal with criticism and feedback more effectively.
So today I want to talk about some of the things that I learned from the book.
Thanks for the feedback.
In the first part of the video, I'm going to talk about how to receive
that feedback.
And the second part of the video, I'm going to talk about how to navigate that
feedback conversation and how to implement that feedback into your lives.
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Handling feedback on your project is one thing
and handling feedback on your performance or your voice.
That's a whole nother thing.
And in fact, it is really important for you
to categorize the different types of criticism.
So there's three types of feedback.
There's evaluation.
That's where you talk about where you stand
in relation to the expectations and to other people.
There's coaching or advice,
which is all about helping you improve,
and I think a crit or like a performance
review is probably somewhere in between those two.
There's also appreciation or recognition
or things which basically lets
you know that you're doing well and that your efforts are being noticed.
So when you're asking for feedback, you actually want to be fairly clear
on what you're looking for just to prevent confusion or conflict from both parties.
The hardest part about receiving feedback is actually the emotional response,
and it's the emotional response which makes us angry or defensive.
And a lot of the times we can get dismissive of that feedback.
But if you identify what triggers those emotional responses,
you can have much better control over those reactions.
Dealing with criticism can take a toll on you.
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Generally there's three types of triggers.
There's the truth triggers.
So truth triggers our responses to feedback
we feel is wrong or unhelpful or unfair.
But as we know, everyone has their own idea of the truth.
So the very, very first thing you want to do is instead of
thinking, No, that's wrong, or, Oh, well, that makes sense for you, but not for me.
You have to acknowledge that everyone thinks differently, and even if it's hard,
try to ask yourself like what is right about what the other person's saying.
At the same time, try to examine yourself for any blindspots in your thinking.
There's behavior patterns.
So we often have behaviors
that are totally unknown to us.
But others B.S. it really clearly.
A really good example is using filler words like
ums or Oz or like
like that,
because they've been so embedded
into your speech pattern that you don't even recognize how you do it.
And for me, I only recognize that I do it a lot.
When I started making videos on YouTube and another blind spot is typically like
you judged your actions by the intent and others
and judge your actions on impact and especially how it impacts them.
And paradoxically, when we come into challenging situations,
we tend to attribute it to the circumstance.
But other people tend to connect it to our character.
So it's come to my attention by you
made a decision on the glazing frame colors
that we can all agree on, and you were not being transparent about this.
And if this keeps happening, this is the fastest way
we're going to lose trust in you.
I had to make that call.
I was already so late on getting back to them and I couldn't
wait another week for us to all meet and honestly,
I did speak to everyone individually and my understanding
from the conversation was that we were all aligned on picking white.
We also have tells that we might not be aware of like
facial expressions or voice
and any other, like nonverbal behaviors or like habits
that can say the opposite thing of your intentions.
There's also emotional distortion when our emotional reaction to something
is like way out of proportion to the content of the feedback.
You can find some of these blind spots by observing
how you get really defensive or recording yourself.
You can also look for patterns in the feedback, like if you're getting
the same feedback from different people, you know that's an issue.
And the second type of trigger is relationship triggers, which is
an emotional response to the person more than the content of the feedback.
So there's two main types of relationship triggers.
One is our opinion of that person.
So when we get negative feedback, we are subconsciously
looking for ways to disqualify that person from giving that feedback.
And then number two is how they treat us.
So if you feel like they're not appreciating you
or your efforts or you feel like they don't have the authority
or you you might just feel like that person doesn't really like you.
And in situations like this, a very common response
can be for us to respond with something that's like
aimed at the person rather than the issue itself.
And when this happens, it will split the conversation into.
And you just start talking about two completely different things.
So, for example, your roommate will say, oh, you're so messy
and you'll say something like, Oh, yeah, but you're so loud.
Like, you leave the TV on till 2 a.m.
and I can never sleep.
And so it's very important for you to recognize this and actually address
each one of these topics separately before they turn into bigger problems.
And sometimes the conflict might not even be happening
because of you or the other person,
but because we're all a part of the system
that defines our relationship.
And you might have different values or habits
and you might have different roles in the relationship.
So sometimes just like stepping back
and like looking at the whole system as a whole can be really helpful.
The next one is identity triggers,
and these ones are a big one.
Identity triggers can happen when the feedback doesn't align
with your sense of who you are or the story that you tell about yourself.
For me, like when I got that feedback from my bosses,
a part of the reason why it stung so much
was because it was an identity trigger.
I felt like it was an attack on my integrity
and my capability as a person and as an architect.
And, you know, I consider myself to be a very transparent person.
And that's kind of one of the things that I take a lot of pride in.
And so my emotional response was probably kind
of exaggerated compared to the issue at hand.
And I think the best way to deal with identity triggers
is just like adopting a growth mindset.
A person with a growth mindset sees their traits
as evolving.
But if you have a fixed mindset,
you will see your abilities as stable
and finished.
And there's actually a ways you can develop a growth mindset
by listening to feedback as coaching rather than evaluation or judgment.
It's more about like how you're doing things
and what you're doing rather than on you.
Also, don't worry so much about how this is affecting the other person's
opinion of you.
You know, in the end, it's really hard to change people's opinion of you,
but it's really easy for you to change how you reflect on yourself.
So just try to focus on that.
Also, whenever you get feedback,
try to evaluate yourself on how you're taking that feedback.
Like if you can handle that feedback better than others,
then appreciate yourself for that because that in itself
is a really positive trait that actually very few people have.
Identity triggers are probably one
of the most emotional out of all of these.
So try to monitor your emotional reactions thoughtfully
by trying to control your emotions,
or even better, like trying to separate your emotions from the facts.
I also have my own kind of strange strategy for this.
So whenever I'm in a bad situation or I get bad feedback,
I imagine myself as like a character in a comedy movie
or in a sitcom,
and I just kind of proceed to deal with the issue at hand.
Yes, it is important to adopt a growth mindset.
But there are certain things that are just like
outside of your control, like how others feel about you,
and especially after you do your best to remedy the situation.
If they still have a negative feeling towards you,
just let it go and just try to be sad about it
because it's a waste of your time and your energy
to keep thinking about things that are outside of your control.
Now that we've identified the triggers and we kind of understand
how to control them,
how do we navigate those conversations and get the most out of that feedback?
Douglas Stone defines three phases of a feedback
conversation the open, the body and the close.
The open is before the content of the feedback.
It's where you get aligned with the other person
by trying to understand what kind of feedback is this
and what's the intent behind this feedback?
Is this evaluation? Is this coaching?
Is this appreciation?
And also trying to understand
who has the final word and is this feedback negotiable?
If you're working for someone, your boss in most cases has a final word.
No matter how right you think you are.
In the end, it does kind of come down to this.
You are there by choice.
You know, you agreed to the deal.
You work for them and they are paying you to represent the firm.
And obviously, there's a lot of nuance to this,
but that's the kind of systems framework that you have to consider.
And then there's the body.
The body is the content of the feedback or like the meat of the talk.
And to get the most out of this feedback, you need to listen.
That's something that I'm really, really trying to work on.
Try to really pay attention to what the other person's saying.
And while you're doing this, listen to your own internal voice
and try to watch for the triggers that we talked about.
And then clarify, you can always ask for specificities
or specifics on expectations or consequence.
And you can also add your own input and try to explain the situation
in your own thoughts and in your observations.
You can also talk about your interpretations on things
or your feelings.
You can also try to referee the conversation.
Try to diagnose and describe
the communication problems as they come up
so that you can kind of propose solutions in a real time.
And the last stage of that is the clothes.
That's where you clarify the commitments and expectations and the follow up.
You know who's going to do what specifically when you leave the meeting?
Are there like benchmarks or consequences if you don't meet those benchmarks?
And are you going to be having regular check ins?
Then the last but the most important step is actually incorporating the feedback.
Try to focus on one thing at a time or, you know, tested it
with small experiments and make sure
you really, really understand what the other person's trying to see.
You can give yourself rewards for making these changes,
or you can also add consequences for not making these changes.
Also, try to make the other person feel valued by taking their advice
and later, they are going to come to you for advice.
In conclusion.
What's interesting, but also really true, is that
negative feedback, if you know how to handle it,
it can actually have a much more positive
impact on your life than positive impact.
Think about an architecture project.
If you get really, really positive feedback, then at the end of the day,
it's kind of hard to know where to take that.
But when you have a really bad crit, you might cry.
But you have so many different ways you can take your project afterwards.
Right?
So try to really use this feedback
to your advantage and really make something of it.
All right, guys. So I hope that was helpful.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions
or if you have any strategies for dealing with negative feedback.
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And yeah, with I'll see you guys in the next video, bye!.