How to deliver constructive feedback in difficult situations (2019)

How to deliver constructive feedback in difficult situations (2019)
productivityhub.org

Did you mean: "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" by Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen, et al.? and: "Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well" by the same authors?

I've copied an excellent summary by @BeetleB

To add to the above:

1. Observations should be specific, not generic ("you are lazy" vs "you have not accomplished any of the tasks you've been assigned"). They should also be objective - third party witnesses should have consensus. We can agree that you've not accomplished your tasks for the week. We will likely disagree on whether that means you're lazy.

2. Feelings are internal and should not involve someone else. "I feel cheated" is really just saying "I believe I've been cheated" - it's accurately portraying your inner narrative (which may be OK), but it is not portraying your feelings. Instead, you may feel sad, depressed, upset, nervous, whatever. Another way to think of it: Feelings are always legitimate - they are never wrong. The narrative in your head, though, may well be wrong. If someone can reasonably dispute it (assuming he/she is not a jerk), then it probably was a narrative and not a feeling.

3. Needs: This, in my experience, is easy for tech people to state. If you think someone cheated you out of money, you probably need things like integrity, honesty, security, etc. If your report at work seems unreliable to you, you probably need consistency, peace of mind, etc.

4. This is making a request. A request is not a demand or a command (so yes, NVC is not appropriate/relevant in contexts where orders make sense). If the person declines your request and you're upset a fair amount by it, you probably were not sincere in making the requests. And finally, your request should also be precise. Not "Could you rephrase that in a respectful manner", but "Could you rephrase that and address me as Mister instead of Dude?"

A few other tidbits from the book (also in Crucial Conversations): You are not responsible for other's feelings. Relieve yourself of that burden/guilt. However, if you want to take things to the next step and have better relations with people around you, do care about their feelings and use techniques to have them feel better - but out of empathy and not out of responsibility or guilt.

In general, the book is about realizing that you have a choice in most things - even things like whether you want to earn money to feed your kids. Likewise, it's about eliminating the language of obligation from your internal dialogues. This may be offputting to people who have a strong sense of obligation.

The above is likely about 90% of the book. The rest of the book are specific, concrete strategies related to the above.

----

Personally I've been studying this stuff for years yet still haven't been able to use it in real life. Not for want of trying or of opportunities. It's damn hard when the other person isn't playing along or interested in being understood or heard, when they just want to vent at you about you.

What not to do? Make snarky comments, laugh, put down, say "dude...". Things my current boss does. :)

Although I do think it’s worthwhile to try to think and communicate as clearly as possible, over the years I’ve learned in this industry that 90% or more of coworkers and managers are not going to put the same effort into it. You can do everything right and the majority of the time it won’t matter. The only thing that (almost) guarantees good relationships with management is to just do whatever they want even when it is leading the company to ruin, never voice your objections, etc.

There is no common goal with most managers because they don’t usually care about the success of the company, just their own personal success. And with most coworkers, few want to do things better more than they want to just have an easy ride.

If anyone is aware of an environment where meritocracy exists in this industry I’d love to know about it. Where, where can I find a company that cares about making money by providing value? (Obviously some attention is paid to this to make enough money to keep the company going, but it’s second to the higher goal of accumulating their personal status and wealth, and there is misalignment between that and actually delivering value due to usually poor leadership at the top and poor investor oversight.)

Maybe it’s all just a consequence of capital concentration. There are plenty of companies that could be out competed but competitors just won’t be funded, except if they are run by other connected people who don’t have the talent to out compete the existing ones.