“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” 😫
If you’re a believer in this saying, then you’ve probably left a trail of broken relationships behind you.
“Excuse me while I hand you a sh!t sandwich. 💩🍔 You know, sandwich a “You’ve screwed up” bit between two “This is something you did that was marginally ok” statements. Right I can’t think of the bready outer bits. You’ve screwed up. And here are the 87 ways you’ve made my life sh!ttier with your conduct.”
😒
“But I’m only expressing my feelings.”
“I must do my duty to tell them how they’ve gone wrong so they can do better. My opinion about what’s right is absolute.”
“They need to feel bad or they will never learn their way out of their incompetence.” 😞
These are some of the milder comments I’ve heard before.
They will resonate with some of us who come from cultures that use shame as a behavioural stick.
If you’ve come from the same background, and you do want to learn how NOT to give sh!tty feedback, then you need to read Wes Kao‘s newsletter this week.
Luckily, I have had a succession of utterly amazing managers who have shown me true leadership especially around coaching and feedback although I could have done with this when I started leading groups at school and university. 😬
As a listening volunteer with hashtag#Samaritans – a charity that provides listening service to callers in emotional distress, and who may be feeling suicidal, I now know that shame is an incredibly destructive emotion.
It comes from constant nagging and belittling disguised as ‘constructive feedback’ delivered in an air of authority of “I know better than you.”
It never hurts to hashtag#BeKind.
Wes‘s newsletter this week provides a really good take on what it means to give good feedback – “Strategy, not self-expression.”
You’ll note that her article is written through a slightly different lens – where the feedback-giver may not be as egoistic or narcissistic as the imaginary character I am assasinating in this post. 😁
Her writing doesn’t generally have the emotional intensity of some the posts I write when I am on my soapbox but sign up anyway! 🤭
She writes some hashtag#GreatNuggets 👉🏻 newsletter.weskao.com
hashtag#OnThePeiroll
hashtag#WordsCanDoRealDamage
hashtag#WesWisdom
