Value and Limitations of Feedback

Over and over, we are told that feedback is necessary to improvement. You won't be successful influencing someone unless you know what they want, need, expect, blah, blah. This is all true, even the "blah, blah". It's just useless on its own.

Think about this - how often are you really clear about what you want, need, or expect?

How often do you get what you thought you needed only to find it didn't fulfill what you thought it did?

How often have you given someone what they asked for only to have them tell you that isn't what they meant?

How often have you shared something with a group and had one person tell you it was the most amazing thing ever while someone else said it was dumb and all wrong?

As you can see, there are multiple problems here. Feedback tells us something about what the person giving it thinks. It doesn't tell us much about the person receiving it and not much about some sort of objective truth.

Think about the internet meme where we can't even agree what colors a dress is. "Objective truth" doesn't really exist in any meaningful way.

And yet, feedback is necessary - information about what someone wants, needs, expects, or thinks is valuable.

Here's another question - think about the last time someone gave you feedback you agreed with. How did you feel?

Now think about the last time someone gave you feedback you didn't agree with. How did you feel?

Feedback is wind.

When receiving feedback, we can

     let it buffet us about at it's mercy

or we can

     anchor and ride it out

or we can

     set our sails and fly.

When giving feedback, we can

     be aware of how we blow,

but we cannot

     decide what the recipient does in the face of our wind.

Value and Limitations of Metaphors

Metaphors are a useful way to frame things that are hard to verbalize, for others and for ourselves. But they are just a tool and only work to a point. (We've all found ourselves mixing metaphors when the one we started out with didn't extend to the point we wanted to make.)

Metaphors are one of the key ways my brain and I communicate. We work best together when we find one we can agree on.

For example, a common tool for calming the mind is imagining sweeping the clutter up and tossing it out to the side of the road. That worked for me for many years until it occurred to me that was littering. If I dump bad energy alongside the road, some poor innocent bystander could walk through it and be hurt. I know it's just a metaphor, but the metaphor works because it points to something and from the instant on, I just couldn't do it any more. That image doesn't work for me.

So I had the clutter piling up in my brain, clogging things up for quite a while and I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't have a tool that worked and the clutter affected my thinking at work, in personal relationships, everywhere.

One day while it was bugging me, I happened into a conversation about composting. The two things collided and I realized I had a new metaphor that worked. I could send the clutter down into the earth where it would be composted into rich soil that could energize someone else. I had a tool again, was able to clear out my brain, and went back to clarity of thought.

Chapter two of Tara Mohr's Playing Big is about the inner mentor. She uses a visualization tool of meeting with our future self who tells us what's important, gives us advice, and has a gift she's excited to give to us. I went through it several times to get past analysis of the technique before I could actually experience it.

But even then, it didn't resonate. I certainly have no fears about who I will be in 20 years. I understand what the visualization is doing and why it works. I've done similar before. It just feels wrong this time.

I have come to the conclusion that it's the wrong metaphor for me. I don't need help to anchor to myself. I have been well anchored in my own identity, personality, and judgments for as long as I've been able to express a personality. My mother has stories of me as a pre-schooler with a strong self-identity and presence. "Being a Jeanne-Anne" has been a catch phrase with my family and friends for more years than this blog has existed.

I started this essay thinking it might become clear what the right metaphor would be. In writing the last paragraph, I realize I don't need a tool for a problem I don't have. So I don't need a metaphor and I can set the issue aside as completed. :)

Inner reality vs public expression

Adolescence is tough. The stresses and pressures are immense during a time when body chemistry is in chaos and brain development isn't yet equipped to deal with any of it. For many adolescents, the bulk of stresses and pressures are from external challenges. When I went through it, almost all of the stresses and pressures were from me. That has continued since. NO ONE has higher expectations of my performance than me. NO ONE is as demanding of perfection from me as me. This base assumption that I am capable and powerful is so deep, I'm not even conscious of it, really.

And yet, it is so easy to be compassionate with others. "Of course you can't keep on top of that. Just look at it it! Anyone would be overwhelmed." "Yep, that mistake's a doozy. Remind me to tell you about the time I wiped out the root account on every node of a Teradata cluster. It's so great that you spoke up about it, though! Look how we were able to swarm together to fix it and all learn from it!"

I am gradually learning to apply the same compassion to myself. In my teens, I was self-critical. In my 30's, I liked who I was. Now, in my 50's, I am learning to love who I am with the same uncomplicated acceptance as I love my toddler grandson.

That said, I still have very high expectations of myself and I'm still stressed at a pre-conscious level that I don't measure up.

It makes me happy when someone thanks me for making their life or job easier - especially when it comes with that little relaxing around the eyes as they let go of a bit of fear. When someone praises me for good work, though, my emotional response is to discount it completely. "You think that's good, you should see what I should have delivered." In the first case, it's all about the other person and compassion kicks in. In the second case, it's all about me and self-criticism kicks in.

Note to self . . . I'm probably not unique in this. When thanking others, tell them how they made my life easier rather than how amazed I am at their work.

Think about this, though. There's a fierce jubilation when I nail a task, solve a challenge I've struggled with, or checked off something as DONE! (And I do mean "fierce".) My hands go up, I beam with triumph, I can conquer the world! My family and friends smile indulgently at me and that makes me laugh and feel happy. This is all about me. I'm capable of feeling and expressing self-pride, confidence, capability. (Why do I almost always list things in threes?)

What's different between the times I dismiss what others say about me and the pride I show when I . . . Oh. That's it, isn't it. When I praise myself, I'm as indulgent as my loved ones are, as I would be with any of them. When it comes from someone else, I haven't reached the same conclusion yet, so their input competes with my inner evaluation. Worse, if my evaluation disagrees with theirs, one of us has bad or incomplete data (because, of course we're both perfectly rational) and nothing unsettles me as much as feeling like I'm missing something - especially missing something obvious.

This explains a lot. Counselors don't usually tell people the answer, they draw it out of the person. In the first case, the person would fill in the "missing" info and explain why it wouldn't work. In the second, it's the person's idea and they are selling reasons why it would work. That's a common manipulation technique - if you want someone to think a certain way, help them think it's their idea.

Human beings are immensely powerful. We know we have the right, obvious, common sense opinion. It's so obvious that others should be compelled to agree with us. The fact that they don't is a horrible, undermining idea that we will go to great lengths to defend against.

So the conflict between our inner reality of what is obviously true and our public expression of rejecting doubt is really our discomfort with difference. Of course, it's more complex than that because some differences matter and others don't. That's something to ponder for a later topic.

Still a Jeanne-Anne

I've joined a mentoring circle which is using Tara Mohr's Playing Big as a launch pad. The book recommends journaling as a way to engage the material. I've been resisting that in favor of pondering and sitting with the concepts, which mostly means I've been avoiding engaging with it. :) Chapter 6 is about how women "hide" from playing big. Reading it really highlighted my lack of engagement. Ok, ok, so I tried journaling (in a book I last used for Lent 2015). It wasn't really me, not really "being a Jeanne-Anne". . . . Yeah. Immediately, I started to back away - maybe I should do an equivalent blog for my online persona, CharisSophia and do the journaling there. After all, "she's" been experimenting with a Minecraft video series. "She" actively maintains a public profile. Talk about HIDING! This is all so very Jeanne-Anne and not at all CharisSophia. [The few people who know me well enough to read this have been thinking "Well, duh!" all through this short post.] So I shall publicly, transparently claim my Jeanne-Anne-ness and step into the light with all my textures and character. Hold me accountable! There should be another post within 24 hours!