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!

Depression Essay #1

Posted on Facebook 13 Aug 2014.

I remember the first time I was admitted to the psychiatric ward of a hospital. I had had a psychotic break in my dorm room at college and my classmates called an ambulance because I was non-responsive. (They feared a suicide attempt, but I don't think I had enough capability for intent for that.) After the whole ER thing, when they admitted me and the aid left the room and I was alone, I felt this very fierce jubilation! I had shown them! There really was something wrong! And then it struck me that I was locked in a psychiatric ward and I was suddenly terrified at what I had done.

The second time was some weeks later. I had returned home. My mother and I watched the clocks fall back as we went off daylight savings time in the waiting area until I could be admitted. That stay was memorable because I totally derailed a group therapy session with a lively discussion of the historical, linguistic, and cultural relationship between mad/insane and mad/angry. I remember the staff was frazzled, annoyed, and really upset with me. I hated that hospital and wanted out. The staff knew I was very, very sick, and argued strongly that I should be there. I argued more strongly that I should be out. My own psychiatrist (this was back in the days when they didn't just monitor meds) was so fascinated with my argument and how high-functioning I was given how very, very sick I was that he got curious what I would do with that if I got out and he approved my release. He and I were a good therapeutic fit and he helped facilitate my initial struggle, clawing, straining, arduous climb to mental health.

My maintenance holds pretty well. I know what types of situations put me at higher risk. I can tell when I need to see a counselor for a tune-up. My counselors usually comment that they don't often work with people as healthy as I am because I catch problems pretty early. I had so many messes and issues while pregnant that I had a third stay in the psych ward then, too.

Throughout all of this, I had family and friends I knew loved me unconditionally and were there for me. No matter how sick I got, it was ok and they would stay with me or visit me or take me along as they did their day-to-day tasks. Being sick with pneumonia or sick with depression or surgical removal of my wisdom teeth, it would all be ok and that assumption gave me confidence to become ok.

You can't tell a depressed person to cheer up or a suicidal person that they have so much to live for or an ADD person they should just chill or a grieving person that their loss will get better. You can just be there and take them as they are and make a safe place for them to be who and what they are. When it's safe to be broken or sick or sideways or whatever, then it's safe to work the long road through it to the other side that make life feel cheerful, worth living, serene, and comforted enough for today.

Many thanks, much love, and every blessing especially to Laura, Hal, Chris, Jon, Geri, Elizabeth, and Gary who provided a safe environment for me when I needed it and who are still in my life in some way even now.

The Costs of Professional Gains

Reflecting today about the impact the past 9 years of health issues has had on my career and how my career contributed to my health issues, I found myself thinking about the energy costs and career benefits of each of the four major segments.

1. Education and small business jobs - 1984-1994
2. US West New Vector/Airtouch/Vodaphone/Verizon Wireless - 1994-2003
3. T-Mobile - 2004-2011
4. Starbucks - 2011-present


1. Education and small business jobs - 1984-1994

Bouncing back and forth between attempting to get a four-year degree and working for small businesses, I learned a lot about who I am and what I'm good at, basically what raw materials I have that could be developed into something, and what business and academia are all about. I had the opportunity to work for several small businesses that were vendors and customers to each other.

In small business, you get to see all the different parts of a business. Each company had its own core competency, but the basic business functions were the same for all of them. Working for interrelated businesses was a great course in economics - your cost is my revenue - and in how the customer/vendor dynamics play out - customer is king versus the interests of my own business. Bouncing back and forth between academia and business, I could see how skills and knowledge, training and education, research and application balanced each other. (Oddly enough, though, I never made that connection in mathematics. It wasn't until 25 years later that I started to wish I'd not stuck my knows up at applied maths in favor of the more "pure" abstract theories.)

I don't really remember there being any cost to any of this. Isn't that the way of the young, all that energy expended is free. I was struggling with mental health at the time, but that was a preexisting condition and it improved throughout this period.

2. US West New Vector Group/Airtouch/Vodaphone/Verizon Wireless - 1994-2003

When I started at NVG, I had never spent more than 13 months at any job. Prior to this, that had been a bit of a liability because it was not the norm. Hoping around was seen as a shallow resume. The mid-1990's, though, were the era where business discovered that the world was changing faster than corporations could adapt and they started looking for employees with broad experience rather than deep. Suddenly my experience was a rare and precious asset. I was also lucky enough to be in a support department that had visibility to Finance, Marketing, IT, Sales, etc. and I got to see how all the essentials of business that I had learned with small companies scaled up into Corporate America.

I also learned that IT is very different from "being the tech kid"; Finance is very different from "being the bookkeeper"; Sales and Marketing are very different from "being the sales person"; Management is very different from being "the owner". I had to work as a team, be a cog where I couldn't see the whole machine, trust in others. Being bright wasn't enough. It wasn't even all that important.

I had to grow up. This had big emotional costs.

This period took my raw material potential and fashioned a career. Economically, we moved into the middle class. We had health care benefits for the first time, vacations, bought a house. I participated in professional organizations, started building a reputation. These were the things bought with the mental and emotional energy expended.

3. T-Mobile - 2004-2011

I started T-Mobile mentally and emotionally tired. These reserves quickly recovered as for the first time I had actual credibility. I was 38 and an established professional coming into the company as a lead. T-Mobile gave me responsibility, empowered me to take a lot of rope and run with it, held me accountable for results instead of task velocity. I learned that I could take my skills into new situations and quickly establish myself as a professional in a new area. I developed competency and reputation for a rare skill set. I directed people in three time zones around the world, managed people I've never met in person. Incredible opportunities!

My family paid for those opportunities. Paid dearly.

Within a year into my tenure at T-Mobile, stress had damaged my health and started my "career" as a health care recipient. By the end of my time there, I was spending every summer out on medical leave. All of my vacation and sick time was spent trying to rest enough to continue working. My long term ability to work was seriously in question, making our family finances somewhat precarious. (I was the only wage earner.)

My daughter spent her adolescence where all of her needs were secondary to my health and work. The toll to her mental and emotional health was severe. My husband lost the grip he'd had on sobriety since right before we'd become engaged to wed - not directly because of the impacts of my career, but not unrelated, either, and that compounded our daughter's issues.

At least I came out of T-Mobile mentally and emotionally very strong and robust.

4. Starbucks - 2011-present

Starbucks is the kind of place that finds and recruits good people and turns them loose to provide value for Starbucks. They'll tell you the vision, values, and high-level goals and empower you to figure out what needs to be done and how. It's a somewhat chaotic place to work, but not even the sky can limit you.

Starbucks recruited me for my strengths in an area they were weak. They didn't tell me what my job was, they brought me in, oriented me to my context, and asked me to do whatever they needed. They didn't even know what that was, but trusted me to.

My physical health is recovering quite rapidly (despite the setback of being hit be a car about a year in). I am able to support our daughter as she establishes her own life and starts discovering her raw materials. My husband has the luxury to follow his calling to study math and support disabled students, adults trying to complete basic high school material, at risk youths, special needs students who have challenges the average peer student doesn't understand. We are thriving and reaping the rewards we all sacrificed for while I was at T-Mobile.

It's too early to tell what the cost will be. Probably mental energy.

Today I received a challenge:

Imagine that any aspect of your habits or thinking could be rewired with enough practice. What would you change or rewire? Why?

Last summer, I was a pedestrian hit by a car. For someone in that situation, I got off very lightly. Most of my physical injuries have healed, however I am still significantly impacted by the post-concussion symptoms.

In thinking about this challenge today, I want to fix the wiring that was shaken loose in the accident.  Ultimately, I would love to learn more about how my brain works and what kind of exercises can enhance that, but for now I think it's enough to simply heal and strengthen the wiring to be less susceptible to future shake-ups.