Speak Like a CEO by Oliver Aust: Become a Top 1% Communicator
Join 150,000+ leaders receiving weekly tips via email & social.
Share
I ♥️ feedback
Published about 2 hours ago • 3 min read
This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication:
How to Receive Feedback Without Getting Defensive
On the Show: Why “Keeping Everyone Informed” Doesn’t Work
Book Recommendation: How to Fix a Broken Hierarchy
How to Receive Feedback Without Getting Defensive
"I know feedback is crucial if I want to grow as a leader. But I find it hard to hear. What can I do about it?"
Someone asked me this at an event this week.
I can't overstate how important it is not just to accept feedback with grace, but to demand it.
When we do, people invest time and energy in helping us grow. When we receive it poorly, we train them to stop giving it.
So, treat feedback as a gift. But it’s easier said than done.
Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, in Thanks for the Feedback, explain why even well-meant feedback can set us off. They describe three kinds of triggers (thanks to JD Meier for bringing this book to my attention).
1/Truth triggers fire when the feedback itself seems wrong, unfair or unhelpful. Our instinct is to spot what's inaccurate and dismiss the rest.
2/ Relationship triggers fire because of who is giving the feedback. We react to the giver ("Who are you to tell me that?") or to how we feel treated by them (“The CFO doesn’t respect me!”)
3/ Identity triggers fire when feedback threatens our sense of who we are. It knocks us off balance, and we either exaggerate it ("I'm a complete failure") or reject it entirely (“I know I am good at this!”).
Notice which trigger just fired: truth, relationship, identity or delivery. Naming it takes away some of its power. Then remind yourself that feedback is an investment the other person makes in your growth.
Consider each point on its merit.
Separate the message from the messenger and from how it was delivered. Ask yourself: "What might be right about this?" Use what's useful and ignore the rest.
Evolve.
Pick one thing to work on, not five. Tell the person what you're changing. A few weeks later, go back and ask how you're doing. That shows you listened, and it makes them far more likely to give you feedback again.
Feedback is a real dilemma. It's so crucial to your success and that of your team, but few people like to give or receive it. That's why leaders who learn to receive it well end up getting more of it than anyone else. Next time feedback stings, just ACE it.
Get good at receiving it, and you'll never be short of it.
Recently a CEO asked me why his team was disengaged. "How does communication work around here?" I asked.
"When we decide something, we cascade the information down to keep everyone informed."
"That's your problem."
Cascading creates the illusion of communication. In reality, it creates distortion, delay and silence. The important stuff gets lost in a game of telephone.
W. Edwards Deming said every system is perfectly designed to get the results it produces. So if your people are disengaged, you don't have a people problem. You have a system problem.
I learned this the hard way at easyJet, where I was responsible for building the communication systems for 10,000 people spread across a continent. Through hard knocks and fast learning, we created a system that works in a team of five as well as a company with 100,000 employees.
It's called Push, Pull, Exchange.
In this week's video I show you how to set up all three. If you lead people, it is worth five minutes of your time.
Bad bosses. Toxic politics. People fighting for promotions.
Hierarchy gets a bad rap, and often, for good reason.
Nir Halevy's best estimate: one in four employees is currently working in a broken hierarchy. So the obvious answer is to flatten it. Get rid of layers. Give people more freedom.
Except that may create a whole new problem. As Nir told me: "In environments where you don't have one single boss, everyone becomes your boss."
Nir is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford and probably the world’s leading researcher on hierarchies in organizations. He's spent years studying what makes hierarchies work, what breaks them and how we can improve them.
His new book Level Up – Why Hierarchies Are Broken and How to Fix Them explains how we can identify broken hierarchies and how to fix them.
He doesn’t pretend that hierarchies will go away. So the real question is how to make it work for the people inside it.
If you lead people, read it. And if you want to hear Nir yourself, he's my guest on Speak Like a CEO next week.
This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication: Your audience ignores 99.99955% of what you say On the Show: The Best Speech Ever Think Fast, Talk Smart Your Audience Ignores 99.99955% of What You Say Hi Reader, This very second, your brain is taking in 11 million bits of information. That's like reading three books. Consciously, though? You process about 50 bits. Fifty, out of eleven million. So you're aware of roughly 0.00045% of everything reaching you. The figures come...
This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication: Your 10 Most Pressing Questions, Answered On the Show: Steal the Guide I've Given 300+ CEOs Your 10 Most Pressing Questions, Answered Hi Reader, Thanks so much for sending me your most pressing questions following last week’s email. Please keep them coming! Let me answer ten that I know many of you have: 1/ What do you think about the 10,000 hour rule when it comes to speaking? How can I create moments or environments to hit...
This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication: How to Communicate Up, Down and Across On the Show: How Top CEOs Get 10x More Done Book Recommendation: Why We Talk Funny How to Communicate Up, Down and Across Hi Reader, “Do certain techniques work better in various situations, e.g., managing up, managing down, working with new contacts, etc?” Jack D sent me this question, and it's a great one. (thanks for sending me so many questions after Tuesday’s email – please keep...