change management

Practicing Giving and Receiving Feedback

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Give Without Expecting

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoquotes/14020634976


I had so much fun at the all-staff meeting we held this week at Temple University and felt very supported by the team as we practiced giving and receiving feedback to create a more open and collaborative culture. We invited all of our IT colleagues from across campus to join us for the meeting and many of them came, which was terrific.
I was able to incorporate some of the feedback from our previous meeting. Specifically, I heard that some team members were uncomfortable at our last meeting because I asked everyone to share personal stories with someone they didn’t know. Also, I received a suggestion to use technology to solicit more honest feedback and make people feel safer. To address this concern, I used PollEverywhere to create anonymous polls scattered throughout the presentation.
fear-to-freedomAfter giving an update on the action items from our previous meetings, I introduced the Fear to Freedom model to the group. This is a simple and powerful tool that has helped me recognize when I am in fear and focused on myself and to manage myself to a more open and free state of mind.
The heart of the training was around how we can think about feedback as a gift that we graciously give and receive from a place of freedom and openness. These are the principles that we asked everyone to follow.
When giving feedback:

  • State facts – be specific
  • Leave out generalizations (all, every, always) and judgement (good, bad)
  • Go direct – preferably in person
  • Check your intentions
  • Ask if the person is open to feedback
  • Use “MRI” – Most Respectful Interpretation – of others’ actions.
  • State the problem from your own observations

When receiving feedback:

  • Listen attentively
  • Say thank you
  • If you are not in a place to be open to feedback, let the other person know
  • Assume the best intentions
  • Ask clarifying questions
  • Avoid being defensive (going to fear)
  • Take the feedback away, determine what you want to do with it

Then we broke into groups of three and alternated roles of giver, receiver, and observer playing several scenarios designed to show how fear can interfere with either giving or receiving feedback.
After the first scenario, I asked the group whether it went as they expected and many of the groups indicated that they were surprised that the gift of positive feedback was not well received. Each person only saw the following information for the role they were playing.

  • Kelly (Giver): Pat is a peer and one of the best people on your team. It has been a crazy couple of weeks on the project and the entire team has been working really hard to make a deadline. Pat really helped you out personally by the way s/he maintained a sense of humor and optimism. You want to let Pat know what a difference s/he made to you personally and the team.
  • Pat (Receiver): You have often felt that Kelly is quite competitive as a team member and a brown-noser and looking to advance at the expense of the rest of the team. You are not sure if you trust Kelly.
  • Observer: Watch to see if the giver asks permission and is specific in the feedback. Watch to see if the receiver sincerely thanks the giver and if there is any underlying tension in the exchange.

One giver described in bafflement, how the receiving partner responded to his sincere thanks with abrupt, monosyllabic thanks that made him want to stop giving praise. The receiver reported that he felt he was being open, but that was not how the giver or the observer felt about his responses.
This simple role play demonstrated how much our internal stories influence our actions and put us into a closed, judgmental, and fearful position. When we take this defensive and fearful stance, we can discount all feedback, even when it is positive, from individuals based on our previous interactions or even things we have just heard about them.
When we can master our stories and stay out of fear, we can break the negative cycle and be in a powerful position to influence and change outcomes. The most common question that I got after the meeting was what if all of our attempts to extend in openness and kindness are rebuffed. My answer was that we can never change anyone but ourselves. If we can stay in a place of freedom where we continue to be positive and open in giving and receiving feedback, we will be happier and more successful and productive independent of whether anyone else changes.
The quote on the picture that I found for this blog answers this question much better than I did. When we are looking for something in return to our gift of feedback, it is our ego showing up. We are focused on ourselves and want validation, not what is best for the person who we are giving feedback. We are operating in fear, not in freedom.
The slides from the meeting with all of the scenarios are available online. My challenge to you this week is to practice giving and receiving feedback using the principles above. I would love to hear from you to see how your practice is going.

Maintaining Good Habits

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sept-shred-2016-7

Shred Boot Camp CoreFitness, LLC. Picture take by Cynthia Brown. I am in the blue shirt on the left center.


I love to exercise and move and sweat. I often say I am desperately seeking endorphins! Getting a good workout every day, preferably early in the morning, is critical for me to have the energy I need to do my job well.
Two weeks after moving to Philadelphia, I was completely bored with biking, walking and doing yoga by myself. I knew that I was going to have to figure out something different to keep me motivated and moving.
In looking for a new exercise routine in Philadelphia, I examined my routine in Ann Arbor to figure out what about it had kept me motivated and engaged for many years. These are the things that I identified as important to me.

  • Friends: I have several friends who I had been working out with for years in Ann Arbor and was able to combine social time with exercise. In fact, because we are all so busy, it was often the only time that I saw some of my friends.
  • Variety: I went to two different studios and infused other activities in making up my routine. Although, I religiously went to each studio twice a week, the workouts varied each time, which kept it interesting and challenging.
  • Measurement: I was able to measure my progress and see my improvement. Whether it was watching my power output increase on the bike or seeing my fat body mass decrease, I could see my progress and that was motivating.
  • Instruction: I like having an expert guiding my exercise. I push myself harder when I have an instructor and I like learning to do the activity correctly to avoid injury and perform to my highest capacity.

On one of my lonely morning walks, I stopped and asked an exercise group that was working out near the Art Museum what they were doing and how I might join them. I am now in my third week going to boot camp a couple of mornings each week. This class has three of the four things that support my exercise habit. It has been great and has felt like my first step in finding an exercise routine that will be sustainable in Philadelphia.
One framework that I find really helpful when I think about how to establish or maintain good habits is the Influencer Model outlined in the book Influencer, The Power to Change Anything. This model outlines six areas of influence we need to pay attention to when we are trying to change. When I map the things I value from my exercise routine, they map directly to the influencer model.
influencer-image-6-types

  • Friends = Social Motivation
  • Variety = Structural Ability
  • Measurement = Structural Motivation
  • Instruction = Social Ability

I have the personal motivation and ability to exercise, but adding social and structural support by joining a class here in Philadelphia makes it much more likely that I will maintain an exercise habit that I really value.
My challenge to you this week is to think about how you might strengthen a habit you value by adding social or structural support.

Crowdsourcing Culture Change

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A male participant speaking among other meeting participants
My first week at Temple has been great. Everyone has been very welcoming and I loved getting to meet individual team members and hearing their ideas. Many of the ideas that I heard this week, and also in the weeks before I started, were about changing the culture.
Establishing a supportive and innovative culture is my most important job as a leader.  It is also one of the most challenging things to do. This is not something any one person can do alone. Each group defines its culture together, either intentionally or unintentionally.
This week, we started to intentionally create a new culture together by crowd sourcing ideas from the entire Computer Services team. I invited everyone to come to a meeting and we did two liberating structure exercises to identify the top things that the team would like to change.
The first exercise was to identify what we should STOP doing. We did this by having each person in the room design the most demotivating work environment that could imagine. The power of asking the opposite of what you want to achieve is that it is unexpected and opens the thinking of the group. The second step of this exercise was to identify which demotivating things we were currently doing as a team. The final step was to prioritize the top two things we would like to stop, with a concrete first step on moving forward. Each step of the exercise is done by having each individual do their own thinking, then share their thoughts with one other person at their table, then discuss the ideas as a table before sharing their ideas with the entire group.
The report out from the tables was fun and it was very clear immediately that the team wanted  to stop requiring salaried employees to clock in and out each day,
The second half of our all team meeting was to generate bold ideas of what we could do. This exercise is done by having each person generate one bold idea of how to make the culture of the team better with the first step that they would take to make their idea happen.  The ideas are written on one side of an index card. Then everyone in the room stands up, exchanges cards and rates others’ ideas on a scale from 1-5, with 5 representing a terrific idea that they could fully support.
This exercise turned out to be a little chaotic with so many people in the room. While not perfect, the exercise did work and the group generated several ideas that got top ratings.
Like the first exercise, the majority of the ideas centered around one theme. The team really wanted to establish flexible work schedule options, including telecommuting. This is something that is important to me as well and we will work together to define guidelines for the team in the coming month.
I have already taken concrete steps based on the suggestions from the meeting. Eliminating clocking in and out for salaried employees was an easy thing to accomplish which I did by sending out an email at the end of the week. One team member tweeted about clocking out for the last time, which made me smile.
We will all meet again next month and will assess the progress that we have made on the creating more flexible schedules for the team. We will also work together on other aspects of the culture.
My challenge for you this week is to think about the culture that you are either intentionally or unintentionally creating in your team and identify if it is the culture you want. If it isn’t, think about how you can involve the entire team to start to shape your culture more intentionally together.
Photo taken by ITU pictures – https://www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/albums/72157634087412090

Transitioning

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Trees with autumn leaves

I am in the middle of the transition to my new role.  For me, the middle is the least comfortable part of any transition. I think this is because I want to be constantly moving forward and instead of being in limbo, want to move quickly to decision and action.
In his book, Transitions, William Bridges outlines three steps of transition that every individual go through when change happens. The first is an ending, the second is a neutral zone, between the old and the new, and finally, the third step is a new beginning. He argues that every successful transition has all of these phases that need to be fully experienced and that most of us are not comfortable making transitions even though we are constantly changing.
One piece of advice that Bridges gives is to not try to rush the neutral zone, but to take time to be alone in order to make the mental and emotional transition from the old to the new. This includes understanding what you want to leave behind and what you want to create and who you want to be as you move forward.
I thought I was following that advice when I scheduled almost a month between my old and new job. However, in retrospect, I filled that time with many activities and didn’t really take much time to be alone and introspect.
My final full week in Ann Arbor has been a time for connections with several walks with dear friends through the Arboretum and cherished meals with wonderful colleagues. I have been busy packing and sorting getting ready for my new life in Philadelphia. I also have been sick all week with a summer cold.
I have noticed that often when I am in transition, I get sick. The first time I noticed this was at the end of each semester in college, when I would literally collapse into bed after completing my last final. And, often after completing a major project, I would come down with something after all of the stress had dissipated. This week as I have been forced to slow down to let my body heal, I have come to the conclusion that this is a mechanism that I personally use to slow down and give myself space away from activity and time to recover.
I am excited and curious about this next step in my transition to a leader at Temple University and recognize that this transition feels better than previous job changes. I am not anxious and have continued to use the tools that I have learned to stay at peace. Understanding that I don’t need to have all the answers, I haven’t made a 90-day plan of things I want to make sure will happen as I start my new job.  Instead, I have written a positive intention to listen, understand, and work collaboratively with my new colleagues to create a shared culture and vision. I am eager to see what we create together.
My challenge to you this week is to notice where you are in the transitions in your life and give yourself the time, space, and permission to experience all of the different steps in your own personal transitions.
Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoquotes/22402993359