Do you, like me, have a love/hate relationship to feedback?

I try to be open to feedback, but it’s an uphill battle. I’m a fairly defensive person. Whether that’s due to upbringing or nature, I’ve long since given up trying to find out why. I’ve just learned to manage it (sort of). Probably my big breakthrough moment came about 7 years ago, when I was working with the Portland Police Bureau on re-designing their Crisis Intervention Training (now part of their Behavioral Health Unit). I was part of the initial team running the pilot. After each day, the facilitators would stand in front of the room, and have participants critique each section. It had to be rigorous, because this was the last stop before going live with it. That was what I call now a “no-frills” approach to giving feedback. We needed them to be ruthless and honest, and they were.

It was tough, but it taught me a few things about getting, asking for and making use of feedback.  Recently, I asked you, readers of this blog, for feedback on the blog, as I’m going to be making some changes over the next few months. Reading through your responses (which I’ll share soon), was enlightening, and gave me more thoughts on the feedback process. (more…)

Did you know it’s our anniversary?

Yes, five years ago this month, I started A User’s Guide to Power, with this inaugural post on power, democracy and leadership.

A lot has changed since 2008. Five “internet years” feels more like ten in the real world. For perspective, back when this blog launched…

• There was no iPhone
• Facebook had just started to become available to users outside of universities and high schools
• Twitter was just out of beta (and most people didn’t know what it was)
• Hillary Clinton was ahead of Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary

Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? (more…)

Question:

Which of the follow define power and which define magic?

1. The ability to influence the course of events

2. Having great influence or control over others

3. Ability to act or produce or effect

Answer: All of them.

Magic and power are closely related. They are having the ability to influence the world around us, but they do it through different means. Or do they?

Power is not only the ability to control and influence, but to not be influenced. Like magic, power also can make us invisible. How does it do that? Deborah Gruenfeld, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, and one of the top researchers in the field of power, calls this power’s “disinhibiting effect.” Her research shows that power grants us immunity from social pressures and norms to which others are prone. Like Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak, when we have power, we become invisible: we’re protected from peer pressure, social norms, and others’ opinions that would otherwise constrain us. (more…)

I watched the Oscars Sunday night, and couldn’t help but think, Detroit all over again. Like the auto industry who failed to respond to consumer demand and imports until it was too late, the film industry is struggling to respond to the changes in how people consume movies and entertainment. And yet, on Sunday night they rolled out a pageant straight out of the Bob Hope, er Borscht Belt era. It was painful to watch. Do they seriously hope this will capture the old Hollywood spirit? Why can’t they read the writing on the wall?

It’s particularly fitting, because today I wanted to write about feedback, in particular, systems of giving and receiving feedback. Much of the literature on the topic of performance management focuses on what performance metrics should be measured, how they should be measured, who should participate in it, and how it should be followed up.  There are thousands of methods and systems, and yet there is a growing consensus that the system is broken. Studies are inconclusive about its merits, whether it works, and even if it results in increased, or decreased performance. Not to mention the fact that people generally hate it. (more…)

I was browsing through some old movies the other day and came across Love Story. Remember Love Story, Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw? The line the movie made famous was Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. I was a teenager when the movie came out, and I thought that sounded pretty cool. Looking back, I think it’s ridiculous. If anything, love means having to say you’re sorry… often. Or as John Lennon said, love means having to say you’re sorry every 15 minutes. (more…)

Last post I talked about what makes a good learner, sharing some of what I presented at my seminar in Australia, Beyond our Grasp: The Art, Science and Flow of Learning, Performance and Change. This post deals with the challenges of giving and getting feedback and coaching others’s performance.

Having to give and get feedback is a topic that generates a lot of conversation- whether we are teachers, managers, supervisors, or coaches. A lot of the literature on feedback and performance centers around the problem of information: What information is relevant? From what sources do we gather it? How do we deliver it? And for the one receiving feedback, the same: What do I think my strengths and weaknesses are? Am I open to the feedback? But often overlooked is the conversation between the giver and receiver of feedback. Feedback is a process, not a delivery. At its best, it’s a conversation and an exploration. Let’s look at the two parts of the conversation.
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I just finished teaching a seminar in Australia, Beyond our Grasp: The Art, Science and Flow of Learning, Performance and Change. I really enjoyed working with a new topic, and having the opportunity to trial new ideas and learn together with such an enthusiastic and experienced group of participants.

We looked at the challenge of learning and outcomes: when learning is tied to an outcome, a funny thing happens. The outcome is experienced as external to ourselves. Our learning is now complicated by the presence and pressure of someone or something outside ourselves –  a teacher or program requirements, the organization’s goals, a manager, coach, or teacher, a professional association, or even a result or number. Even when the goal is self-assigned, for instance, quitting smoking or losing weight, because we are changing something about ourselves, it creates an inner conflict: one part of us against or trying to change another. Even the tiniest sense of conflict or lack of consensus with our self-interest can torpedo the whole enterprise. This is why research on workplace motivation shows conclusively that intrinsic motivation trumps external motivation, including paid incentives:

people who expect to receive a reward for completing a task or for doing that task successfully simply do not perform as well as those who expect no reward at all.

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In his blog post early this week, The More Leaders Make, The Meaner They Get, Scott Berinato reports on research by Sreedhari Desai on whether sky-high pay leads to worse treatment of workers. According to Desai’s study, the answer is yes:

Increasing executive compensation results in executives behaving meanly toward those lower down the hierarchy.

Chalk one up for Lord Acton. But is it money that makes leaders meaner? Or the power connected to money? While Desai’s research shows a correlation between high pay and mean behavior, it doesn’t establish a cause between the two. Desai’s research suggests that money is an insulator. It shields leaders from the results of their actions. (more…)

The Process Work Institute is about to begin the process of applying for regional accreditation. My job is to help spearhead this process, and one of the tasks is to create assessments of the programs, of student progress, of individual courses, and of faculty. I’ve been up to my elbows this summer studying the literature on program and faculty assessments, and I have to confess, there’s something about the logic in it all that’s appealing. Even though I’m a progressive education fan from way back (Antioch College ’81) the literature on aligning goals and outcomes and performance is refreshing. It’s something of a relief coming away from philosophies, ideologies and concepts of human development to the practicality of metrics and asking (and then defining!) does it work? [I also read Paul Tough's book, Whatever it Takes, about Geoffrey Canada's Harlem charter school as well as other books on recent charter schools' successes in closing the achievement gap, and have newfound respect for the question, does it work?] (more…)

My blog stats tell me that my most viewed post, by an extraordinary amount, is Power = force + distance/time. Don’t remember it? I barely do either. It’s a little “back soon” post I wrote during a busy period, feeling guilty for not having written much.

It’s ironic (and humbling) that the most read post isn’t anything related to my ideas. It’s popularity is due to the key words – power, force, distance – which comprise the physics formula for power and also the key to elite fitness, according to Crossfit, a strength and conditioning program whose popularity is exploding.

But it tempts me to try again and this time, make it meaningful to the topic of leadership and power. Jude Morton, a regular commenter here voiced what I too have been thinking since that post:

Outside of physics, all of these formulas seem applicable to psychological processes.

So let’s consider that. In physics, work is the transfer of energy to an object, and power is the rate at which work is done, so the faster you can transfer energy to an object, the more power you have. In sociology, there is no one formula for power or work, but a classic definition might be: the ability to influence your environment and get things done, often through others. (more…)