Transcripts
1. Feedback with emotional intelligence. How to speak honestly WITHOUT upsetting people.: Hello and welcome to this training course. Home has give feedback. This is for anyone who wants to learn how to give better feedback. That's inspiring and motivating, but without running the risk of antagonizing or provoking people into becoming defensive or argumentative. In other words, how to be able to be completely honest and get away with it without offending the other person. Hello, my name's Alex gold. I have for many years been steeped in emotional intelligence training. For decades ago, my parents developed what went on to become a highly acclaimed 20 course called skills where people. I joined the family business in 2005. And since then we've had thousands of managers, leaders, and professionals who are our hands. What I've done here is to package together some helpful information on what has to be one of the most frequently requested topics from our trainings. And that is, had to be able to express yourself when you unsatisfied and be able to get away with it without upsetting the other person. So who is this for? This training is designed for anyone who's dry IV and knowledge and technical ability that have gotten so far inaccurate are no longer going to be enough to take them through to the next stage, the next phase, the next step. What you're going to need now more than ever before, is to develop your people skills and in particular your emotional intelligence. So more specifically, this is going to be relevant for you if you want to develop your management skills. Because you need to be able to perform it, manage. Or you want to be able to confront people with hard true. Or you want to be more confident approaching difficult conversations. Or perhaps you need to complain when you're failing strongly about something. But the problem you're facing is that you really hate to criticize because you're finding that you end up antagonizing people. And you really don't want to be rude. And you don't want to run the risk of starting an argument or fight with somebody at work. So ideally, what you want is to better find a way of being able to be diplomatic and tactful. In other words, to be or to criticize firmly but politely in a way that doesn't cause offense. Or perhaps you're looking for a straightforward and honest way to be able to praise people that doesn't come off sounding intensive, patronizing or manipulator. And this isn't just for people who are already in senior roles. You may need to be able to demonstrate to the powers that be that you are safe pair of hands in order to be considered appropriate for a promotion. Also, we find that for lots of people, the way they behave in the heat of battle at work, as it were, is really not wildly different from the way they behave in other areas of our lives. So this material could be just as relevant for your personal relationships. What kind of course is this? Well, this isn't just going to be a set of academic lectures. We'll learn a few dry bits of theory. What you'll get here is a very simple, clear, powerful skill set. I am going to teach you exactly what to say and how to say it so you can produce the effect that you want. It's, how do you actually say it? Course? They are going to be some clear guidelines, lots of examples, and some walkthroughs. So you'll end up being able to apply this in your own situation. I'm going to explain emotional intelligence. And I'm going to give you a methodology where you'll be able to be both tough on the issue and yet coming to the person at the same time. So in the end, that end up thanking you. So by the end of the course, what you'll learn is how to give difficult feedback that's both inspiring and motivating, but without running the risk of antagonizing people while making the defensive or argumentative. You're going to learn how to be able to be authentic, in other words, completely honest and be able to get away with it without upsetting people. You'll learn how to praise without patronizing, and how to criticize without attacking. You. Learn how to confront others without discouraging them or putting them on the defensive. You'll be able to give some genuinely helpful feedback during the appraisal. So you're not just going through the motions. In fact, by the end, and with a bit of skill and practice, you'll be able to get to the stage where you'll be able to confidently give it to people straight without worrying about whether the way you might awarded it is lovely to ruffle their feathers. If this sounds like the sort of thing that appeals to you, then the next step will be for you to continue into the course. I look forward to seeing you in the next video.
2. Why is feedback so difficult?: Before going on to look at how to improve feedback, it's probably worth spending a bit of time exploring why feedback is so difficult to do in the first place. It really is quite normal for people to be uneasy about delivering feedback if they think the other person may not take it too well. That's because most people find criticism to take. And that makes us nervous about giving it. In fact, some people are so uncomfortable about giving feedback that they avoided altogether. It's a well understood psychological pattern that something funny happens to us when we feel threatened. In the case of feedback, this is triggered by fear of disapproval and rejection will underpins this reaction is our underlying belief that we might not be accepted if we're not good enough and then we may end up being rejected. But why do we have this? Where does it come from and what's going on? As with many modern day behavioral patterns, it has its roots in our evolutionary development. Affair of disapproval plays an important role in our evolution. Back in the day when we used to have to fend off saber tooth tigers from invading our K was when we used to live in caves. Chances of survival were greatly enhanced. If we were part of a tribe. As a fear of disapproval kept us in, checked and stopped us behaving in a way that would end up having US thrown out of the tribe. If you did something that offended the tribe, you'll either be thrown out literary fronted the walls, or if I did decide to keep you, then the shame of telling off will be used to teach him a lesson. So you never do it again. So this need to avoid disapproval and shame has become part of our instinct is become hardwired into our neurobiology. And it's become a little bit like a computer program that's constantly running in the background about brightens it always on the lookout for how we might avoid disapproval and rejection. And how to avoid the shame of being judged by your peers and found inadequate in some way. This is an ancient evolutionary survival tactic that kicks in even without you having to think about it. Although today we no longer have to worry about such things as like being eaten by marauding lions and tigers. This psychological pattern is still there, but it's become mutated into how we relate to authority figures in our lives. When we were growing up, the important or authority figures. But I've been our parents or teachers, or we merged, but overall pairs. And it's our relationship to these authority figures that go on to determine to what extent are triggers for disapproval and rejection calibrated. And it's our relationship with, let's say, a grumpy parent or an angry headmaster or disapproving bunch of pairs, which have a big influence over our sense of self-worth. And what we decide we need to do in order to stay within the tribe and stop ourselves from being rejected. There's also a lot of evidence that we are particularly sensitive to tuning into what we need to do to please our primary caregivers when we're young. And it's this threat system which gets activated every time we worry about being judged. About being judged a triggers sympathetic nervous system, that's the whole fight, flight or freeze response. In other words, it's when our adrenaline kicks him. Once this happens and these sorts of hormones flood our bodies, a shift is away from a position of open-mindedness and enthusiasm and suddenly to a frame of mind where they're dominated by fair people worry about how can they avoid being rejected? And that tends to be about people learned to becoming defensive and argumentative as they tried to stand up for themselves. Dr. Elson Manon is a clinical psychologist who's very good, honest CT has a very interesting talk on imposter syndrome that you might find helpful. So when you're giving feedback, what you need to be aware of is to avoid triggering this kind of psychological and physiological reaction. So if you inadvertently end up triggering this kind of response is really not your fold. There are millions of years of biological or chemical, physiological, psychological mechanisms at play here. So the knack is when you're giving feedback to people, how can you do it in a way that it doesn't trigger these ancient evolutionary defense mechanisms. In the next video, I'm going to talk about some common mistakes people make when it comes to trying to give helpful feedback to other people.
3. Common feedback mistakes: This lecture is on the four biggest mistakes people make when offering feedback. Most people are sensitive enough to realize that their relationships with friends and colleagues are potentially rather fragile things so that we get very nervous about jeopardizing them with harsh or clumsy feedback. And this can then lead people into making for very common mistakes. Let's set the scene. Let me invite you to imagine euro at an important company due on the stage in front of you is somebody rubber senior and rather important who's giving a speech. But let's imagine that actually is not a very good speech. Let's imagine they get lost and they end up repeating themselves a few times. Imagining they tried to inspire people by adding a few jokes, but unfortunately, they're not that good. And anyway, there have been tied or olds, there might just be regarded as dad jokes. However, eventually they come to an end and everyone in the audience politely applauds. Then afterwards, you're all milling around having coffee. And imagine this person bound up to you with enormous grid anaphase, just like a Labrador puppy. And I ask you, hey, what do you think of my speech? Now in a situation like this, a lot of people would be uncomfortable. Some people might be tempted to say something vague or bland, or perhaps ask a question in order to get the person talking about something that they're enthusiastic about and hopefully distract them. Hopefully they might forget that they asked you a question in the first place. However, some people would feel obliged to do what's being asked of them. After all, what normally happens if somebody asks you for feedback? You try to be helpful and you try to give them as good answer as you possibly can. Now this can lead people into some fairly stereotypical kinds of answers. And that might end up producing effect on the other person that you actually would prefer to avoid. The first thing that usually pops into people's heads is to offer an opinion, to make a judgment. You might be tempted to say That was really good, or you really shouldn't go on like that. Although you are trying to be helpful, it's actually not all that useful for people to hate judgments of that kind. Because if they wanted to replicate the good bits and their performance the next time around, it's quite hard for them to be able to hit the right notes or know what it is that I have to do exactly the same in order to get just as good a review next time. In any case, the problem with making judgments is that the other person ends up feeling judged. Lots of people don't enjoy that very much. And one of the consequences of people feeling judged is the attempt to provoke people into arguing with you, even know what you're saying may well be true. Another common approach is to make generalizations. You may, for example, be tempted to say something supportive like who I had the impression that maybe you weren't quite as comfortable giving a speech like that in front of such a large group of people. The problem with generalizations like that, that aren't specific is that there are just as likely to be inaccurate as they are accurate and therefore they're just not very helpful. People often feel misunderstood and defensive with a thing. Others are making inaccurate generalizations from Clue and jumping to conclusions about their capabilities or their motives. Things like, you know, very good speaker or a bit too long winded. Even when the generalizations are favorable, it's not specific enough to be useful for them. Another common pitfall that people often find themselves slipping into is offering very well-meaning but potentially patronizing advice. Wouldn't it be better if he gave less detail? Or you might be tempted to very helpfully suggests from time to time, when I'm called upon to give a speech, I find that it's helpful to write bullet points down on these little cards, not the IM reading them, but this is a little prompt for me. And then I know that when I've covered a topic, I can shuffle that car to the back of the pile. And that way I'm not going to be boring my audience by being repetitive. It might be perfectly sound advice. It might make a lot of sense. I might be really good stuff. However, advice can all too easily make people feel insulted. The expression is teaching grandmother to suck eggs. Now if the feedback is clear, factual and specific advice will not be needed. And the final common mistake lots of people find themselves inadvertently slipping into is asking questions that imply criticism. For example, do you think you need all that detail? Or what makes you go on like that? Or do you think it might have been better for you to have rehearsed giving a speech like that in front of a mirror before attempting it in front of an audience like this. Questions like that often put people on the defensive even when no criticism is intended. When people ask questions like that, it's quite difficult not to fit a bruise developing in your side. So in the next video, what I'd like to do is talk about an emotionally intelligent approach to feedback and explain to you where a difference it can make. It you can be courageous enough to be willing to talk about your feelings.
4. The relevance of emotional intelligence: In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman surveys human brain research. And he explains why it is that people become irrational when their emotions were aroused. He explains why it is that people can become much more successful in life and at work. If we can become aware of admit to and talk about our feelings. He put forward this concept of emotional intelligence and he defined as a set of learnable skills. At the heart of it is the ability to be aware of and to be able to verbalize our feelings. And the two central skills at the heart of it, empathy and assertiveness. So why our feelings important? And why is emotional intelligence such a powerful tool when offering feedback? The thing is, people tend to become irrational when emotions are aroused. And we become far more rational if we can become aware role, admit to and talk about our feelings. However, this goes against the grain because many of us have got used to actually suppressing feelings. Because our feelings can be painful. We learn how to protect ourselves and others by denying them. We'd use phrases like, there, there, don't cry, police off together. Let's be rational, let's not be irrational. We learned that if we express about filling, then we'd end up feeling worse. Therefore, logically, it must make sense that if we stop expressing, it will probably end up filling better. But the thing is ignoring or suppressing our emotions can end up being a mistake. Filling up our feelings tends to make us ten, inhibited and defensive. In fact, bottling up our feelings tends to make us far less rather than more rational. The more we're able to express our feelings, the more relaxed way, less defensive where the more we're open-minded we're able to be. In fact, women were able to express our feelings in a safe way. It enables us to connect better with others. And it helps us to recover the full use of our rational faculties. If you wanted to be able to be better at implementing and persuading people and help them to become more receptive to new ideas and to change. You need to be able to help them to express their feelings and to be able to let off some steam. Also, when we suppress our feelings, what we're doing with dampening down essential life force. Vitality. It keeps us being inhibited and close minded and unable to really be able to think creatively outside of the box. Whereas if we're able to talk about our feelings in a safe way and we can express them. It helps us to recover the full use of rational faculties. In the next few videos, I'm going to teach you how to become really good at emotional intelligence and how to be able to talk safely about feelings. And the approach that I'm teaching here can be used just as effectively in personal relationships as it can and working relationships. So in the next video, what I'd like to do is give you a methodology of offering feedback to the other person that doesn't rely on any judgments or generalisations, doesn't involve you offering any well-meaning, could potentially patronising advice and doesn't involve you asking any questions. It's completely factual, its specific. It's actually giving them some facts on which they can draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments about whether they'd like to change their approach.
5. An emotionally intelligent methodology of providing feedback: Areas and emotionally intelligent methodology for offering feedback. So this is the way to go about giving feedback. Let's use as an example, the person giving a speech who's coming to you and asking you for feedback about how good their speech was. Let's think of the feedback under three separate headings. Let me draw it for you. The first thing to do is to look inwards. And you ask yourself, what effect as the other person had on me. In other words, what mood Have they put me in? You can say I liked it or I was pleased or I was happy. Did I feel admiration for them? Did it engage my interest? Did that explanation of their vision of the future excite me? Or did it have a different kind of effect? For example, was I confuse was I put off by something you said or did? And therefore I didn't like it. Although it can be helpful to be specific about which emotions have been triggered, is not necessary to be precise. Binary language will be good enough. So examples of binary language are things like saying I liked it or I didn't like it, or something you said made me happy or I was unhappy or I was in food. I was worried. The second part of the feedback is to try to identify the cause. In other words, what was it that they said or did that had that effect on you? It's the trigger that caused you to have the thoughts we've just talked about. You really don't need very much here. It's simply a topic heading. For example, when you talked about the company's future plans. Well, while you were repeating yourself. The third part of the feedback that it's very helpful to offer is to give them an indication about your thought process by explaining why you felt that way about what they said or perhaps didn't say. So you can say, this is the thought that went through my mind at this particular point in your speech. Let's go back to our original example. Or someone asking for feedback. After having delivered a speech. You can tell them, I really enjoyed it when you were talking about the company's future plans for growth and opportunities. Because I couldn't stop thinking about the next bonus we are going to be able to earn and my next exotic holiday. However, I'm afraid I didn't let the bit where you made the same point several times and kept repeating yourself because it got it perfectly well the first time. So instead of saying, I was bored or I was turned off when you repeat it yourself. Now it's something quite different because you're not talking about their style or presentation. You're not talking about them personally, is being very specific about something they did. And that's repeating themselves. And the specific effect it had on you. And the effect that that is likely to have on them is that they'll say, well, the first thing is that they'll probably be surprised. They may not have realized how much they were repeating themselves. And then there'll be highly motivated to stop doing it in order to not have that negativity effect on you and anybody else. So you will have made some very helpful and quite strong criticism, but they weren't who have taken it as a personal attack. I recommend you try to stick to the facts. The facts about how you feel and about the behavior, what the other person said. And did that caused you to feel that way? So in summary, when you're offering feedback to people, it's very helpful if you can start with praise. And when you're praising you all saying three things. How you feel, what about and why? And then you pause. And then you can repeat that perhaps two or three times. And then when you move onto your criticism is exactly the same pattern you're saying how you feel, what about and why? And then you're pausing. In the next video, what I'd like to do is discuss some important nodes to be mindful of when you're implementing this methodology.
6. Tips about giving feedback with emotional intelligence: There are some important points to note here. The first is, who is this feedback about? When most people ask for feedback, they're expecting you to make a comment about them. The philosophy behind this approach is the exact opposite. What I'm suggesting is that instead of talking about them, your first step is to look inwards and then give the other person some insight about what it is that's going on for you. You're asking yourself, what effect did the person speaking have on me? They make me feel. Another common mistake that people make when trying to offer emotionally intelligent feedback is stating my opinion rather than saying how I feel. So if you're going to say I feel, and then the next word out of your mouth is the word that the chances are that you're going on to describe is a thought rather than a feeling. If you do this, you are not giving any information about your emotion. And the result is that you can leave people guessing. The trouble with giving an opinion is that others might receive it as an invitation to argue. If you want to be taken seriously is much more effective to give him a fat that they really can't argue with by naming a feeling, making it clear what that's about and why you feel it. Remember you are the world's best authority about how you feel. And if you say, I was pleased with this, but I was unhappy about that, no one can argue with you and tell you you're wrong. On other rather important point to make care is to do with the power of the pause. Pausing gives weight to your words. They give time for the other person to think. It also enables you to observe the other person's reaction that enable you to make a better connection. And it's really worthwhile. You're getting used to using pauses. Some people are taught that pausing is a powerful tool when negotiating. Because lots of people are so uncomfortable with pauses. They'll rush to philosophize islands and it gives some helpful information or concession. Rather than thinking of it in a rather manipulative way, I'd instead like to invite you to think of it as a sign of respect. If you don't pause, one of two things tends to happen. Either the person you're talking to will stop listening to you in order to take the time to process what it is you've just said. Or at a respectful you, they'll drop trying to process that. And instead try and keep up with you as you go on and explain your Nesbitt. And we're really only talking about a few seconds. If you are having a face-to-face conversation with somebody, what will happen is that they'll break eye contact. Their eyes will flip a ceiling as they're creating pictures in their head. And you know, they're ready to regain the conversation when they reengage you with eye contact. What about using the feedback sandwich? Some people are taught a technique called the feedback sandwich, where you start with some praise and then you give them criticism. And then you go back to praising again. I don't like that. I think that the feedback sandwich shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of feedback. It assumes that the person on the receiving end of the feedback is going to be so demoralized by the criticism. They'll, they'll need to hear something positive in order to send them out of your door with a spring in their step. This really isn't going to need to be necessary if you've done a good enough job expressing your praise. For example, if you say, I really like this thing that you've done for such and such a reason. And I feel safe delegating these sorts of tasks to you because I've been impressed by your attention to detail. By the time you come onto your criticism and you say something like there is something that worries me though. Probably what's happening is that they'll be sitting forward in their chair eager to hear what it is that you want to say next. Probably already committed to fixing it, even though you haven't finished it, really explaining what it is yet. The other reason I'm not a big fan of the traditional feedback sandwich is that lots of people don't do it very well. They end up going through the motions in a rather half-hearted question, whether aren't sound plausible or really all that authentic. And the reason is they're in a bit of a hurry to get it onto the better their feedback, where something needs to change. The result is that often the feedback can be rather forgettable. If for example, you were to canvass the person on the receiving end, even just a few hours later. Ask them how much of the feedback they managed to hold onto and remember, they probably have no trouble remembering the bits that they were told that they needed to change. But that I'm likely to remember the praise that they were offered. I do hope you found it useful in this video as we've talked about some of the most common issues that people encounter when they're implementing as emotionally intelligent approach to offering feedback. In the next video, what I'd like to do is to illustrate in some detail. So common examples of how this actually works in practice.
7. Examples of how to apply emotionally intelligent feedback: So let's apply this methodology for giving emotionally intelligent feedback to some examples. Example one, let's imagine a team manager wanting to criticize a team member who's written a report but hasn't included a summary. So step one is to praise first. And as part of the praise, they have to include three pieces of information. First of all, the fact that they felt good. Secondly, what the other person did that cause them to feel good? And thirdly, and as convincingly as they can, why what they did made them pills are good. And then pause. And in doing so, paying close attention to the recipient and give them time for the feedback to sink in properly and then give them time to respond if they want to. You need to check that they're actually now in a more receptive frame of mind to be able to receive some criticism. And then when you do move on to the criticism, remember again, three pieces of information. Festival, The fact that you feel bad or worried or concerned. Secondly, what it was that caused that. And thirdly, why? Because what they did caused you to feel bad or worried or concerned. And then again, you balls, you allow time for your criticism to sink in and to see if the person on the receiving end wants to respond or say anything back to you, they probably will. You need to be able to stick just to the facts. You need to be able to speak succinctly. You need to avoid waffling. And the pauses are important because they give the other person an opportunity to think and then to react. So here's the example. The manager might say. I'm impressed by your attention to detail. This is a very thorough report. And in response to that, the team member might say, Thanks, I enjoyed doing it. They're feeling pleased, appreciated, and receptive. And then the manager might say, there is one thing that worries me. And the team member might say, ooh, what's that? Probably at this stage, they're probably leading forward in their chair eager to find out more about what it is that they might not have done right, but they're not actually feeling personally attacked. And then the manager might say, Beznau summary, I had to spend extra time going through the report three or four times in order to make sure I haven't missed anything. And then the team member might respond to that, say, oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't realized there now strongly motivated to do their best to satisfy the manager. So they might say, I'll put summaries in from now on. And in response to that, the manager might say, Thank You, gotta be relief. Goal achieved with no resistance. You'll notice in the example I just gave that I made the praise so specific, honest and generous that the other person feels genuinely approved of. Your objective here is to be able to convince the other person that you're part of their fan club, that you're in their corner and that you really got their back. And that you are really doing your upmost to make this whole experience for them as motivating as possible. Let's take another example. Let's imagine Job is a project manager and he's written a report that's got to go to the MD is proposing extending the scope of the project and that's going to require an investment of more money. He's very enthusiastic and over the past fortnight, you spend evenings and weekends polishing his record. This is what his boss who has to say it before it goes to the AMD has to say about it. Let's imagine, first of all, somebody doing it without much skill. Boss says, it's far too long. The managing director wouldn't have time to read that rejected out of hand. Even though John mice, except there might be some truth to this criticism. Being spoken to like this. After all, his hard work and effort is hardly going to be a good experience for him. Let's pause and take some time to think about this example. First of all, how approved? Oh, do you imagine John field right now that use a scale of 0 to 1000 being the boss thinks is useless and 100 the boss thinks he's fantastic. Secondly, let's think about what kind of experience it is receiving criticism that's like this. Let's think of Athena scale as well, let's say minus five, extremely discouraging to plus five, extremely encouraging. Obviously, constructive criticism is not one of this particular boss's strengths. Imagine instead, the boss had used a more emotionally intelligent approach. Imagine then what John's experience might have been. The boss starting with praise saying how he feels. What about y? So the bus has I'm very impressed by how thorough you report is. You've got a lot of attention to detail in there. And it convinces me we should go ahead with your proposal to John says, thanks, that's really great. I hope the MD agrees. And the boss now moves onto his criticism and again saying how he feels, what about and why. But this time, taking it a little bit more slowly, you might say, I have a big worry about that. And then John says, oh, what's the worry? And the boss says, it took me a long time to figure out what it was you were proposing. The MD is very busy and rather impatient. I'm worried he might reject your proposal out of hand. Jo Ann is likely to respond. Oh, I see. Yes, that is a worry. And he's basically trying to work out what it can do about it. And John Lennon says, oh, I've got it, it needs a clear a summary to start with, isn't it? So that way he doesn't need to bother with all the detail unless he really wants to. And then the boss says, great. Again, let's think about what it would be like receiving this feedback. What did John fail this time was his approval rating in his boss's eyes on a scale of 0, that's useless to 100. Fantastic. And secondly, what kind of experience was at receiving this feedback? On a scale of minus five extremely de-motivating, 2x plus five, extremely motivating. Let's think of another example about how you might give feedback to somebody in a meeting when they say something that you don't agree with. Again, it's very helpful if you can pick something that you like about what they've said. So you can say, well, one of the things that I'm particularly impressed with about your suggestion is how creative you are being. I like that you're thinking outside the box. However, I do have a concern that if we implement this proposal that you're suggesting, then there is a danger of us falling into pitfall, which nobody seems to have noticed. Most people are amazed how well this approach works when you put it to the test. But don't be hard on yourself if you can't do it smoothly. It helps if you practice on easy situations before moving on to the more challenging ones. And what you'll notice is that this works even if it's not done perfectly. This doesn't have to be slaves. You are not selling double glazing is really your sincerity and your authenticity that the keys to selling this approach. You really have to pick emotions that you genuine need, feel, and express those. If you are going to go through the motions in a robber half-hearted fashion, then it's unlikely to work. The other person is really going to smell a rat. And they're going to feel manipulated and this is going to backfire. People might then become a bit suspicious that they're being tricked into doing something that's not really in their best interests, but in fact isn't yours. Instead, I do hope you found these examples helpful. I meant to illustrate in detail how you can put this emotionally intelligent approach into practice. I would like to say, however, that this is quite hard. Lots of people are impatient. I want to be able to do it immediately. This is a skill. And then just like any other skill, learning to dance or learning a foreign language or driving a car, it takes time and it takes practice. You wouldn't hoped to be able to pass your driving test by watching an online course and being able to pass with flying colors straight away. Often takes hours and hours of actually getting behind the wheel and including all those donkey hops down the road. As you get used to the biting point and get used to how to operate the vehicle properly. Well, this is a bit like that. This is going to take some practice and the first time you do it, it's probably not going to work terribly well. Start with the easy stuff. Start with easy situations. Start with situations where you're wanting to offer somebody some praise without any criticism, metal make it much easier. And then when you do offer, start with something not very challenging. Start with something fairly simple. Start with a simple situation where you're telling somebody something that you don't like very much, but it could be something straightforward is the weather or the score of your sports team or something. And then once you being able to practice how to be able to say, I was really disappointed about this. So I was really unhappy about that. It'll land become much easier for you to be able to apply this approach in his philosophy in the situations that matter to you the most. In the next video, what I'd like to do is talk about some of the obstacles that people encounter when it comes to trying to implement this approach.
8. Obstacles to good quality feedback: Here are some common obstacles to offering emotionally intelligent feedback. Being able to offer honest, clear, and helpful feedback is crucial for connecting more with others. But many of us can find it challenging because of a certain mental habits that we picked up over many, many years, many of which we become unaware of. The first step to overcoming them is to become aware of them, which are the following. Do you recognize in yourself? Lack of awareness of feelings. Many of us are too busy thinking about the past, planning our future, reacting to events, trying to solve problems, to ask ourselves, what am I experiencing right now? We're making no time to tune in to our feelings. It may be that we don't like to think of them because they're uncomfortable. The thing is that what are the consequences of shutting them off is that it's severely limits our ability to connect with others. How can you tell other people if you're unhappy about something they've done or not done. If you're unaware how you feel right now, you can learn to be better at tuning in on your own feelings. It requires a bit of practice to do well. But in the meantime, even sticking to binary, emotions can make a big difference. That's things like happy or unhappy, or I feel good or feel bad, or I'm really pleased with the job you did, or I'm worried about you missing a deadline. Number two, reluctance to express feelings. Many of us have been brought up not to express our feelings. We may be afraid that they'll get out of control. So it may come as a relief. Realize that talking about feelings can act like a safety valve preventing us from building up tension and destructive outbursts. This doesn't have to be painfully revealing. This isn't psychotherapy. You know, needing to lie down on a couch and reveal your deep dark secrets about your past. You can cover a lot of ground just by telling people what you like and what you don't like about their performance. Number three, the belief that other people know how you feel without needing to be told. When you provide or offer your feedback, you're making your feelings known to other people. The reason many people don't do this is because they believe that their feelings are already known. This is probably wrong. Other people are usually unaware of feelings. If we want them to know, tell them. They may be able to tell, for example, that you're in a bad mood, but they may not have the confidence or the courage to put their head into the lines mouth and ask you about it. Number for fear of being disliked. Some people find it hard to criticize because they believe that people will dislike them. But again, this belief is wrong. Most people react to frankness, firmness, and fairness with respect rather than dislike. Number five, a mismatch between verbal and nonverbal behavior. When what you say is matched by your tone of voice and facial expression, and pace and posture and gesture, then the message you send is convincing. When there's a mismatch, people can get confused and end up not trusting you. Incompatible nonverbal habits need to be identified. If you think you have some, you could ask a friend to point them out. A common example of this is that some people smile while talking about something serious. The smile is likely to be an unconscious attempt to appear friendly and non-threatening. The theory goes that if you smile at someone, it encourages them to smile back. And if they're smiling, they're less likely to be attacking you. The problem is that it's a bit incongruent if you're smiling while delivering some bad news that someone has performance hasn't been up to scratch. The incongruity can confuse people and make them jump to the conclusion that their failure somehow amuses you this league on quite nicely to the final obstacle or people have when offering good quality feedback. Namely, not saying what I mean as though I really mean it. If you wish to become more congruent, simply practice saying what you mean is though you really mean it as if your life and theirs were to depend on you being taken more seriously. When you save this incongruent habits fall away. Each of us has our own unique way of speaking when we really mean what we're saying. You don't need to mimic others. Your own way will be right for you. Like I said at the beginning of this video, just because we talked about what some of these issues are, doesn't mean you'll automatically be able to fix them straight away. Becoming aware of what difficulties we have is the first step to being able to overcome them. This is really meant to be an eye-opener so that you become a little bit more conscious of some of the difficulties that most of us face every day. In the next video, what I'd like to do is to illustrate how not to criticize. If what you're wanting to do is to motivate and encourage the other person to change.
9. How NOT to criticise: Here is a list of how not to criticize. If what you're wanting to do is to give feedback that inspires and motivates. Number one, starting with criticism. If you start with criticism, most people assume you haven't gotten anything positive to say about their performance. And it tends to put people on the defensive. Starting with a question. If you start with a question, it tends to put people on my guard. People may get suspicious about why you're asking and then get prepared to defend themselves. Number three, stating your opinion. When you start your opinion and make judgments, it tends to provoke argument even when you're may well be right. Number for talking generally or vaguely. If you're going to talk in general terms, Albia, bit vagal willie, about what your feedback is. It can leave people unclear about what exactly it is. You mean. You may think you're being helpful by not giving a detailed explanation of exactly what the other person has done wrong and how awful layer. But actually not being succinct and being a bit vague and being a big wooly isn't quite as helpful as you might think. In fact, it's actually been unkind. Number five, not stating your feelings. When you don't state what your feelings are, you can be misunderstood. If you don't say how strongly you feel about an issue, people are likely to assume is not very important or urgent. Number six, understating the strength of your feelings. Sometimes in order to be gentle and kind, people attempted to understate the strength of their feelings. If for example, you say, I'm a little concerned, sometimes people might think it's only a little problem. Number seven, not saying why you're concerned. If you miss out the reason why you feel the way you do, people can be confused and in some cases, unconvinced that you really mean it. Number eight, going on and on. If you go on and on and prevent people from responding, you can end up losing people's attention. People will need time to process what you're giving them, particularly if it's a bit of a surprise. That's why pausing is so helpful. Number nine, ending with a question. If when you're giving feedback, you end with a question, what you do is you risk making them feel put down. For example, if you ask, how will you avoid this problem in a feature? If you can get used to giving feedback to be emotionally intelligent way that I've outlined for you in the earlier video. Most questions are redundant. Number ten, giving advice. If you give advice when it's not needed, you can end up making people feel bad because it gives them the impression that you don't think they're capable of sorting the matter out for themselves. Number 11, giving bland and general praise. If you give bland and general praise, you can't end up making people feel patronized. Doubt your sincerity. This can be risky if it's your boss you're talking to. So take the time to make your praise specific, genuine, and appropriate. For example, you may say to your boss, I felt really good about the support you gave me in the meeting the other day because I know you had to stick your neck out to do it. Number 12, engaging mouth before brain. If you engage your mouth before you really think about what you're saying, it may not produce the outcome you intend. Constructive criticism needs to be thought out in advance. It's perfectly okay to make notes. And in fact, that shows that you're taking the matter seriously. You've thought about it and you want to get it right. I do hope you found this list of what not to do when offering feedback helpful. Most of us, from time to time slip up occasionally and find ourselves doing one of these sorts of things. It might help to explain why it is you may not have been able to be quite as successful as you would like to have been. In the next video, I'd like to discuss some of the most frequently asked questions people ask me on the live courses when I'm running this training in front of a group of people.
10. FAQs about feedback and emotional intelligence: These are the most frequently asked questions about giving emotionally intelligent feedback. These are the questions I tend to get asked the most during the live courses when I'm delivering his training in front of a group of people. Is it really necessary to always start with praise? Yes, it's a pretty good rule of thumb. Otherwise, your criticism, however kindly, You mean it have skillfully and well done. It is, is likely to put the other person on the defensive. Once they become defensive, you've got a much harder job trying to get through to them. Whereas if you start off saying something that you genuinely and specifically liked, then they tend to be much more receptive to the criticism when that comes. If you don't start with crazy other person will automatically jumped to the conclusion that you haven't got any. Well can't think of any. You'll almost immediately trigger them into defensiveness if they think mapping disapproved or they might be in danger of being rejected. What if you can't think of anything positive to say? It's probably worth bearing in mind that if the other person is doing something unhelpful or there is frustrating you, it's very unlikely that they're deliberately rubbing their hands together with glee because all the fun like and have a sabotaging you and your goals is much more health or to think that they probably tried to do the best they can. And if they were helped to find a better way of doing it, that would end up making you happier. They'd probably be willing to do it, especially if your approval is important to them. What if you can't think of anything emotional to say? There must be a 100 different emotional states, blends of emotional states. Some people divide up into colors and categories like red and blue and yellow and so on and right across the color spectrum. And many researchers classify emotional states into families. It can end up being rather elaborate and complicated, but it doesn't have to be. In our experience, you really don't need a large vocabulary of emotional words. Urine vocabulary, however, restricted you feel is likely to be good enough. This will work even if you stick to fairly simple binary language. For example, you could say, I feel good about this or I feel bad about that. I really like this. Or I really don't like it when you do that. Or I'm really happy about such and such, but I'm afraid I'm really unhappy about this other thing. Talking in this fairly simple black and white terminology will get you close enough. The important thing is you communicate with honesty and authenticity. Even if it's only roughly the right ballpark, it still work very successfully. As long as you're being honest and authentic. If you follow, prays with criticism, went I end up being negative and isn't that wrong? The key here is for you to be generous. If you do a generous enough job with praise and criticism will also be viewed in just as positive away. How do I know when I've given enough praise? The answer is, when the other person feel genuinely approved of sappy, generous. Don't just stop at one piece when you can find two. Don't stop at two when you can find three. Convinced them that you are genuinely in their fan club, that you were in their corner, that you're on their side. The results can be electric. And imagine how you'd feel if someone genuinely treated you like this. What have I resent them too much to think generously about them. It's hard for you to be generous while you're carrying a grudge. Grudges or grievances weigh heavily on us. It's only when you suspend your critical thoughts that you can see the other person in a more generous light. But how can you do this when they're frustrating you? By making a conscious effort to separate their strengths and their weaknesses. Setting aside their weaknesses in order to focus your mind on their strengths first, I might not endanger were being patronizing when I give praise. Yes. You'll probably sound patronizing unless you make the praise sound specific and be, say only what you sincerely me. If you do these two things, there's no danger of being patronizing. Why is the pore so necessary? When using this method? The pores gives time for your words to sink in and for the other person to respond. Most people are in a rush. Don't be. This way of communicating worked better Slowly. Must I always pull appraise with criticism? No, of course not. In fact, it works better if you give more praise that criticism. It also works well to praise often with no criticism attached. People will then be much more accepting of your praise. I hope you found some of these questions and my answers helpful when it comes to implementing this emotionally intelligent methodology of offering feedback to what the people, what I'd like to do in the next video is to just view an exercise that you can do in order to get really good at this approach. Once you get good at this, you'll be able to use this everyday perfectly naturally. And people will be grateful for your feedback.
11. An exercise to develop your feedback with emotional intelligence: The two most common problems that people tend to encounter as they're getting to grips with this emotionally intelligent approach to feedback. Uh, first of all, identifying there's another people's feelings. And then secondly, being able to articulate their feelings or tune into other people's feelings. So I would like to propose an exercise to help you become a little bit more proficient Festival at tuning into what your feelings are. And secondly, being a bit more comfortable about talking about them. One of the printouts that I'm attaching to this course is a summary of this emotionally intelligent approach, broken down into these three sections. How you feel, what about Y? Now being able to do this in the heat of battle as it were, is pretty challenging. Expecting you to be able to concentrate on what your feelings are while simultaneously being able to pay attention to the detail of the content of whatever it is that your discussion is about is going to be pretty challenging, at least to begin with when you're not used to it. So what I'd like to do is to take the pressure relate off and give you an exercise so that you can practice tuning in when you're not in actually in front of the other person. So here's a suggestion. Think back at a conversation that you've had in the not-too-distant past and played in your head like you're watching a movie. Try and remember as best you cared who said what, and when, and how they conversation unfolded. When you finished, rewind the tape to the beginning of the movie and press play again with your finger hovering over the pause button as certain key points in the conversation. Instead of criticizing the other person as you might actually have done in the past. Or perhaps one of these people avoided criticizing because he didn't want to start to fight. Instead of doing what you did if it didn't work very well, press the pause button. And instead, let's think about how you could implement this emotionally intelligent approach to our Frankly back. First of all, let's start with some praise. Think about what you admire, respect, or like about the person that you're talking to. Now imagine telling the other person, festival that you like or respect to, admired them, what it was they did specifically, and why it is that when they did that, it caused you to respect to admire or or like them. And don't just stop at one and see if you can find some other things that you can compliment them for. I remember it's important to make this genuine. Don't just go through the motions. Don't say something a bit vague or woolly or wet, deceive. You can think of some things that you genuinely like, admired or respect and for that you could talk about with some enthusiasm. And in your imagination, allow the conversation to meander if it wants to. You might say, I really loved it when you did such and such because of the way that you did it. I was particularly impressed about this, that or the other. And then you pause and imagine how would the other person likely respond if they were on the receiving end of generous praise that was delivered skillfully like that. And then after you've praised. Let's think about how to construct your criticism. First of all, you talk about your feeling. You might be concerned, you might be worried, you might be disappointed. See if you can put your finger on exactly what it was the other person said or did or perhaps didn't do. That, might have provoked you into having that feeling and then explain why. So you might say, I was concerned about the lack of such and such because we really needed that in order to be able to complete the job properly. This is something that's worth taking your time where we're doing properly. Don't rush it. Don't try and do it for the first time. Live while you're thinking it through in your head, while simultaneously trying to pay attention to the other person has to begin and ask, this is something that might benefit from you actually writing down on paper. One of the benefits of writing it down on paper is that if you're waffling, what you're writing will get longer and longer and longer. And this works more successfully when you speak succinctly, three short sharp, snappy statements. How you're feeling, what about and why? If this is turning into a leg, the monologue or a bit of a speech, chances are you're over explaining and you're running the risk of losing the other person along the way. Make it short, make it succinct, make it smartly. And then once you've done this safely in the privacy of your own mind a couple of times. The next step will be for you to think ahead. Thank you of some of the situations that you might have coming up where it might be helpful for you to offer feedback to people, see if you can predict what some of those scenarios might be. And let's plan ahead. So think of somebody who might be grateful for some of your feedback or for whom you need to be able to give some feedback to think of how this person makes you feel. Now let's start off with praise. Think of what it is you like maya, or respect about them. See if you can put your finger on what it is that they are the person does or says to in order to earn your respect or admiration. And then see if you can explain to them as succinctly as you can why it is when they do that, well, when they say that you like it. And now moving on to your criticism, See if you can put your finger on what mood you're the person puts you in when they do whatever it is that you don't like. And it might be something as simple as I'm really concerned or I'm really worried, or my afraid of them really don't like it. Then you can put your finger on what it is that you're the person says or does in order to trigger your concern. And then explain as carefully as you can why it is that you're so concerned about that. And then pause. And imagine waiting for the other person to respond and how worthy or the person likely respond to receiving feedback is couched as packaged like this. Well, most people react rather nicely to it, particularly after having received such generous and kind praise. So practice, practice, first of all, in the privacy of your own head, thinking retrospectively after the conversation has occurred, when it didn't go very well or didn't go quite according to your plan. And then once you feel comfortable doing that, think ahead. And it's helpful to make some knows so that when it comes to delivering your feedback in real life, you can look down on a piece of paper with notes you made on your phone. And these can be short, sharp and succinct. I really liked it when this happened for such and such a reason. I'm impressed by the way you do this. For this other reason. However, I really need you to know that I'm concerned about the lack of this floor, this other reason. Give it a go. Most people are amazed at how successfully this approach works.
12. Course summary: Well, I do hope you've enjoyed this short course on how to give constructive feedback that inspires and motivates without antagonizing the other person. What I've done here is to offer you an emotionally intelligent methodology for offering feedback to the other person, where you're able to be completely honest about exactly what you're thinking and precisely how you're feeling and get away with it without upsetting the other person. Along the way. We've covered why it is that lots of people tend to find giving feedback. So typically, some of the most common pitfalls that people fall into while trying to give feedback to other people. What emotional intelligence is and why talking about feelings can't be so helpful. Some of the biggest obstacles people have when trying to implement an emotionally intelligent approach to offering feedback. How not to criticize. If what you're wanting to do is to motivate and inspire some of the most frequently asked questions people are curious about when it comes to trying to implement this emotionally intelligent methodology for offering feedback. And some practical examples of how exactly to implement this emotionally intelligent approach to offering feedback. Remember, this is a skill, and just like any skill the weighted developer is to practice. So I wish you the best of luck as you put these skills into practice in a situations, scenarios and relationships that matter to you the most. If you have any queries or questions about anything I've covered in this course, please do get in touch. It'll be my pleasure to support you as best I can. Please remember to rate and review this course.