My daughter Gracie can be pretty blunt and honest sometimes. If I got a bad haircut or my shirt doesn’t match my pants she doesn’t hesitate to let me know. If she tells me that I’m being too dramatic, I listen, even at times when I disagree with her perspective and think she’s just reacting. While her truth telling can sting sometimes I rarely take it personally. Feedback is a gift. And I know she loves me. Often she’s just trying to protect me from a blindspot. Her comments might hurt sometimes. But they rarely, if ever, harm me.
In my life and work self-awareness seems to be more valuable than hard currency. But it’s also hard to come by. We have a lot of blindspots as human beings and I’m certainly no exception. And giving or receiving good, direct feedback is not easy either. This is especially true where I grew up in the southern US. Like my mother taught me if I “didn’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.”
I like to differentiate between ‘niceness’ and ‘kindness.’ To me, niceness is delivering a message to get a favorable response often ultimately for our own benefit at the expense of others who don’t benefit (ex. from flattery, passive aggressive behavior, or withholding honest feedback). To me, kindness is delivering a helpful messages to get a healthy result for others often at our own expense. This could certainly come from compliments or constructive criticism. It’s not so much about the exact content or difficulty of delivery. It’s more about the outcome.
If I’m honest, I get very little direct feedback in life. But I get a ton of indirect feedback. I certainly don’t blame everyone else for this dynamic. I’m sure I don’t make it easy and I understand that giving direct feedback often represents significant anxiety for others as well. So I’ve tried to adopt a principal of giving myself feedback first. If I proactively do this in a conversation with friends it often helps smooth things over for better, more reciprocal exchanges.
Like I said, in my original post on this blog, “I see, feel, and experience things that make me think, write, and process. These thoughts are raw, vulnerable, and unbaked and I love sharing them with others to provoke thoughts and great conversations.” Here’s the difficult truth I’m learning to accept: the things I share often do not lead to conversations. I think this is because of some of my blindspots.
I don’t have an exhaustive list of my blindspots but I have some pretty good guesses. I read some of my own recent posts and tried to step outside of myself. What are my impressions? What are the perceptions that others likely have when reading? What am I learning about myself?
I can be a bit braggy. When I do something or accomplish something that I think is pretty cool, I’m not shy about sharing it. Outwardly I don’t take compliments very well, but inwardly, if I’m honest, I crave the encouragement. I’m sure I could claim that this comes from a deficit I’ve experienced in past seasons of life. Or there may be some other justifiable reason why I do this? But at the end of the day, I think I just lack humility. I tend to put myself at the center of the story instead of God and others who are far more deserving, and humble.
I can be persuasive. I don’t think persuasion, in and of itself, is a vice. I think the blindspot for me is making conclusions outside of collaborating with others real-time. It’s as if I assume I’ve discovered something great and I attempt to persuade others rather than first just asking them what they think. It would be even better to wait and discover something together with others in a genuine experiences as friends.
I can be preachy. As a Christian and a passionate feeler, I’m already predisposed to this behavior. But I think I take it one step further. To me, the difference between being persuasive and being preachy has to do with what’s at stake. When the stakes are high or I think something fundamental is at play, I can become preachy. I often reference a lot of Bible verses, quotes from theologians, philosophers and authors. The truth is I have rarely read those quotes in full context. I’m just using them to support my arguments or say something persuasive.
I can be a bit cynical. At Table Group, the best version of this behavior is what we call the ‘Genius of Wonder.’ I have a lot of angst and think of myself as a tortured soul. I am rarely moved with people telling me about their plans or intentions. Often people that have optimistic viewpoints are irritated by me. I sometimes doubt whether or not something will happen. I sometimes distrust the status quo and disregard appropriate standards to pursue my own inclinations. In my heart, I am much more optimistic than I probably let on. But combined with being persuasive, I think my cynicism can be stubborn until people acknowledge problems that I see, the significance of those same problems, and the urgent need to solve them.
I can make efforts to justify my decisions and preferences. I’ve definitely had my share of critics in life. People have criticized my decisions, my perspective, my style, and more. Unfortunately, I have to take responsibility realizing that this can put me in a defensive posture. I apply this pressure to myself and feel that I need to provide justification for things. Often I’m asking for permission that I don’t need to ask for. And often I’m asking for forgiveness that I have already received. And all of the self-conscious justification prevents open, free sharing and fellowship. As one of my favorite books Leadership and Self-Deception says, self-justifying images are at the heart of self-deception. And self-deception is at the heart of a lack of awareness. Busted!
I can be too long-winded. It’s funny. I guess being long-winded is not a good thing, let alone being too long-winded. My wife tells me that when she opens up one of my blog posts, she first scrolls all the way to the bottom to see how long it is. She wants to know if it’s going to be a half marathon, marathon, or a triathlon. 🙂 I guess the only consolation is that she’s also my blog editor. So if you’re reading this, that means at least it made it through her minimum approval.
Phew…that’s a long, dense list. It’s a wonder I have any friends or clients. 🙂 That reminds me of a leader (I’ll call her Bianca) who looked up my former clients before agreeing to start the engagement with me. She made reference to a previous CEO I had coached that she knew 2nd hand (I’ll call him Joe). I kind of cringed when I heard this because things didn’t end well between me and Joe. But then an insight came to mind that turned the tension into traction. I simply confessed all my shortcomings and blindspots in my relationship with Joe. Then I communicated all the things that I had learned about myself and Joe. I was able to clearly articulate to Bianca that if she was anything like Joe I would not be a great coach for her. But if she needed the very things that I was bringing in raw form to Joe, she would greatly benefit. She could leverage not only from those raw gifts, but also from how they had been refined from my previous engagement with Joe. It ended up being a match made in heaven. Feedback and self-awareness are such gifts!
Am I a bit braggy? Yes. Can I err on the side of being persuasive to convince others? Yes. Can I get preachy? Yes. Am I a bit cynical at times? Yes. Do I write sometimes to proactively justify my own decisions and preferences? Yes. Am I long winded? If you’re still reading this blog, you already know the answer to that. 🙂
Don’t worry. If you’re reading this, I’m not going to implode or wallow in self-loathing. I know I have some redeemable qualities. And I know my Heavenly Father is just getting started forming me into the image of His Son Jesus Christ. As he takes that chisel to the raw material that is me I think I need some of this feedback more than affirmation. One of my other favorite books is called A Failure of Nerve. It’s hard to summarize, but I can tell you what I wrote on the very back page after I finished it: “I know who I am. I like who I am. I have a purpose.”
Yes, it’s hard to have acceptance for who we are, respect for how we carry the dignity of those made in the image of God AND see so many of our shortcomings. What if the dichotomy of strengths and weaknesses is just a lazy, oversimplified set of categories? What if we saw outside those two generic buckets and just saw characteristics of people? And those characteristics can represent potential opportunities or obstacles, breakthroughs or burdens, assets or liabilities. And the difference is up to the situation, our maturity, and the level of feedback and awareness that we have? Just a thought.
A fresh conviction is coming to mind as I write this post. Self-awareness is a gift, and I certainly want to adjust behavior based on that awareness. But, I think there’s also a shadow side to this exercise as well. The more aware I am the easier it is to manage perceptions. I could work really hard to manage perceptions. Or, I could be unfiltered and allow people to simply give me their feedback and offer their perceptions. Sometimes this leads to great, healthy conversations. What is ironic is that I developed this list, not from direct feedback from others, but just from inference and gut. And my gut tells me that my sharing doesn’t always lead to great conversations. The way I share might actually short-circuit those conversations before they begin. And I can say one thing for sure in my heart: I genuinely and deeply desire communion with God, with my family, and with my neighbors! So whatever my blind spots are, and whatever barriers exist, I hope God removes them to make way for mutually edifying, conversations and relationships. Hopefully even this post will draw out validation of my gut or correction of it. In either case, I hope to experience the kindness of feedback and self-awareness and offer the same to others too.
Thanks for reading friend!