doug smith training

It's not easy for me to admit when I'm wrong. It's even harder if I don't see that I am, yet somehow...later on, my perspective shifts and I see what the other person must have been seeing differently. That's one reason I've learned to pause before defending a message. I'm still working on it. We usually do have a moment to pause and think thru our response. What if you are wrong?  When we are wrong and we admit it, we can usually recover the damage that might have been done. We can, with dignity and respect, restore the relationship to what it was before we said what was wrong. It's a big if, it's a might if, and it's an if worth considering. It hurts to admit you're wrong, yet when you're wrong it hurts more NOT to. -- doug smith

What do you do when you know that your feedback for someone on your team will be tough to hear? Before I learned better, I would sometimes just keep the feedback to myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, after all. And they made it this far without that feedback so... But that's not the most compassionate approach. Withholding something that could make someone's life and performance better is not being sensitive, it's being ineffective. Tell them what's going on. Tell them what you are thinking. Offer your suggestions. It can still be kind. It can even be graceful. It might even contain a bit of humor. But it's best as feedback when it is clear and to the point. Prepare for that difficult feedback. You already know that there are right ways and wrong ways to deliver feedback. Plan, and practice. Get it right. Before you give feedback imagine how it would feel to hear that directed at you -- and then adjust accordingly. Be the boss y

When was the last time that you misunderstood someone? It might have been more recent than you think. We are all misunderstood sometimes. Without clarifying and confirming, we are misunderstood far too many times. Remember, most of the time we misunderstand something we are not aware of our misunderstanding. Clarify constantly. -- doug smith