Just the other day,
the partners at my firm pulled me aside and they were visibly upset about something that I had done. A portion of this video
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that we can all agree on and you were not being transparent
about this. Honestly,
I did speak to everyone individually. Hey, guys. My name's Dami, and I'm an architect
in beautiful Vancouver, B.C.. When I got that feedback, I cried. No, I'm just kidding. I had a lot of bad emotions. You know, I had done my version
of what I thought was right. And it really felt
like I was being accused of being a bad architect
and even a dishonest person. As I kind of progress into my career. And also,
as I kind of built my YouTube business, I've been getting criticism of all kinds,
including ones like this. And it's
been really challenging to manage. So lately I've been learning a lot about how to deal with criticism
and feedback more effectively. So today I want to talk about some of
the things that I learned from the book. Thanks for the feedback. In the first part of the video,
I'm going to talk about how to receive that feedback. And the second part of the video, I'm
going to talk about how to navigate that feedback conversation and how to implement
that feedback into your lives. And in the atrium, this is where you have your communal gatherings. It's a pretty model, but I don't think you're quite capturing the essence of the library as an institution, given
the ontology of the library. You know, a library is an institution
of culture and history. And you expect people
to just sit around here like that. Handling
feedback on your project is one thing and handling feedback on your performance
or your voice. That's a whole nother thing. And in fact,
it is really important for you to categorize
the different types of criticism. So there's three types of feedback. There's evaluation. That's
where you talk about where you stand in relation to the expectations
and to other people. There's coaching or advice, which is all about helping you improve, and I think a crit or like a performance review is probably somewhere
in between those two. There's also appreciation or recognition or things which basically lets you know that you're doing well
and that your efforts are being noticed. So when you're asking for feedback,
you actually want to be fairly clear on what you're looking for just to prevent
confusion or conflict from both parties. The hardest part about receiving feedback
is actually the emotional response, and it's the emotional response
which makes us angry or defensive. And a lot of the times
we can get dismissive of that feedback. But if you identify what triggers
those emotional responses, you can have much better control
over those reactions. Dealing with criticism
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com slash demi-leigh. Generally there's three types of triggers. There's the truth triggers. So truth triggers
our responses to feedback we feel is wrong or unhelpful or unfair. But as we know,
everyone has their own idea of the truth. So the very, very
first thing you want to do is instead of thinking, No, that's wrong, or, Oh, well,
that makes sense for you, but not for me. You have to acknowledge that everyone
thinks differently, and even if it's hard, try to ask yourself like what is right
about what the other person's saying. At the same time, try to examine yourself
for any blindspots in your thinking. There's behavior patterns. So we often have behaviors that are totally unknown to us. But others B.S. it really clearly. A really good example is using filler
words like ums or Oz or like like that, because they've been so embedded into your speech pattern that you don't
even recognize how you do it. And for me,
I only recognize that I do it a lot. When I started making videos on YouTube
and another blind spot is typically like you judged your actions
by the intent and others and judge your actions on impact
and especially how it impacts them. And paradoxically,
when we come into challenging situations, we tend to attribute it
to the circumstance. But other people tend
to connect it to our character. So it's come to my attention by you made a decision
on the glazing frame colors that we can all agree on, and you were not
being transparent about this. And if this keeps happening,
this is the fastest way we're going to lose trust in you. I had to make that call. I was already so late
on getting back to them and I couldn't wait another week for us to all meet
and honestly, I did speak to everyone individually
and my understanding from the conversation was that
we were all aligned on picking white. We also have tells
that we might not be aware of like facial expressions or voice and any other,
like nonverbal behaviors or like habits that can say the opposite thing
of your intentions. There's also emotional distortion
when our emotional reaction to something is like way out of proportion
to the content of the feedback. You can find some of these blind spots
by observing how you get really defensive
or recording yourself. You can also look for patterns
in the feedback, like if you're getting the same feedback from different people,
you know that's an issue. And the second type of trigger
is relationship triggers, which is an emotional response to the person
more than the content of the feedback. So there's two main types of relationship
triggers. One is our opinion of that person. So when we get negative feedback,
we are subconsciously looking for ways to disqualify that person
from giving that feedback. And then number two is how they treat us. So if you feel like
they're not appreciating you or your efforts or you feel like
they don't have the authority or you you might just feel like that
person doesn't really like you. And in situations
like this, a very common response can be for us to respond with something
that's like aimed at the person
rather than the issue itself. And when this happens,
it will split the conversation into. And you just start talking
about two completely different things. So, for example, your roommate will say,
oh, you're so messy and you'll say something like, Oh, yeah,
but you're so loud. Like, you leave the TV on till 2 a.m. and I can never sleep. And so it's very important for you
to recognize this and actually address each one of these topics separately
before they turn into bigger problems. And sometimes the conflict
might not even be happening because of you or the other person, but because we're all a part of the system that defines our relationship. And you might have different
values or habits and you might have different roles
in the relationship. So sometimes just like stepping back and like looking at the whole system
as a whole can be really helpful. The next one is identity triggers, and these ones are a big one. Identity triggers can happen
when the feedback doesn't align with your sense of who you are
or the story that you tell about yourself. For me, like when I got that feedback
from my bosses, a part of the reason why it stung so much was because it was an identity trigger. I felt
like it was an attack on my integrity and my capability as a person
and as an architect. And, you know, I consider myself
to be a very transparent person. And that's kind of one of the things
that I take a lot of pride in. And so my emotional response
was probably kind of exaggerated
compared to the issue at hand. And I think the best way to deal with
identity triggers is just like adopting a growth mindset. A person with a growth mindset
sees their traits as evolving. But if you have a fixed mindset, you will see your abilities as stable and finished. And there's actually a ways
you can develop a growth mindset by listening to feedback as coaching
rather than evaluation or judgment. It's more about like
how you're doing things and what you're doing rather than on you. Also, don't worry so much about how
this is affecting the other person's opinion of you. You know, in the end, it's really hard
to change people's opinion of you, but it's really easy for you to change
how you reflect on yourself. So just try to focus on that. Also, whenever you get feedback, try to evaluate yourself
on how you're taking that feedback. Like if you can handle that feedback
better than others, then appreciate yourself for that
because that in itself is a really positive trait
that actually very few people have. Identity triggers are probably one of the most emotional out of all of these. So try to monitor your emotional reactions
thoughtfully by trying to control your emotions, or even better, like trying
to separate your emotions from the facts. I also have my own kind
of strange strategy for this. So whenever I'm in a bad situation
or I get bad feedback, I imagine myself as like a character
in a comedy movie or in a sitcom, and I just kind of proceed
to deal with the issue at hand. Yes, it is important
to adopt a growth mindset. But there are certain things
that are just like outside of your control,
like how others feel about you, and especially after you do your best
to remedy the situation. If they still have a negative
feeling towards you, just let it go
and just try to be sad about it because it's a waste of your time
and your energy to keep thinking about things
that are outside of your control. Now that we've identified the triggers
and we kind of understand how to control them, how do we navigate those conversations
and get the most out of that feedback? Douglas Stone defines
three phases of a feedback conversation
the open, the body and the close. The open is before the content
of the feedback. It's where you get aligned
with the other person by trying to understand
what kind of feedback is this and what's the intent behind
this feedback? Is this evaluation? Is this coaching? Is this appreciation? And also trying to understand who has the final word
and is this feedback negotiable? If you're working for someone,
your boss in most cases has a final word. No matter how right you think you are. In the end,
it does kind of come down to this. You are there by choice. You know, you agreed to the deal. You work for them and they are paying you
to represent the firm. And obviously,
there's a lot of nuance to this, but that's the kind of systems framework
that you have to consider. And then there's the body. The body is the content of the feedback
or like the meat of the talk. And to get the most out of this feedback,
you need to listen. That's something that I'm really,
really trying to work on. Try to really pay attention
to what the other person's saying. And while you're doing this,
listen to your own internal voice and try to watch for the triggers
that we talked about. And then clarify,
you can always ask for specificities or specifics
on expectations or consequence. And you can also add your own input
and try to explain the situation in your own thoughts
and in your observations. You can also talk
about your interpretations on things or your feelings. You can also try to referee
the conversation. Try to diagnose and describe the communication problems as they come up so that you can kind of propose solutions
in a real time. And the last stage of that is the clothes. That's where you clarify the commitments
and expectations and the follow up. You know who's going to do what
specifically when you leave the meeting? Are there like benchmarks or consequences
if you don't meet those benchmarks? And are you going to be having
regular check ins? Then the last but the most important step
is actually incorporating the feedback. Try to focus on one thing at a time or,
you know, tested it with small experiments and make sure you really, really understand
what the other person's trying to see. You can give yourself rewards
for making these changes, or you can also add consequences
for not making these changes. Also, try to make the other person
feel valued by taking their advice and later,
they are going to come to you for advice. In conclusion. What's interesting,
but also really true, is that negative feedback,
if you know how to handle it, it can actually have a much more positive impact on your life than positive impact. Think about an architecture project. If you get really, really positive
feedback, then at the end of the day, it's kind of hard
to know where to take that. But when you have a really bad crit,
you might cry. But you have so many different ways
you can take your project afterwards. Right? So try to really use this feedback to your advantage
and really make something of it. All right, guys.
So I hope that was helpful. Let me know
if you have any comments or questions or if you have any strategies
for dealing with negative feedback. If you like this video,
please give me a thumbs up. And if you like this type of content,
subscribe to the channel. I'm always making videos once every week. Also, I have a Discord Channel. If you want to pop in there
and ask questions, it's full of students and professionals
from all over the world. And yeah, with
I'll see you guys in the next video, bye!.
