Quotes About Reflection

I appreciate that. I'm feeling bad too. Let's retrace our steps and think about how this happened. I suspect we may each have contributed to the problem. From your point of view, did I do anything differently this time?

When your real goal is finding the dog, fixing the ceiling, and preventing such incidents in the future, focusing on blame is a waste of time. It neither helps you understand the problem looking back, nor helps you fix it going forward.

So here we are. Torn. Is it possible that feedback is like a gift and like a colonoscopy? Should we hang in there and take it, or turn and run? Is the learning really worth the pain? We are conflicted.

Address the implications of the alternate view. Another thing Peter might say is, "Let's put aside for a minute the question of whether this complaint is true and instead ask what if it were true? What would it mean? What would be the implications for you?

You know the problem is her—she brings out your worst. But it is your worst. It's you under pressure, you in conflict. It's here that we often have the most room to grow. When we are under stress or in conflict we lose skills we normally have, impact others in ways we don't see, are at a loss for positive strategies. We need honest mirrors in these moments, and often that role is played best by those with whom we have the hardest time.

Managing truth triggers is not about pretending there's something to learn, or saying you think it's right if you think it's wrong. It's about recognizing that it's always more complicated than it appears and working hard to first understand. And even if you decide that 90 percent of the feedback is off target, that last golden 10 percent might be just the insight you need to grow.

When competent, sensible people do something stupid, the smartest move is to try to figure out, first, what kept them from seeing it coming and, second, how to prevent the problem from happening again. Talking about blame distracts us from exploring why things went wrong and how we might correct them going forward. Focusing instead on understanding the contribution system allows us to learn about the real causes of the problem, and to work on correcting them.

Blame Is About Judging, and Looks Backward

It's Always the Right Time to Listen

Can you say a little more about how you see things? • What information might you have that I don't? • How do you see it differently? • What impact have my actions had on you? • Can you say a little more about why you think this is my fault? • Were you reacting to something I did? • How are you feeling about all of this? • Say more about why this is important to you. • What would it mean to you if that happened? If

It is said that all advice is autobiographical

What is the story we are telling ourselves that is giving rise to how we feel? What is our story missing? What might the other person's story be? Almost

Next, we need to explore our assumptions about the other person's intentions. To what extent are our feelings based on an untested assumption about their intentions? Might the other person have acted unintentionally, or from multiple and conflicting intentions? How does our view of their intentions affect how we feel? And what about our own intentions? What was motivating us? How might our actions have impacted them? Does that change how we feel?

Finally, we should consider the contribution system. Are we able to see our own contribution to the problem? Are we able to describe the other person's contribution without blaming? Are we aware of the ways that each of our contributions forms a reinforcing pattern that magnifies the problem? In what way does this shift how we feel?

The Identity Conversation looks inward: it's all about who we are and how we see ourselves. How does what happened affect my self-esteem, my self-image, my sense of who I am in the world? What impact will it have on my future? What self-doubts do I harbor?

I'd like to explore whether a raise for me might make sense. From the information I have, I think I deserve one. [Here's my reasoning.] I wonder how you see it?

As you approach these chapters, have this question marinating in the back of your mind: Why is it that when we give feedback we so often feel right, yet when we receive feedback it so often feels wrong?

We Are Influenced by Past Experiences.

As we saw in Chapter 2, often we merely trade our conclusions back and forth, and never get into the process of exploring where these views come from. You have information about yourself that the other person has no access to. That kind of information can be important; consider sharing it. And you have life experiences that are influencing what you think and why, as well as how you feel. When you tell these stories, it puts some meat onto the bones of your views.

The evaluation conversation needs to take place first. When a professor hands back a graded paper, the student will first turn to the last page to check their grade. Only then can they take in the instructor's margin notes. We can't focus on how to improve until we know where we stand.

If advice is autobiographical, so is evaluation. The evaluation we give people is a reflection of our own (or our organization's) preferences, assumptions, values, and goals. They might be broadly shared or idiosyncratic, but either way, they are ours.

Mistakes can bring us to spiritual heights, or depths, which we would have otherwise not visited.

Living in the answer, while forgetting the question that gave birth to it, will cause the answer to become mechanical, habitual, or dispirited. Conversely, living only in the question can lead to confusing or debilitating uncertainty and ambiguity. We need both.

I am who I am because somebody loved me.