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“I noted 17 things you can do better,” said the tech COO after watching one of her direct reports practice a presentation. “No,” I said, with force, before she started to talk. “Choose one.”
When I do group media training or speaker coaching sessions, I tell every participant that I’m going to ask them for their thoughts on each other's mock interviews or practice presentations. But I am very clear: “You are only allowed to say positive things. No negatives allowed. If the person did something horrible, I’ll tell them.”
Why? Because when we recognize and do more of what we do well, we will do less of what we do badly. Every media interview and talk is time bound. It’s a zero-sum game.
Why else? Because we need confidence to face our challenges. When we feel stronger because one thing we do well was recognized and celebrated, we can say to ourselves, “I can fix this!” about the things that need work.
Why else? Because I invite every person to mirror the best stuff they see their colleagues do. If you’re in a session with three other people, you have 3x more opportunity to pick up good practices that you can build into habits.
Why else? Wouldn’t YOU rather be complimented than picked on by your colleagues? I don’t want to be hosting a room full of defensiveness and hurt feelings. I want to be in a room that’s a sunshine-filled greenhouse of growth and possibility!
Do people sometimes require a little tough feedback to improve? Sure. But that comes from me, the professional communications coach, not their colleagues.
I always say I’m 80% cheerleader and 20% dominatrix. In that session with the COO, the only dominatrix move I had to make was to tell the COO not to bury her direct report in negative feedback. And it worked. He got noticeably better as we continued to practice!
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