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Posts Tagged ‘how to speak up at work’

Make It Easy to Tell You the Truth

If you’ve gotten courageous and given someone negative feedback or questioned a decision or action, you probably didn’t get a shiny, happy reply in return.  The normal and natural reaction to negative feedback is to defend ourselves. It’s human. Defending yourself when receiving negative feedback is an act of self-preservation, not unlike hitting your brakes when the person driving in front of you unexpectedly slams on their brakes.

The problem with reacting defensively to negative feedback is that it’s scary and off-putting to others. As normal as a defensive reaction is to negative feedback, it makes others so uncomfortable that they’ll be hesitant to give you negative feedback again. And this lack of knowledge of what others really think is dangerous. Silence inhibits career growth and leads to bad business decisions. You want people to tell you the truth, as they see it, so you need to make it easy to speak freely.

If you want more of what others see as the truth, do the opposite of what people expect. Rather than defending or going silent, say “thank you.”  “Thank you for telling me that. I’ll think about what you said and will likely come back to you to discuss further,” buys you time and puts the other person at ease. feedback

Here are five ways to make it easier to say thank you for the feedback:

  1. Only accept feedback when you’re ready to listen. You’re allowed to request a conversation at a time that works for you. Bad days, when you have five minutes between meetings, or are about to leave for a vacation, are not the times to accept negative information. Set up a time to talk, as soon as you have the bandwidth to listen.
  2. Take breaks during hard conversations. You’re allowed to say, “I need a few minutes.” Go get coffee. Take a walk. Go outside. Regain your composure. Then continue the conversation.
  3. Have feedback conversations when you’re rested and have eaten. Everything seems bigger and more difficult when we’re tired or hungry.
  4. Accept that “thank you” isn’t the same as telling the other person they are right or that you agree. “Thank you” is a mere acknowledgment that you heard. It buys you time and gives you a chance to gather your thoughts and respond when you’re not emotional.
  5. Don’t have conversations when you’re upset, and we often don’t know when we’re upset. Your emotions will run the show. Give yourself time to get through your emotional response, and then talk.

People are more hesitant than you think to tell you when they disagree. Make it easy to speak up. Do the opposite of what others expect. Say “thank you” rather than reacting, and you’ll get more data than you do now.

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6 Steps to Advance Your Career with Communication and Courage

Companies want people who make things happen, and to make things happen, you have to speak up. Anticipating the train wreck and commenting after the train goes off the tracks, doesn’t count.

What if you said what you thought, in a way other people could hear you, when you had the right to do so? Meaning, you have the relationship with the other person to tell the truth and you’ve asked permission to be candid?

6 Courageous Steps to Advance Your Career:

  1. Look for opportunities to make things better.
  2. Ask for permission to take the ball and run with it.
  3. Build relationships with other people who are making things happen.
  4. Don’t say yes, when you mean no.
  5. Find a way to say no, while engaging the other person in a conversation so a new approach is generated.
  6. Be willing to go out on a limb, work hard, and fail.

Here’s how to speak up for change without being labeled as the problem person who finds flaws in everything:

  1. Look for and present solutions, not just problems.
  2. Offer to do the work to move towards a better way of doing things. Don’t drop problems at other people’s doors.
  3. Ask questions versus overtly say that something is wrong. That could sound something like, “I’d love to help. Tell me more about how this works. Maybe we can insert a step to make the process better. What do you think of trying ________?” No one likes to be told they’re wrong. Asking questions elicits participation more than overtly saying, “This is broken. We need to fix it.”

Many people are afraid to speak up at work and believe that people who speak up get fired. I haven’t found this to be the case. People who work hard and produce results are typically the last people to be let go.

Say what you think in a way that is not critical. Offer solutions, not just problems. Be a force for good and take an active role in making things better, and my hunch is your career will accelerate faster than you ever thought possible.


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