This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks.

 Reflection and feedback are the keys to growth, but as I found in my time in the educational world criticism is usually what people view as direct feedback. Don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting that all feedback should be positive. What I am suggesting that behaviors that are critiqued should be related to  the behavior and not the person.  This is a fundamental tenet of restorative practice for student discipline and should be an integral product of all feedback. 

It appears to me that in the world of adults this is sorely lacking in the work place. Back channel gossip, grumbling, and ultimately disgruntled managers and employees are the result of people being able to disassociate behaviors from the person. Far too often this results in what we classify as, "poor communication," and leads to dysfunctional teams, lack of results, and retention issues. There are no shortage of books and research on the culture of teams, but I have yet to see one make this connection. 

Separating the person from the actions, behaviors, or work products allows the room for growth. It allows people to view how they relate to a team and more importantly how their actions affect their results and the results of the team. Talking about how things make us feel is fine, but does it address the issue? To say, " When you do this, it makes me feel            ," only associates work with feeling and eliminates the ability to disconnect the person from the action. It is a winner take all scenario. The only options are to either continue the behavior and damage the relationship, or stop the behavior to satisfy the feelings.

Relationships are the key to success in a work culture, that is undeniable. What if we surrounded our work culture in talking about the work? What if we could say instead, "when you do this, it makes us feel        , because effects this process?" This gives the person receiving the feedback a connection to the work. It avoids the winner take all approach to feelings and provides a path forward for increasing productivity, or any other work process. 

I am trying this these days and I will completely acknowledge that it is hard. To be able to address things that make me crazy by directly associating it with the work forces me to investigate whether there is actually anything negative happening, or if it my insecurity, idiosyncrasies, or other items. It has produced some interesting results as well because it is not typical. 

We shall see how it turns out. Time will tell