Just how far can we bend the truth before it breaks?  With elections underway, the air waves are filled with the messages of political “spin machines.”  We are constantly bombarded by advertising that blurs the concept of honesty, elaborating on positive elements while conveniently avoiding or down-playing the associated risks and concerns.  At the interpersonal level, truth is tempered by concerns about the feelings of others or what others might think of us.  And worst of all, we often don't want to hear the truth and may even hide necessary truths from ourselves to avoid the challenge of change.

For some, deceit is an easy way to avoid accountability or achieve an agenda.  But for most of us, honesty continues to hold its place as one of the most respected pinnacles of human virtue.  We recognize that truth is the virtual building block of trusting relationships.  We see a world that seems to cry out for less deceit and more trust.  Open, honest, direct communication is critical to our personal success and to the success of our organizations.

Honest expression of opinions will always enhance the quality of team decisions.  Only through a clear and accurate understanding of our customers’ level of satisfaction can we improve service, retain clients and attract new business.  We need truthful assessments of current performance in order to understand what changes are necessary for greater success.  Jack Welch, the former CEO for General Electric, once said in an interview that we “do not help people by letting them believe they are doing better than they are.”

Understanding the need for truth makes it no less elusive.  So why do we struggle?  Why do we bend, “sugar coat” or temper the truth?  Oddly enough, it gets back to trust.  The relationship between truth and trust is interesting.  We know that betrayal destroys trust.  But it is also a lack of trust that causes us to be less than honest.

Sometimes the truth hurts.  We don’t want to be blamed for the pain.  We don’t trust that others will take our comments in the spirit they are intended.  We’re not sure how people will react to what we say.  This lack of trust may be the result of past experiences.  However, it may be the result of our own anticipation of how we might react if the roles were reversed.

Perhaps it is time for a new commitment to honesty.  Perhaps we need to look at both the delivery and the receipt.  Perhaps we need to consider how we can build trusting relationships by offering critiques with respect and kindness while listening to them with understanding and a sincere desire to improve.     

How we deliver the truth is critical.  I like what Chuck Gallozzi said in his article There is no right way to do something wrong, "Did you ever notice that people who are brutally honest get more satisfaction from being brutal than from being honest? 

While we continue to express the importance of being honest with others, we cannot lose sight of the importance of being able to accept the truth.  Tom Landry once said that a coach is “someone who tells us what we don’t want to hear so we can be what we want to be.”  The truth gives us the opportunity to learn, to grow, to correct, to adjust and to adapt. 

In the final analysis, it comes down to us.  We must develop the discipline to be honest with ourselves.  "Illusions are an interesting aspect of life. Some are perpetrated upon us while others are created totally within us. Often, it's hard to tell the difference."

Business is conducted through human interaction.  Success, for any individual or group, depends on positive relationships.  Trust is the critical factor for building and sustaining positive relationships.  Unfortunately, trust is often elusive and frail.

Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, depicts team dysfunction as a pyramid with five layers.  The bottom layer is the base for all the rest - “absence of trust.”  The absence of trust not only causes challenges at work but often erodes our personal relationships as well.  

Individual performance improves in high trust environments.  People who feel trusted tend to have increased self confidence.  They are more willing to try new things, have higher levels of responsibility and tend to hold themselves more accountable for results. When employee trust is high, the workers feel more secure, are more loyal and stay with a company longer.

Managers cannot do the work themselves.  Their success depends on the ability to effectively delegate tasks.   A supervisor that does not trust the workers will have difficulty delegating.  When managers take on too many tasks themselves, or lean toward micromanagement, stress levels increase with resulting decreases in performance.  Low trust delegation often overworks the more trusted employees and limits the opportunity of other workers to establish trust.

Team success requires open, honest and direct communication.  In trusting environments, team members are more willing to share their weaknesses and mistakes.  This allows the team to work together toward improvement.  Team members who trust each other are more open to positive confrontation and more willing to engage in healthy conflict.  This level of communication promotes greater understanding and better decisions.

Many of us look at trust as something that must be earned.  This is a learned behavior.  New born babies seem to have an unusually high capacity for trust.  It is only after frequent breaches of trust, frequent perceived or real betrayals, that we arrive at the point where trust must be earned.  Paradoxically, it takes trust to build or "rebuild" trust.

The trust building process flows in a positive self perpetuating cycle.  As we take a risk to trust and others respond favorably, trust grows which then leads to more comfort in trusting.  The negative "betrayal" cycle is also self perpetuating.  When someone takes the risk to trust us and our actions cause them to feel betrayed they are less trusting and less likely to take the risk to trust us in the future. This gives us little opportunity to demonstrate that we can be trustworthy.

A perfect example can be seen in open, honest, direct communication.  When we trust others, we are more comfortable being open in our communication with them.  When trust is lacking, we may tend to withhold information or even be deceptive.  Our honesty is respected and builds trust.  However, If someone perceives that we are dishonest or secretive, they feel betrayed and trust us less. 

Here are a few tips that can help you build or "rebuild" trust.

1. Take risks - empower others and share openly with them.

2. Be open, honest and direct in you communication.

3. Accept honesty from others.

4. Respond to others openness with respect and concern.

5. Be accountable - do what you say.

Establishing and sustaining trust requires exploration and a concerted effort over time.  The value obtained from improved relationships and resulting levels of achievement are worth the effort.  Take the risk.

Recently a client sent me a an excellent question.  Someone suggested to her that she should try to treat all employees equally.  She asked me if that is even possible.

My belief is that you cannot and need not try to treat all people equally.  People are different from each other and, by that very nature, need to be treated differently in different circumstances.  Dealing with diversity in the workplace is not about getting everyone to be the same, but rather about understanding and appreciating differences.  Then we can begin to demonstrate tolerance and inclusion.

A perfect example of these principles can be seen in our work on understanding and building trust.  We acknowledge that our level of trust varies according to individuals and situations.  I wouldn’t trust a jet pilot to perform brain surgery.  I wouldn’t trust an eight year old to catch me if I fell from a chair, but I may well trust a professional football player to make that catch.  Similarly, we need to be more tolerant of someone who is learning new skills than with someone who has ample ability and has had ample opportunity to learn those same skills.     

I like to use the term “equitable” rather than “equal.”  Being treated “equal” tends to imply being treated the same.  The term “equitable’ leans more towards fairness and reasonableness which allows for consideration of individual differences and situations.

In striving to treat everyone equal, we may well discover that we are not being fair.

I am often asked to provide workshops regarding the delivery of feedback.  Recently, I developed a workshop on the best practices for obtaining feedback.  I called it Actionable Intelligence.
 
For some the term actionable intelligence is totally foreign.  Others may recognize it from its original military context.  It was used as early as the 1960’s to represent a piece of intelligence that was considered current, relevant and accurate enough to warrant immediate action.

It occurred to me that this term has a new and relevant application in our workplace. In fact, it has relevance in any aspect of our lives where we may seek improvement. What we really need, is actionable intelligence on ourselves. We need feedback from others that is reliable enough to guide our personal improvement efforts. 

The need for feedback

Some may wonder why they need feedback from others. "After all," one may say, "I'm not getting any complaints."  

David Maister, author of Practice What You Preach, once offered an excellent response to this. “In life, the absence of complaints is not a dependable indicator of the absence of opportunities to improve.”  Complaints are a Form of feedback and the absence of them may actually be linked to our inability to obtain actionable intelligence. 

You might be wondering why you can't just trust your own judgment.  How good is your judgment?  It is easy to develop blind spots regarding your own performance. It is also very hard to know what you don't know.  In some cases, you might even deceive yourself.

Illusions are an interesting aspect of life.  Some are perpetrated upon us while others are created totally within us.  Often, it's hard to tell the difference.  As AnthonyG. Greenwaldput it "The ego is a self-justifying historian, which seeks only that information that agrees with it, rewrites history when it needs to, and does not even see the evidence that threatens it."

Obtaining feedback

When looking at feedback, I like to consider four specific types.

There are two categories. One is general performance which involves things like physical ability, decision making and technical skill.  The other is interaction skill which relates to how we impact others and our level of emotional intelligence.

We also can consider the two aspects of feedback. We sometimes get positive feedback which we refer to as praise.  The there are times when we get feedback that leans a little more negative and is called criticism.

I have conducted a number of workshop exercises where I pair people up and ask them to get a piece of feedback in each of the four possible types.  In most cases, they find that positive feedback in the area of general performance is the easiest to give.  This same type stands out as the easiest to take.

By contrast, they find it very difficult to give criticism, especially in the area of human interaction.  Often I hear a comment such as “I don’t know them well enough to offer criticism.”  Why do we find it easy to offer praise to someone we don’t know but so much more difficult to give criticism?  In fact, it appears that this is often true even with those we know quite well.

Truth and Trust

In order for the intelligence to be actionable, it needs to be accurate.  We need to get the truth.  But given the difficulties we have discussed, how likely is it that we actually get the truth?  How often, when we are giving feedback, do we feel compelled to be somewhat less Than candid?

The number one reason for a lack of honesty in giving feedback is the lack of trust.  The biggest concern is how we will react.  When someone says they don’t want to hurt our feelings or make us angry, they do not trust our ability to take criticism without being hurt or getting angry.

Coupled with this lack of trust is fear.  People fear the potential consequences.  The consequences they fear could include excuses, arguments, guilt, rejection and even retribution.   The level of dishonesty is generally proportional to level of fear.

A common manifestation of this can be seen in a condition often referred to as CEO disease.  The higher one grows in their career and position of authority, the more they need accurate feedback and the less likely they are to get it.  I have also noted that this follows in many other relationships.  The more important the relationship is to the feedback provider, the more cautious they may be.

The good news is that there are things we can do to overcome these fears and build higher levels of trust.  It can be helpful to look at what might be causing the lack of trust. Trust is tied to judgment and expectations which are driven by one’s personal paradigm.

One’s paradigms are subject to what I call “the rule of 6 and 60.”  Judgments and expectations are based on the sum total of life’s experiences.  This includes experiences of 6 minutes ago and 60 years ago.  These include experiences the person has had with us as well as those they have had with others.

For example, if someone has a long history of conflict when trying to be open, that person is less likely to be open with you.  Similarly, if you have a history of over reacting to feedback, those who have experienced it or heard about it are likely to be less honest when talking with you.  Even if historic experiences have been positive, a recent negative reaction can cause a person to be less than trustful, even though it may not have involved you.

Building Trust

Armed with this understanding, we can identify some areas where we might have an impact on the level of trust and consequently on the levels of honesty and openness.

It is important to start by building a reputation for being open to criticism.  If you suspect that your reputation is already tarnished, you may need to acknowledge your concern and desire to improve.  You can then begin to demonstrate your resolve in one-on-one discussions or in open forums.

Formal approaches tend to stifle honesty.  Whenever possible, seek feedback in less formal settings.  If a person seems reluctant, you might ask what that person has heard from others.  This will take the focus (and potential blame) away from that person. Remember, you don’t need to ask for names, just information.

Sometimes you can put a person more at ease by starting with a self critique and asking for his or her opinion or advice.  Through a number of workshop exercises, we have noted that the more specific you can be with a feedback question or request, the more candid and helpful the response will be.

When actually receiving feedback it is important to focus on listening skills.  Listen to learn.  Don’t argue, defend or explain.  Try not to react to what you are hearing.  Think of it as gathering information to evaluate later.  This can be difficult.  I tell people to look at it like running a Google search on you.  In our work on emotional intelligence we point out that it is not about “not” having emotion; rather, it is about not allowing the emotion to have you.

You can continue the trust building process with what you do after receiving the feedback.  Thank them for their input.  You may not like what you hear, but you need to appreciate the effort to be open and honest.

Inform the person of any action you intend to take as a result of the feedback.  It is not necessary to act on everything you hear.  However, it may be a good idea to find something of value that you can act on.  This will show that you value the process. Finally, be sure to follow up with the person over time to get a read on your progress.

Honest, but reliable?

Up to this point, everything I have discussed has been about working toward getting our feedback to be open and honest.  I feel this is the most difficult and important part of actionable intelligence.  We cannot even consider feedback unless we know it is honest. Moreover, the trust building process is a significant step In itself.  Achieving a level of trust that allows open, honest communication is critical to all of our personal and working relationships.

So let’s assume we have reached this pinnacle and folks are giving us candid opinions regarding our general performance and interaction skill.  Before we can use the information for improvement, we need to know that it is actionable.  It may be an honest opinion and still be inaccurate.  How can we tell?

Some have said that a good indicator may be how well the feedback aligns with what we already know.  The potential problem with this line of thinking is that most of us are subject to confirmation bias.  We tend to seek information that validates the beliefs we already hold.  Jonathan Haidt speaks of this in his book, The Righteous Mind.  Studies have shown that those with the lowest performance also have the least accurate view of themselves.

The best validation is generally obtained by comparing information from multiple sources. Opinions on general performance may vary from person to person and accuracy tends to improve with sample size.  But when evaluating interaction skill, an honest statement of how you impact an individual personally will always be accurate.

Now what?

The final consideration is what to do with the intelligence we have obtained when we determine it is “actionable.”  The answer to this lies in your initial purpose for seeking the information.  Are you seeking feedback or validation!   No one likes criticism.  But we all can benefit from indentifying opportunities for improvement. While it feels great, validation will never give us anything we can actually use to improve.

Analyze the information to determine what is most useful.  Then look at what can be most readily acted on at the current time and in your current state.  This completes the definition of actionable.

Use it or lose it.  If you choose not to act on the intelligence, let it go.  Dwelling on things you choose not to change will only undermine your self esteem.  This actually hinders growth and stifles improvement.

In the end analysis, only you can uncover the benefits of actionable intelligence.

In business, and in life, our level of success is dependent on the strength of our relationships. Family, friends, co-workers, customers, clients, colleagues, associates, and even those who simply observe our actions contribute, in their own way, to the flow of our productivity. They may be assisting or they may be consuming but always they are serving as the point of reference for who we are and what we have to offer.

The most critical factor in building strong teams and sustaining strong relationships is trust and trust is established by keeping our commitments.

Keeping commitments, like all acknowledged virtues, is dealt with by each individual internally and is always a matter of choice.  Once made, commitments often create obligations that can be very difficult.  It is in this difficulty, in the struggle, that character is built, integrity established and trust forged.

Some recognize the value of certain virtues and consider the implications of their choices carefully while others follow the path of simple convenience.  All our choices are, in fact, subject to the level of commitment we have to ourselves - to our own core values and what we consider important.  Consequently, commitment to others can never be separated from commitment to self.

Fortunately, we can make it a bit easier to keep our commitments to ourselves and to others.  We also have a choice regarding what commitments we will make in the first place.  We can often avoid a bind down the road simply by considering the potential difficulties associated with keeping certain commitments.  "Look before you leap."

When looking at the commitments made to others, mutual understanding is critical.  Commitments should always be explicit.  They need to be fully expressed without any vagueness or ambiguity.  We can set ourselves up for problems when we imply, or allow people to infer, what the commitment entails.

We sometimes imply that we will do something we are not prepared to do.  "Don't worry I'll be there for you."  Am I implying that I will be available at any time of day or night for any need that may arise?  Are there circumstances that could arise that I am not prepared to "be there for?"  

Commitment by inference can be very difficult to avoid.  When we agree, for example, to chair a committee, there can be a lot of variance in the expectations people have of this position.  We have to anticipate what others may perceive and be prepared to ask questions that can help clarify the expectations.  This may take some time.  But failure to clarify can saddle us with a commitment that can be very hard to carry.          

We can't anticipate everything and there can be many reasons for choosing not to follow through or keep our word.  The obligation may be larger than expected or the journey longer than desired.  We may lose strength or lose heart.  We may fear that we will not do well or even fail.

But those people we deal with every day, the ones that have so much impact on our success, are always watching.  The strength of those relationships will be based on the tough choices, not the easy ones.  We will most often be judged not by the level of success so much as by the willingness to make the effort.

It may be said that it is better to keep a commitment and fail than to fail to keep a commitment.

No!  I'm not talking about the stuff that that turns six strings into a screaming guitar.  I'm talking about the type of open, honest, direct communication that is critical to the process of identifying real opportunities for improvement.

Hundreds of managers have asked how to make their performance improvement processes more effective.  My answer is always the same.  Abandon annual reviews and focus on systems that offer frequent, honest balanced feedback.  

Annual performance reviews really do very little to improve performance.  I once heard someone say that depending on annual reviews to create improvement is like “dieting on your birthday and hoping to lose weight.”  To be really effective we need consistent on-going feedback.

But the value of feedback doesn’t begin and end at the workplace doors.  Feedback can help us improve in every aspect of our lives.  Well placed feedback offers avenues for improvement, increases self confidence, and enhances relationships.

Of course feedback is of little value unless we can trust the source.  There is an inherent link between trust and truth.  Trust rarely exists in the absence of truth and truth is rarely given in the absence of trust.  Yet folks frequently don't want to tell the truth and, all too often, people don't want to hear the truth. 

Feedback rides on the same two-way street.  To be successful we need to be skilled in both giving and receiving.  Gloria Auth with Protocol Plus says that "Giving feedback is not for bullies and receiving feedback is not for sissies."      

To receive good feedback we must first learn how to give permission.  That sounds easy.  Just ask for feedback!  Right?  Well we need to do a bit more than that.  We need to reassure people that we value their opinion and are really ready to listen to what they have to say.  We need to demonstrate open mindedness rather than search for approval.

We must always be aware that the giver will be watching our reaction.  When we get defensive or angry we are really telling others we don't want their feedback.  It is important not to take it personally and not to over react.  Remember, they are simply providing input that we can digest, consider and use or not use.

The most important thing for the giver is to first obtain permission to give feedback.  Six simple words can work wonders.  Can I offer you some feedback?   When we get permission we should use it wisely being sincere, honest and assertive.  The truth does not require a sugar coating.  Nor does it need to be delivered in a ring of fire.  We need to focus on the issue not the person.  No one really cares much about our opinion.  People are much more receptive to suggestions than to judgments.               

Finally, feedback must be balanced.  Even the most constructive of criticism carries a sting.  No one wants to live in a hive.  We need the balance of positive feedback as well.  Positive feedback builds self confidence and enhances trust.  Without acknowledgment that we are on the right track, we may start looking for another path.

I am not one who favors softening the blow by opening with a positive statement.  I think that approach sends mixed messages.  It is far better to simply view others with a balanced eye.  That means seeking as many opportunities to praise as we do to criticize.

Good feedback is like a lighthouse.  It reassures us when we are on a safe course and advises us when a course correction is needed.  And it does all this without ever casting a judgment upon us.