Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Fred is a grown up. Fred needs to be on track in the meeting. Fred is wasting my time. Now, they might not say that to you and they're probably not going to say that to you if you're their boss. And they're going to leave thinking all that stuff in their head because the consequences or the impact that you described is not significantly weighty enough to outweigh the intention that they have. You said people feeling good is really important. And they said, no, no, efficiency trumps feeling good. For this to work, you have to accept, we all have to accept that everybody is different and there's no good, bad, right or wrong. The fact that this person needs efficiency over spreads feel does not make them a terrible person, does not make them a bad human being. But what it does mean is that you will likely not get them to change their behavior unless the impact or consequences you are talking about hit their efficiency button.
[00:00:50] Hello everyone, I'm Jess Chapman and this is Wired to Work, a podcast about making work work better for everyone. Now, this episode is part two of a series that we were doing to talk all about the wonderful world of feedback. And in episod episode one, we talked about how you normalize feedback and the approach that you want to take to make feedback land better and to avoid some of those threat alarm bells that go off when we think about that feedback conversation. So in this episode, the follow up episode, we're going to talk about structure and how do I structure the feedback conversation to do the same thing? Right? So part of it is how you approach it. The second part is how you structure it. And so today I'm going to go through a model that we've created at NeuroWorks called the Nicer Framework. So it's all about making feedback nicer. So hopefully that will help you remember the framework. And of course, as always, more information about the NYSER framework And some tools will be uploaded to the Patreon community so that you can access those if you'd like to use the tools. So the NYSER framework is five steps that you want to go through in a conversation with someone to help explore what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how to change their behavior. So it works really well when there's something somebody's doing that isn't helpful. It works really well when you want to have a conversation with someone, one of those kind of difficult accountability conversations, conversations, but you want to manage the impact of that conversation on the other person. So I'm going to walk through the five steps each at a time and talk about why we have them and kind of how you frame them up.
[00:02:19] And I'm going to apply this to something really simple and straightforward, like somebody who interrupts people a lot in meetings. Right. That's a behavior most of us have seen. So we'll apply it to that concept so we can get it. The first thing that you want to do is rather than starting the conversation with something like can I give you some feedback, which isn't bad because it asks for permission but might set the person's alarm bells off, or I need to talk to you, which is probably definitely going to set their alarm bells off. We are trying to find a way to have the conversation that is more of an exploratory, neutral place to start. So back to what I talked about in episode one. If you already have touch points with this person or like, so if it's a member of your team, for example, and you have one to ones with them, you would be having this conversation in that place because that's normal for having feedback conversations. And then you don't have to announce it, but if it's someone that you wouldn't normally have a one to one with, then you want to think about like going for a coffee or having a chat or trying to set it up in a way that it's a conversation as opposed to feeling serious and formal. And then when you get into the conversation, you're starting with noticing. So the N of nicer is noticing and you are noticing and asking about whatever it is that you want to see changed. So I noticed in the meeting this morning when Fred was talking, you cut in several times and I was wondering what your thoughts were on what he was sharing. Right? You're trying to notice the behavior and ask about why the person is doing it. Right. So I noticed that morning you came in at 8:45 when your shift started at 8. Right. Is everything okay? So you're noticing the behavior and you're asking is this okay? Are you okay? Talk to me about this particular scenario. So you're not saying I have some feedback or I didn't like what happened, or starting with any kind of judgment on situation, you are observing the behavior and asking about it. And that's really important because it starts the conversation in a place of neutrality. So there's nothing to get defensive over because I'm just asking about a thing I saw or a thing I experience from you. The trick with the end stage though is to make sure that we're getting as close to an Observation as possible and avoiding a judgment. So sometimes as human beings, we see people do things and we wind forwards to what that thing means for us. And so what I mean by that is, so you might interpret someone interrupting people as being rude. Right. So rather than saying you were rude to Fred this morning, we want to make sure we're talking about an observation. Cutting him off while he was talking, interjecting while he was talking. That's much closer to what you saw the person do than your judgment of their behavior. If you start the conversation with a judgment, you're going to put them back on that defensive back foot again and you're going to be back into kind of fight mode. So stopping and thinking about, what is it I would say to this person? How would I describe what I saw them do in this context? That's what I'm going to do as an observation. Right. So that's the first thing you're going to say. I noticed you when Fred was talking. You cut in several times this morning. I was wondering what your thoughts are on what he was sharing or something of that nature to get them talking about what happened in the meeting this morning. And then the second step is intention.
[00:05:19] So they are going to then reply to that and tell you about what was going on for them in that particular context. But because human beings are who we are, they're not going to sit down with you and go, yes. Well, Jess, what happened to me in that moment was that the autonomy button of the scarf model was being pressed and I had an amygdala hijack and the cortisol was firing, and therefore, like, that's not what's going to happen. They're going to be like, oh, Fred. Fred always goes around in circles. He's always all over the place. Half of what he's talking about is a waste of time and just go off track. And he's always doing stuff. And I just. I can't be at it anymore. I can't cope. Right. Or whatever is going on for them in the moment. Right. They're going to give you their version of events, their version of truth, because we all live in our own reality, and it's their version of truth. Your job in that moment is to listen for why they chose the behavior they did or why they did what they did somewhere in the event, and response is the reason. So if the person says, oh, Fred's forever going off on tangents. It's just we spend so much time on things that Fred talks about, they're just a waste of time. That's not saying, yes, Fred does this, and this is what triggers me. But what they're saying is, I find Fred going off on tangents a waste of time. And my intention, therefore, is to stop us going back off on tangents and to save us time. Right. So you are listening for the good intention behind the thing that you have question marks over, and you're expressly validating that intent. So you would say back, okay, so it be you. You feel like Fred goes off on tangents. And really what you're trying to do is save us time in the meeting. That's what you're trying to do. Right. And while doing that, you're saying to that person, I understand, I get you. That makes sense to me. Like, it's not a weird thing you were trying to do. It's very sensible. And you give them a sense of comfort that you're with them in the conversation. Right. So we're not against each other here. I'm understanding and I'm kind of standing next to you in the conversation as opposed to combating the conversation with you. And I would go one step further and actually validate that intention. So, yeah, I absolutely hear you. I never want to be in meetings where we're wasting time. Like, that's not great for anybody. So by doing that, you're saying your intention is good, you were trying to do as a human being is a good thing. And by doing that, you stay in that friend zone with them, they stay connected to you. It's a good conversation. We're having a conversation together then. So that's the N and the I. Then we get to see of nicer, which is consequences. This is when you're saying what the impact was of what they chose to do. So you're saying, I saw you do this. Oh, now I understand why you were doing that. Now we say, yeah, I get that. Like, we do waste a lot of time in meetings. The challenge I see, though, is when you cut Fred off, all he does is end up shutting down, and then we don't get anything from him or he talks more. So you're explaining the impact to that person of what it was they tried to do. There's nothing wrong with the intention that person had. But you're trying to say, this is the impact of it. So whatever you were trying to do, we've got an impact here we need to manage. So that's the N, the I, and the C. And then the E is exploring what you do differently. So. So, yeah, I hear you. We definitely need to manage time in those meetings. I don't really want to cut Fred off, though, because then we really. He does have nuggets to share. I mean, sometimes he goes on tangents, but he does have nuggets to share. So how can we manage time with Fred and manage time in the meeting in a way that is like not cutting him off? Right. And you're trying to get to a place of a different way of solving the intention that they had that doesn't have the impact you saw from that behavior. Right. And you're exploring. Now. There is a reason that you don't tell people what to do, and that's because we don't like being told what to do. So if you say you should just stop cutting Fred off, two things. One, we don't like being told what to do, so I'm probably not going to do that. And two, stopping behavior is really hard. If he is a reason driving what you're doing, just saying to that person, stop doing it is probably not going to solve it because they haven't got their need met. They feel like Fred is wasting time. They need to address the fact that Fred is wasting time. So if you just say stop it, what happens is people swing the pendulum all the way over and usually don't say anything at all in the meeting because they don't know how to do things differently. So you need to help people explore other options in getting that intention met. Otherwise it tends to get a bit wonky. Right. So that's the E. And then the last piece is you're just wrapping up the conversation and figuring out when you're going to check in or what you're going to do next. Right. So that's the reinforce and recap part. So, okay, so like this morning was all about Fred going off on tangents and trying to keep us on time. I think between you and I, we can figure out putting a project agenda together and we'll just call time if we feel like we're going off on tangents and put them on a parking lot. Let's do that. Does that work for you? Great. Let's try that at the next team meeting and then we'll see how that goes. So that's the process. So notice the behavior and ask about it. Listen and validate the intent. Explain the consequences of the choices they're making currently. Explore a different action or reaction and way forwards and then force and recap what you're gonna do and when you're gonna check back in. And it really Is that simple. We don't need to add anything into it. We don't need to dance around it like we talked about in the last episode. We don't need to waffle to soften. We just need to say, hey, I saw this and was wondering about it. Is everything okay? Okay. It was for that reason. Well, that makes sense to me. But here's what I saw happen as a result. That probably wasn't super helpful. How do we do it differently from here on out? All right, let's try that and see where we get to. That's. That's the fool's gamut of Nyser. So that's the framework. And obviously with all things that we talk about, it's gonna take a to practice those particular pieces. There's a few things that I see people do when they start to learn to use nicer that I want to talk about. So the first is around intention. People still skip validating intent. It's really important that you listen and specifically respond to the intent of the other person. I gotcha. That's what you were trying to do. That makes sense to me. Even if you understand it in your head, don't skip saying you understand it. Right. Because it makes the other person feel heard and validated in the conversation. That's what keeps it cordial and like we're talking between two sensible people. And then sometimes I get asked, well, yeah, but we had the conversation and then nothing changed. Nothing happened differently. So I had the conversation. I did nicer. We talked about what to do when the person didn't do it. And that's normally because the consequences or the impact of what you described was not significant enough to outweigh the driving intention of that person. Right. And that's often down to the person you're talking to. So let's say I'm a process driven, structure oriented person. I'm all about data, facts, accuracy and structure. You don't get a lot of kind of warm and fuzzies off me, but I'm all about doing this stuff properly and which could be done and done properly. And you sit down with me and ask me about why I'm interrupting Fred in a meeting and I explain to you that Fred's going off on tangents and wasting our time and it's not the efficient way of doing it. And you say to me, yeah, but when you do that, it really hurts Fred's feelings. My brain is going to look at you and go, I don't care. Fred is a grown up. Fred needs to be on track in the meeting. Fred is wasting my time. Fred needs to care about my time. He's wasting, not me. Need to carrying about Fred. Now, they might not say that to you and they're probably not going to say that to you. If you're their boss, they're going to look at you and they're going to nod and smile and say, yes, absolutely. And they're going to leave thinking all that stuff in their head because the consequences or the impact that you described is not significantly weighty enough to outweigh the intention that they have. Their brain says efficiency is really important. You said people feeling good is really important. And they said, no, no, efficiency trumps feeling good right now, for this to work, you have to accept, we all have to accept that everybody is different and there's no good, bad, right or wrong. The fact that this person needs efficiency over Fred's feelings does not make them a terrible person, does not make them a bad human being. But what it does mean is that you will likely not get them to change their behavior unless the impact or consequences you are talking about hit their efficiency button. So if you just talk about this, it's hard for the team, or Fred doesn't like it, right. Or, you know, it's not a good look on you or something like that, that doesn't mean anything. But if you're like, yes, I understand what you're trying to do with time, the problem is that when you cut Fred off, he shuts down entirely and then we don't actually get any input from him. And what happens is then we circle back later and we're actually wasting more time because Fred hasn't inputted, hasn't really agreed to this stuff that's going to get to their efficiency button. So you're trying to find a consequence that best fits what the other person cares about. And if so, if you have a conversation with someone first time through, I wouldn't worry about it. Talk to them about the impact. If you can tailor it, great. But if you did talk to them about it and you talk to them about the impact and they didn't change, the chances are that the consequence you talked about doesn't hit the button that's important to them. So then I'd go back and think about what do I know about this person that's important to them? How do I explain why this is something that's going to matter to them in language that they care about, buttons that they care about? And so then you go back and have the same conversation which Is, hey, I noticed in the meeting this morning, like, we had talked about the fact, like, cutting Fred off wasn't a good idea, but I just want you did it again. So I was wondering about that. Oh, I know. I know we said. I know we said Fred's feelings would be hurt, but honestly, we spend so much time on stuff with Fred, I just. I can't. I can't cope with it. I just can't do it. And you're like, I totally get it. I understand it's very frustrating. But we're actually. This is not an efficient process. And I know. I'm aware that other people see you cut Fred off and then they start thinking, maybe I shouldn't say anything because I might get cut off too. We're really not getting an efficient use of time because we're not getting all the ideas out on the table. We absolutely need to try some other ways of making this work. Otherwise, we're gonna have real difficulty with this project right now. If you're the person's leader, these are the consequences you can bring to bear, too. You can start to be more serious about the impact of the behavior and all those things. But if it's a peer, you don't necessarily have that luxury. But just revisiting the conversation and using nicer, again to reinforce the consequences can help move the dial with that person. So that's the framework, and so it's in the combination of the approach that you want to take and the structure that this comes together. Right. So think about what we talked about the first episod.
[00:14:57] We said, particularly if you're a leader, you definitely wanna be having regular time with your people so that you have a place to have this time of conversation without setting off the threat alarms. But if you regularly work with peers on projects, I'd say the same thing. Set up regular coffee time, right? So that you can go chat, check in with that person, see how they're doing, get to know one another, and use that time for these types of conversations. Then you're going for that good mindset that we talked about. You're going for the warm and direct in the style and approach for the conversation. And NYSRE allows you to be direct. Direct in what you're addressing. Right. There's not lots of talking around everything. It is. Here's what I've noticed. Here's what I understand your intent to be. This is the impact of what I'm seeing, how to explore, how to move forward. Let's try that. And when will we regroup and reconnect and we can keep it relatively pithy. We don't only teach what we use. I use nicer all the time in lots of conversations with lots of people about lots of different things. Try it on. I'd love to hear your feedback on how it works. And of course if you're in our Patreon community, there are some nicer talks, tools and prep sheets in there for you if you're on the mid tier subscription level. To help you actually apply the tools in practice, we will be looking at doing a feedback webinar event where we can actually do some practice on this and look at some real life situations together so you can look at signing up for that too. So that's a wrap for today. Thank you very much for joining in and if you liked our conversation today, please do like and subscribe. You can find us on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
[00:16:19] You can also check out our websites E3CA and Neuroworks CA for more information about what we do in the wonderful world of work. So thanks again for joining in and I look forward to seeing you on another episode.
