You Give Feedback To Employees Without First Establishing Rapport
Imagine for a moment that your employees are antelopes. Because you have authority over them, they quite naturally view you as a lion. It’s not that you’re purposely ruling with teeth and claws. It’s simply their “critter brains” at work, peering out and coding who is a friend and who is a foe. That means, unless you can get employees to see you as just another antelope, you won’t be able to influence them — they’ll be too busy ensuring their own survival to accept your feedback.
I have a wealth of neuroscience tactics for helping leaders get inside their employees’ heads and truly establish rapport. Most of them are too complex to convey in a short article (meta programs are one of the most potent), but here are three shortcut phrases that help people feel safe enough to shift out of their critter state.
“What if … ?”
When you use this preface to an idea or suggestion, you remove ego and reduce emotion. You’re curious — not forcing a position but kind of scratching your head and pondering. This enables someone to brainstorm more easily with you.
“I need your help.”
We call this a “dom-sub” swap, because when the dominant person uses it, the “dom” is enrolling the subordinate person and asking the “sub” to rise up and swap roles. This is an especially effective phrase when you want a person to change behavior or take on more responsibility.
“Would it be helpful if … ?”
When someone is stuck in their critter state, spinning and unable to move forward, you can offer solutions that will help them see a possible course of action or positive outcome.
You Focus On Problems Rather Than Outcomes
I teach clients that there are three default roles that people lean toward: victim, rescuer, and persecutor. (These were first identified by Dr. Stephen B. Karpman and detailed in his article “Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis” published in Transactional Analysis.) These roles are interdependent (there must be a persecutor for there to be a victim for the rescuer to save), and they play out every day in the workplace.
Together these roles make up the “tension triangle” — and when we’re in it, we’re problem-focused. We see everything as a problem, which causes anxiety, which leads to a reaction, which leads to another problem. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. The solution is to switch your focus from problems to outcomes. Instead of asking “What’s wrong?” and “Why is this happening?,” we ask “What do we want?” and “How will we create it?”
Being outcome-focused feels very different. It’s empowering and energizing and fills you with confidence. It firmly places you in your smart state, where possibility, choice, innovation, love, and higher consciousness are abundant. Victims become outcome creators. Rescuers become insight creators. Persecutors become action creators. So … how do you make the switch?
First, identify each role that you and the other person are playing. Speak to the other person as the positive counterpart. If he’s in victim mode and you tend to be a rescuer, don’t say things like “I’ll make it better for you” and “Let me help you.” Instead, say “What outcome would you like?” and “What will having that do for you?” If you do this in every conversation, and teach others to make the shift as well, you will transform your culture and quickly start getting the outcomes you want.
You Frame Change The Wrong Way
Almost all leaders want — and probably need — their companies to change. It’s the only way we can achieve growth. Yet, people inherently resist change. In fact, according to Rodger Bailey’s groundbreaking work on NLP meta programs in the workplace, 65% of Americans can tolerate change only if it is couched in a specific context (see Shelle Rose Charvet’s excellent book on meta programs, “Words That Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence,” for a deep source on Bailey’s work). That context is “sameness with exception.”
What does this mean? Essentially, it means leaders need to present the change as merely an improvement to what they are already doing: The bad stuff is being removed, and good stuff is being added.
Seriously — this is the best way to package a change message. And don’t use the C-word. Say “growth” instead.
By the way, resistance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the first step on the organizational path. The other four steps are mockery, usefulness, habitual, and new standard. But once you can clear the resistance hurdle — and it will go fairly quickly when you present change the way I just described — you’re well on your way.
Did you recognize your own leaders — even yourself — in the above list? If so, you’re not alone. And the good news is that once you can make the relatively simple changes, you are likely to see dramatic improvements in your results.
All leaders want to outperform, outsell, and out-innovate the competition. And most of us have teams that are quite capable of doing so. We just need to stop scaring the competence out of them.
Christine Comaford is an expert in human behavior and applied neuroscience, and the author of “Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality” and “SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.”
This article is updated from its initial publication in Brain World Magazine’s print edition.
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