I had an interesting experience at work the other day-I teach school. This year I am at a new school. Last Friday, while conversing with my co-teacher, it came up that I had sustained a brain injury. Her response: "You should have told me- you make SO much more sense now!" While I would recommend a more tactful response than "You make SO much more sense now"
her point was valid. There had been behaviors she had noticed but because she did not know about the brain injury, she assumed that something was wrong, that I "couldn't handle the job." Noticed behaviors included: looking down while I was talking to someone, giving blank looks, getting lost in the school, worrying about things that didn't need consideration. Behaviors that make much more sense when a brain injury is factored in.
My initial response: I felt offended and somewhat exposed that something was wrong. I assumed that if someone had noticed these things about me I must not be functioning as well as I thought. I felt like my faults were being pointed out. I tried to find resolution but I spent much of the weekend stewing over it. In conversation with some close friends, they mentioned that the intent of the conversation was most likely not critical, but I didn't believe them.
I was somewhat apprehensive to going back to work on Monday, afraid that people would be "watching" me, that I would have to work extra hard to prove that I could do the job. As it turns out, it was one of my best work days! I came to be grateful for that feedback, believing that it wasn't intended as critical, and realize that it was actually good and accurate feedback. For example, I felt I could converse better when I remembered not to look down and the day was more enjoyable when I would ask myself, "Do I really need to be concerned with this?" and then acting appropriately.
Feedback can be unexpected, painful, truthful, etc. However, if we move past the offense towards the possibilities, it can be very beneficial! Now it's your turn to respond: How would you feel if you were in my shoes? How would you have responded?
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I have to admit, I have thought (but not said out loud) "Oh, now you make sense...", when learning of someone's brain injury. For me, it was nice to now understand the "logic" of that person. I was able to take the focus off "why are they doing that?" to "Oh, they do that and move on." Hope that makes sense...
ReplyDeleteWhat a great comment! It gives new insight to me as to how/why feedback can also be positive, and that it's not just about the person recieving the feedback, either. Thanks for the insight!
ReplyDeleteFeedback has always been hard for me! I generally take things too personally. The past few years I have been in several graphic design classes where there are/were lots of critiques. I have slowly started to learn over the years that the people are not attacking me, but trying to point out flaws in my work, which if I change, will make my work better.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have noticed with myself is that I care/cared too much about what others think of me. One thing I have tried to learn lately is that I don't HAVE TO change, just because someone brings something to my attention. I need to live with integrity - integrity of self - being who I am and comfortable with who I am... even if someone finds fault with it... even if they aren't attacking me on purpose.
So, I think we're alike in a lot of ways... we probably both just genuinely want to improve for the sake of improvement, but we should make sure we're changing ourselves for the right reasons, not just because someone doesn't like what we do.