What’s the best way to prevent someone from speeding down the street in your neighborhood, assuming cost wasn’t an issue?
A) Increase fines for doing so
B) Conduct more regular speed traps
C) Lower the speed limit
D) Install speed display signs
If you answered D, you’re right. But why?
Turns out, people are motivated to improve their behavior when you present them with data that makes them self-aware of the gap between what they’re currently doing (speed) and what they need to (slow down).
These speed display signs function so well, I think, because they activate both parts of what we would call self-awareness: external and internal. Wait, what? There are two parts to self-awareness? There are. And helping people cultivate both is what great coaches do.
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Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich found in a 5,000-participant study that our murky, kinda confusing definitions of self-awareness are, well, all over the place.
Internal self-awareness, her and her research team argue, represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, reactions, and impact on others.
External self-awareness, on the other hand, means understanding how other people view us, in terms of those same factors listed above.
And a good manager and coach can help their people tap into both, much like those speed display signs.
With just a little nudge, displaying a driver’s speed helped people instantaneously improve their self-awareness. In an instant, they see a better version of themselves both internally (“I’m not the type of person who breaks the law”) and externally (“I don’t want others to see that I’m speeding”).
How can we do the same for our people?
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It’s likely that you, like me, have unintentionally focused too much on one side of the self-awareness coin.
That’s a mistake.
Let’s start with ourselves. The chart below, from Eurich, lays out the four self-awareness archetypes. Chances are you default to one of these, and maybe it changes based on circumstances and people. Knowing which one is the first step toward making progress to disrupt that tendency.
So, when you’re not at your best version of yourself, which one are you? What are the situations that cause you to find yourself playing out that archetype?
So you have an idea where you might fall, but what do you do now?
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Let’s start with external self-awareness.
To build it, both for themselves and others, leaders need to actively seek feedback and do so in a way that signals, “I really care what you have to say,” and am going to do something about it.
Here’s why: Research across a variety of studies indicates that the more experience and power we have, the less likely it is for us to accurately assess our own levels of self-awareness, Eurich summarizes.
That means we need formal and informal ways to ask the people we lead, and then need to coach them to do the same, to get the critical feedback they need to see themselves more clearly.
What does this look like?
1) In 1-on-1s, I’ve found these questions to be the most helpful in getting informal, regular feedback:
On a scale of 1-10, what would you give me on _________ (initiative, presentation, coaching meeting, etc.)? What would I need to do differently to get a 10? (Why I like it: Very rarely will people give 10s, which gives them a moment to think critically about what, even if it’s tiny, you could do differently)
What advice would you give me about how to continue to improve in this area? (Why I like it: We as human beings love giving each other advice and taking out the word feedback decreases the formality of the interaction)
If you haven’t signaled and normalized feedback in your 1-on-1s, start there with framing around why it’s so important that you get feedback, with an emphasis on how you are actively disrupting power dynamics that prevent feedback from being regularly given, whether that’s because of race, position, gender, etc.
2) Twice a year have each leader receive feedback from their teams and as much of the wider org as possible.
Be the model for how to synthesize what you learned, how it’s helped build your own self-awareness around potential areas you might have overlooked, and determine a clear action you are going to take as a result. Share this widely so folks understand that their feedback matters and that you’re doing something about it.
Then, have your team do the same with each other and the teams they manage.
3) Form your own loving critics circle and then coach your people to do the same. These are people who both have our best interests at heart and are willing to tell us the truth.
Find yours and make sure they know the role you want them to play. I’ve found that a loving critics circle not only makes you better at your job, it also makes you feel less lonely in it, too.
Start coaching relationships with your direct reports by telling people the importance of a loving critics circle and then follow-up with them to ensure they have one.
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So if that’s how you build external self-awareness, what about internal self-awareness?
Turns out that the introspection many of us have been doing is, well, completely wrong. If you, like me, have been asking yourself why questions (e.g., Why did I lose my temper in this situation?), you’re missing out on the power introspection can provide.
Instead of why, ask what. Eurich argues that what questions keep us more objective and focused on the future, empowering us to act on our new insights.
Why questions, on the other hand, cause us to spend energy rationalizing and denying what we’ve learned. When undergraduates were asked in a study by psychologists J. Gregory Hixon and William Swann to reflect on why they received negative feedback, the students performed mental gymnastics to refute the feedback.
Hixon and Swann’s conclusion: “Thinking about why one is the way one is may be no better than no thinking about one’s self at all.”
So, how can we improve our, and our people’s ability, to be introspective?
1) Review your week to determine at least 1-2 areas where you weren’t your best self. Then, ask yourself: What about this situation caused me to show up the way I did? What do I need to do to improve for next time? What lessons have I learned about myself that I could apply in other contexts based on these reflections?
2) Have your direct reports do this reflection as pre-work on a regular basis in 1-on-1s: What was a situation over the past week in which you weren’t at your best? What was about this situation or context that caused you to not be at your best? What would you do next time in a similar context? What transferable takeaways do you have about your own leadership?
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Being the type of leaders and coaches we want to be means giving our people constant, gentle reminders that help them see who they are more clearly, both what they do excellently and where they need to improve.
And it‘s that clarity for ourselves and those we manage that creates the foundation for understanding where we truly are and what might be getting in the way of where we want to be.
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