MELANIE KATZMAN: I encourage people to provide
feedback to one another. It's a gift. It's
also often part of your job. But, too often,
we don't go far enough. So I suggest that
we create psychological contracts. You don't
do it with everybody, but it is an opportunity
to agree to exchange extremely honest feedback
by mutual consent in a safe and trusting way.
There's a number of different ways in which
you can do that. One is in the immediate.
I say to somebody who I trust, whose opinion
matters to me, ""I'm getting up on stage.
Let me know afterwards: Was I clear? Did I
give too much information, too little information?
Did I move too much? Did I engage with the
audience? Tell me the truth."" That's an immediate
request for honest feedback and we are creating
a psychological contract. You're not going
out of bounds if you tell me exactly what
you think. I also tell people if they're going
into a meeting, pick the person who's going
to pull on their ear to let you know you're
going off topic, whether your data is really
not holding up in that room and getting an
immediate sense from somebody the unvarnished
truth about what's going on.
The other way in which we negotiate psychological
contracts is to create a space within the
group that you're working to say ""We're going
through big changes in our company right now.
There's going to be a lot of noise in the
hallways. Not everyone's going to like what
we're doing but when we come into this room
we're going to share what we're hearing, how
we're feeling and we're going to work through
that together."" So it is creating a safe
space; it's agreeing this is where we're going
to bring that information and understand that
not everything's going to be pretty, but we
have mutually consented to having that sharing.
So, when we establish a psychological contract
this is not a written agreement. This is an
agreement between people, preferably, I look
you in the eye or I speak to you directly
and I ask permission and you give it to me.
It doesn't exist, by the way, forever; you
have to renew those contracts. You can negotiate
them for the moment. You can negotiate them
over a period of time. I say to you, ""I know
you're coming up for promotion. I'd really
like to help you get to where you need to
go. Would you like me to give you feedback
on a more ongoing way?"" I've asked you. You've
given me permission. We've now contracted
that, over a period of time, with a particular
goal in mind we're going to have continual
exchanges. You're going to expect that feedback
from me and I'm going to take on the responsibility
of delivering that to you regularly and clearly.
In the absence of negotiating that contract
people can feel as if they have been impinged
upon, that you are going beyond what is socially
accepted or interpersonally comfortable. So
be clear, be mutual, and then be extremely
candid.
