Do this one thing when giving negative feedback

Good Morning. For the next 5 minutes, your career is the most important thing.

In today’s email:

• Alexander had Aristotle - get the mentors you want.

• Do this one thing when giving negative feedback.

• Stop busy work to get more done.

• Curl your toes upwards in your shoes, when deep breathing would be odd.

• Three pieces of wisdom from Daniel Kahneman.

ON YOUR CAREER

Alexander had Aristotle. Get the mentors you want

When Alexander the Great was thirteen, Aristotle commenced tutoring and mentoring him. Alexander supposedly said he loved Aristotle more than he loved his father, because while he owed his life to his father, he owed his ability to think to Aristotle. Their strong relationship lasted until Alexander’s death.

Many successful entrepreneurs and executives have a circle of mentors. Useful mentors:

• Have the courage to disagree with you

• Know more than you in some important domains – these could range from getting along with people to technology

• Will be a supernode in your network by acting as a bridge to their network

• Have time for you and don’t cancel your meetings

• Ask you relevant questions

• Welcome you helping them

• Understand when other mentors would be more useful to you than them.

Do you have the mentors in your career you want? If you don’t, think about who might be helpful and ask them. Be modest in your initial time request e.g. twenty minutes every six weeks.

COMMUNICATION

Do this one thing when giving negative feedback

Many of us work in organizations that promote a feedback culture. Positive and negative feedback helps us grow. Despite its many advantages, we can be apprehensive about giving and receiving negative feedback. This is natural given that negative feedback can trigger a fight or flight response in us. Negative feedback is most useful when it outlines observable behaviors and the consequences of those behaviours.

❌ You’re lazy!

✅ We can’t meet our client commitments when you deliver the report late.

We can work on our behaviors. Generalizations about our character don’t feel collegial or fair.

PRODUCTIVITY

Stop busy work to get more done

Busy work is doing a series of low value tasks, often at great pace, in the delusion that we are making significant progress. Organizations can be filled with busy work. Sometimes we have the power in our jobs to avoid this. Sometimes not. What we do have, however, is the capacity to not create busy work for ourselves and others. We need radical honesty with ourselves. Are we commencing a project or performing a task because it is truly valuable, or is it a form of procrastination? A distraction from doing tougher but more valuable work? Stopping busy work enables us to create more value.

1 MINUTE TO LOWER STRESS

Curl your toes upwards in your shoes

You can lower your stress by this routine:

• Curl your toes upwards in your shoes

• Contract your lower body from your feet to your navel

• Hold contraction for 7 seconds while breathing normally

• Relax

• Repeat 3 more times

This technique is useful in face-to-face meetings when a deep breathing exercise might seem odd!

GET SMARTER

Three pieces of wisdom from Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics (2002). Much of his work was on how people make rational and irrational decisions. Three pieces of his wisdom:

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