Silence is Deadly: Giving and receiving feedback around challenging topics

When people are silent about the subtle exclusions that happen in a workplace, the culture suffers. When people speak up but the feedback is ignored or met with defensiveness, the culture also suffers. In this episode, Michael Baran outlines some of the best practice guidelines for having productive conversations about these insidious interactions. He describes how to “call in” rather than “call out” someone when they inadvertently cause exclusion, a skill especially essential for potential allies who can speak up without the same risk as those directly affected. He provides several real-life examples of times that speaking up like this went poorly and times it went well, explaining that there is no simple one-size-fits-all way to do it but that we can all build these important skills.

When someone says something that makes you feel bad, how do you speak up? When you see something that might make someone else feel bad, how do you say something as a potential ally? When you get feedback about how you made someone feel bad, how can you respond in a productive way?
In this episode of The Culture Advantage, host Michael Baran provides some best practice guidelines that organizations can use to create a speak up culture, where we can have challenging conversations that are productive, where resentments don’t build up, and where trust is built.

Michael begins with a real example that happened to him, when a CEO committed a subtle act of exclusion in front of 70 global leaders. Michael was on stage at the time, speaking to the group at their annual retreat. What should he say in this situation? How should he say something in a “calling-in” way rather than a “calling-out” way?

There is no one-size-fits-all way to do it. Nonetheless, Michael provides best-practice guidelines for speaking up in a productive way, either as the person experiencing the subtle act of exclusion or the person witnessing it and speaking up as a potential ally. He describes (1) pausing the action, even when we don’t know what to say, (2) assuming good intent, if the intent was actually good, (3) exploring the situation together rather than creating an adversarial interaction, and (4) explaining the impact, or the feelings involved.

Does this always go well? No, it doesn’t, and Michael describes a time when we followed all these guidelines and it did not go well. Where these interactions usually fall apart is in the way that the person getting the feedback responds.
Because of that, Michael gives critical best practice guidelines for responding to feedback like this: (1) getting in the mindset of gratitude, (2) understanding the impact rather than defending intentions, (3) using the opportunity to learn and grow, and (4) following up with the person. Michael revisits the opening story, describing how that CEO responded well to Michael’s feedback. As the 70 leaders saw how he responded, they learned a powerful lesson about culture at this organization, and they learned how they could respond to feedback like this as well.

This episode provides practical conversation skills that can be useful in situations like this or in any challenging conversation. It will be useful for people at all levels in an organization, and can also be used outside of the workplace to build trust and deepen connection with anyone.