Malcolm Ocean's roamblog

Spheres of Feedback

created 2019-10-17 · edited 2019-10-18 · open in Roam
  • (originally written 2019-10-18, some edits 2019-10-21)
  • I've been noticing two distinct kinds of post-judgmental feedback, and found that they map somewhat onto the left & right brain hemispheres. In short, they are:
    • Protocol Observance Post-judgmental left hemisphere feedback:
      • comparison of an observation to a protocol
    • Impact Revealance Post-judgmental right hemisphere feedback:
      • revealing one's own experience & desire
    • In either case, one can talk about one specific instance of something happening, or an pattern (across time or different people) that one is perceiving.
  • Without distinguishing those two forms, it can be easy for judgment to structurally come back into our thinking, disguised in seemingly post-judgmental language.
    • For example, if someone says "this behavior I/you did wasn't in alignment" (or "didn't make sense") then unless there's a specific protocol it wasn't in alignment with, this functionally ends up being short-hand for "I/you shouldn't have done it"
      • This language closes off curiosity about the impacts, or about why in fact someone chose to do this behavior, given its apparent lack of sense.
    • By contrast, stating "there is a relevant protocol and I/you didn't follow it" is a simple matter of fact; the gap between protocol and behavior doesn't make the behavior wrong
      • Similarly, saying "when I/you did that, I notice this impact on me" is also just stating a fact; the impact doesn't make the behavior wrong
      • Note that in both of these cases, while I'm using the word "fact", people might often have different perspectives on how the protocol applies, and also almost any fact can be stated in a way that implies judgment.
      • (There’s a role for Care Cards here, to inquire about whether the other person was aware of the protocol/impacts, and why they did what they did)
  • A related pair of thoughts:
    • how judgment makes it into objective feedback: "you did this and it was against some moral standard, therefore wrong"
    • how judgment makes it into subjective feedback: "you did this and it upset/hurt/bothered me, therefore wrong"
  • Case Study: No Questions Asked
    • We recently did an experiment at the Liminal Space Agency where we tried not asking any questions for a week, and instead to focus on proactively sharing information. The reason why we did this is complex but suffice it to say for now that we're not doing it because we think questions are bad, but instead to increase our awareness of the role that they play.
    • This is of course very challenging, so of course many questions were asked in the course of that week, and that made it a great opportunity to practice Protocol Observance.
    • Someone would ask a question, and someone (someone else or the original asker) might say "that was a question". Sometimes we would rewind and try expressing it differently, but other times the question (& possibly answer) had flowed smoothly enough that it didn't feel useful to do so.
    • Since everyone in the core group was aware of the experiment, and the protocol was very concrete, in this case there was no need to reference the protocol itself: simply naming "that was a question" was sufficient to have a mutual understanding of the protocol being used.
    • Today was the one week mark, so we're shifting out of having an explicit protocol here, but we've learned a lot and we're expecting to continue using our increased awareness of question-asking to improve our communication. A few examples of how this might look:
      • "I notice I'm feeling defensive in response to your direct question, because I don't have your context. I'd appreciate if you could reveal more of what you're sitting with and wanting, in asking that."
      • "I noticed you asked a question there, and that seemed like a really good spot for a question, so it felt really smooth"
    • But this is now deemphasized, and often there may not be a comment worth making on this level. And, even before, when where we were following it as an explicit protocol, we're still not quite "correcting" each other, so much as trying to highlight our awareness then just do whatever makes sense. The question wasn't a "mistake" that needs to be "fixed".
  • What defines a protocol?
      • Protocol: one or more explicit if-then behavior specifications, plus the purpose of the protocol. In general, an ideal protocol is minimally ambiguous about both the situations in which it applies and the set of behaviors that constitute following or not following the protocol.
        • Examples:
          • Simple example:
            • If you have just uploaded a recording from the shared iPhone, then put a "u" in the filename so people know it has been uploaded.
            • #Why? This means people know which files can be safely deleted, and which can be accessed in Google Drive already.
          • No Questions Asked
            • If you want to know something, then rather than asking a question, focus on revealing the context of your curiosity.
            • If someone else asks you a question, then before immediately answering it
              • pause and consider how it lands for you
              • consider if you think you have the information from them that you need in order to answer
              • if they're also following the No Questions Asked protocol, then point out that they asked a question
            • #Why? This is part of an individual or collective experiment in paying more attention to the impact of how we speak, in this case the impact of questions.
            • #Why? It's also excellent practice ground for post-judgmental Protocol Observance
  • Somehow-relatedly, in a 19-10-22 convo (~= MalJe(Sar) Eric debrief)
    • Malcolm said something like
      • "that would have made more sense"
    • and Jean responded with
      • "no, it would have made a different kind of sense"

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October 21st, 2019