KIRSTAN MARNANE: So we all get triggered by certain people in certain situations. It's really important to know what those are. If you are triggered by someone, and you feel the urge to give them feedback, you might well want to ask yourself, "Is it this person? Is it something specific here? Or is this a pattern of things that irritate me?"
So I was in a meeting the other day, and a CEO had just said something very important. And the director of strategy said, "Could we please get back to reality?" Now, it was rude. I thought it was rude. And I was very triggered by this, because it seemed disrespectful and rude. And I sat for a minute with myself, and I said-- this rudeness always triggers me-- so I said, "Kirstan, are you triggered by the rudeness of this person or is it really worth saying something here?" I did say something. I stepped back quietly in myself. It was high-risk situation, right? I'm in a client meeting. There is a CEO. There's a director of strategy not from my company. And she has just done something very, very-- what I thought was very rude to the CEO.
So I asked myself the question, "Kirstan, are you triggered? What is your intention here?" And I'm working with them to build a top team that is high-performing and has excellent interaction. So I simply asked her. I decided, yes, my intention is pure. I want to make the team better. And I simply asked her, "What do you mean by that?"
She didn't answer in the moment, and we moved on to a presentation. And at the end of this presentation she said, "What I meant when I clumsily expressed myself before was that I thought it was time to move from our ideal, our vision, into something on the ground, planning, reality." That's what she meant by reality.
DANIEL VASELLA: So the art is to engage someone, to really relax, and to listen to what has to be well-intentioned observations and maybe questions, you know, rather than advice. And make people reflect upon something.
So I think when you have these discussions, try to make it real and concrete and think about, is it the right time to raise that? And how many points can I raise? I think you should not raise more than one-- maximum, two critical points. Because otherwise everything else gets forgotten. And people just remember the negative. And that cannot be the objective.
And certainly have the belief that the other person is well-intentioned. If of course, you would have the impression they just want to hurt you or destroy you, then you're in the wrong place. And if this style is not a very gifted one-- and many are not very gifted at this-- you may become defensive. So it's a learning on both sides how this works best. But certainly avoidance of it is not a good recipe.