Don’t take anything personally.” This is the second of the Four Agreements—from the book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz—that I try hard to live by. Ruiz writes that we should not take what happens around us personally because the actions of others have nothing to do with you, but rather are about them. Although I do believe this, I also believe it does not mean we shouldn’t listen to and learn from others. I recall a time when a CEO said to me that one of the senior executives had taken the low employee satisfaction results in their area personally and that she advised him not to do so. My response was they should take the results personally for those areas they lead. This appears confusing when considered alongside Ruiz’s words. In thinking about this paradox, I have some thoughts and suggestions: How can we interpret results or feedback in such a way that we don’t take it personally but that we learn and grow from it? Our first thought must be that the sender of the message is not trying to be hurtful but helpful. As discussed in Chapter 1, the two most vital characteristics in personal growth are self-awareness and coachability. Feedback that creates self-awareness is meant to be helpful. Having an outside perspective is valuable; remember, an artist can draw someone else better than they can draw themselves. When we take something personally in the way that Ruiz writes about it, it can lead to unhealthy emotions, such as anger and resentment. These emotions can lead to actions that prevent one from performing a self-inventory and create situations that are unhealthy for everyone. Yes, it may feel good for a brief moment to vent, gossip, and get revenge, but rarely do these responses lead to a productive outcome. I tend to divide people’s reactions into two categories: taking it personally or taking ownership of it. The two are similar in some ways but create vastly different actions. The senior executive needs to take ownership of the poor results. What isn’t helpful is blaming yourself, or beating yourself up without improving, or being upset to the point that it delays or prevents you from taking positive steps forward. Here are a few suggestions to help you move past taking feedback personally.
Make sure you’re allowing people to give you feedback. I often find that leaders do not receive helpful feedback because of how they’ve handled it in the past. If we have reacted with silent hurt or anger, people will be reluctant to provide it again. Let the person know you will appreciate their feedback and can handle it. Great leaders create cultures that encourage people to give feedback. Adam Grant, a Harvard professor who wrote the fantastic book The Originals, identified some organizations and leaders who are very successful. A common theme I noticed was that these high-performing companies had a top leader who was not only open to feedback (even when they were not in agreement), but also installed systems and behavior that created a culture where all feedback was rewarded. This is not easy to do. Even when a leader says, “I want your feedback,” many reports, due to past bad experiences, are reluctant to provide it. Some people were raised not to challenge someone in front of others and not to challenge someone in a higher position at all. In other cases, a report might say what a leader wants to hear in hopes of getting rewarded. Creating a feedback-welcoming environment requires a leader willing to deflate their ego and be a good student. Here are a few simple tips that may help: Becoming a leader who can accept feedback graciously and learn and grow from it is easier said than done. However, for you to be the best leader you can be—and for your organization to be the best it can be—it’s critical. Being open to feedback is only half the battle. What matters more is what you do once a problem is pointed out to you. When we hear or discover things that we could have done better, often our first instinct is to get defensive and explain away the problem or rationalize why we made that decision. We often blame external circumstances or things outside of our control. All of this shifts responsibility away from us. We often say things like, How was I supposed to know? There’s nothing I could have done. I was overwhelmed with other stuff. I would have, but . . . Or, and most importantly, look out for It’s not my fault. These are all pretty common responses. Try to avoid these phrases (and others that shift responsibility). They aren’t productive, they don’t solve the problem, and they can actually be damaging in the long run. This reaction makes you seem unreliable. If you are constantly making excuses for not meeting deadlines or delivering results, it makes people feel like they can’t count on you, and that hurts your credibility and career long term. It makes good people avoid working with you, as they will avoid putting themselves in a position where their success depends on you. It keeps you from fixing the real problems. When you don’t see it as your fault, you probably won’t make any changes, so the problem will likely happen again. Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for excuse making for yourself and don’t allow it from others. This means committing to yourself, your leaders, and everyone in the organization that you will do what it takes to get better, and take ownership of creating better outcomes in the future. This is just another way of saying that you are dedicated to doing your best work at all times, and you are focused on maximizing your impact. When you approach your work with this mind-set, you are more likely to think creatively about how you might solve a problem or find an innovative work-around instead of waiting on someone or something else to make the difference. When you seek to avoid making excuses, you naturally start to think about how you can do your job better. You start to anticipate future problems, and take responsibility for outcomes. All of this will help you and your organization be more successful. Committing to “No Excuses” doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. Mistakes will happen from time to time, and are sometimes unavoidable. The difference is that you don’t fall back on excuse making or avoid holding yourself accountable for improving. Instead, you actively think ahead and anticipate problems and avoid them if you can. When mistakes do happen, you take responsibility and commit to finding a way to make sure they don’t happen again in the future. When you feel yourself starting to get defensive or make an excuse, take a second to ask yourself, Should I have seen this coming? Is there any way I could have acted differently to keep this from happening, even if no one told me to do so? If the answer is yes, you have to own the mistake and commit to doing better moving forward.
Taking Ownership: Eliminating Excuses