"You must not fool yourself" – How to pursue self-awareness

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character (p. 343). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

We often don't know how good or bad we really are.

Because we lack precise measures, we go through life oblivious to where we really stand in areas we care about: strength, health, communication, organization, charisma, professional competence, reliability, partnership, hobbies – you name it.

And when unsure about how we are doing, we predictably choose the most flattering alternative.

Most flattering and often wrong.

A master class on soliciting feedback

I was attending this in-person management training in San Francisco.

At one point, the facilitator approached the topic of soliciting feedback and did something I hadn't seen before. He said:

"OK, now I'm gonna solicit feedback from all of you about this training."

He went to a whiteboard, wrote "Positive feedback," "Constructive feedback," and "Questions," and started soliciting feedback from the group.

Surprisingly, the feedback started flowing: "The facilitators are very knowledgeable!" "I love the venue," "The first exercise was really helpful," – positive feedback.

There was also constructive feedback: "The food isn't good," "We needed more time for introductions," and "The first exercise wasn't helpful." The facilitator thanked each person for their feedback and wrote it on the board.

I loved it and wanted to do the same with my whole team when I returned. I was confident that the facilitator now had a much better idea about how he was doing in his training than before.

When they later asked us to draw a symbol on a piece of wood to remind us of the training, I drew a river to remind myself to keep the feedback flowing.

Insight: Self-awareness of how others see us

It's hard to understand precisely how others see us.

Especially if we assume, which we often do.

In tech startups, executives sometimes spend significant money to hire consultants who gather feedback from the executive's collaborators and relay it back.

The reaction to that feedback is often, "Well, that was hard to hear."

A better understanding of how others see us is a specific type of self-awareness: external self-awareness.

In her book Insight, Tasha Eurich describes the difference between internal and external self-awareness.

Internal self-awareness has to do with seeing yourself clearly. It’s an inward understanding of your values, passions, aspirations, ideal environment, patterns, reactions, and impact on others.
[..]
External self-awareness is about understanding yourself from the outside in — that is, knowing how other people see you. Because externally self-aware people can accurately see themselves from others’ perspectives, they are able to build stronger and more trusting relationships. Those low in external self-awareness, on the other hand, are so disconnected with how they come across that they’re often blindsided by feedback from others (that is, if others are brave enough to tell them).

Poor performance is often associated with poor external self-awareness: the weak performer doesn't understand what others really think of them.

Tasha Eurich calls these blindspots.

Blindspots – I'm blind to what others see in me

In Insight, Tasha talks about her most challenging coaching session – an executive called Steve, who was energetic .. and delusional.

What I’d uncovered when I interviewed his direct reports, and what his CEO had only begun to sense, was that Steve’s reign was already proving disastrous. In the 16 weeks since his official promotion, three employees had already quit. A fourth, who had recently started taking blood pressure medication because of the “Steve stress,” was halfway out the door. [..]

As he paced around his new office, proudly detailing all the ways he was exactly the visionary leader his company needed during this difficult period, I marveled at how utterly oblivious he was. His behavior was hurting his employees’ morale, his team’s performance, and his own reputation. Even losing some of his best people hadn’t shaken his self-image as an effective and respected leader.

But how bad are these blindspots in all of us? Turns out, pretty bad. We all think we're way better than average.

When researchers asked university students to compare themselves to their peers on traits like “polite,” “responsible,” “cooperative,” and “mature,” students in the study rated themselves as above average on a whopping 38 out of 40 traits.

[..] participants who performed the worst on tests of humor, grammar, and logic were the most likely to overestimate their abilities. Those who scored in the 12th percentile, for example, believed on average that their ability fell in the 62nd. This phenomenon came to be known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and it’s been replicated with dozens of other skills like driving, academic performance, and job performance.

Eurich, Tasha. Insight (p. 54). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

OK, so we all have blindspots of external self-awareness. How do we fix them?

Fixing our blindspots – Seeking the right feedback

There are numerous ways to become more externally self-aware, but one of the most important ways is by seeking feedback.

But you should not seek just any feedback – and this is where I think most people get it wrong.

You need two qualities in whom you ask for feedback:

1. They need to be experts in the area you want to improve on
2. They need to be able to tell you the truth

1. Seeking feedback from experts

Everybody has an opinion.

If your goal is to be excellent instead of trying to make everybody happy, you need to be selective about whose opinion you'll listen to.

It's no coincidence that all top-level athletes and musicians have coaches. In Peak and other books, the father of deliberate practice Anders Ericsson talks about the importance of a good teacher.

Deliberate practice involves well-defined, specific goals and often involves improving some aspect of the target performance; it is not aimed at some vague overall improvement. Once an overall goal has been set, a teacher or coach will develop a plan for making a series of small changes that will add up to the desired larger change. Improving some aspect of the target performance allows a performer to see that his or her performances have been improved by the training.

Ericsson, Anders; Pool, Robert. Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (p. 99). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

Experts have the best opinions because they know what you need to change, what you don't need to, and how to change it.

The more the person giving you feedback knows about what it takes to be excellent and how you can build those skills, the more important it is that you listen to them.

The more ignorant the person is about what results in excellent performance, the more you should ignore them.

2. Seeking feedback from those who tell the truth

Everybody is kinda honest.

The more power you have over someone though, such as being one's manager, parent, or customer, the more likely you are not to hear their honest opinion.

"He whose bread I eat, whose song I sing," after all.

You want to surround yourself with people and create a culture where others will tell you the truth, which means building psychological safety.

Funnily, I often have to correct others about what psychological safety means: It's not about safety from hearing things; it's about the safety of saying things.

If you're not frequently hearing things that are uncomfortable to talk about, chances are you're not in a psychologically safe environment.

In Think Again, Adam Grant explains psychological safety from the famous Google study Project Aristotle, in which he participated.

Since then, research on psychological safety has flourished. When I was involved in a study at Google to identify the factors that distinguish teams with high performance and well-being, the most important differentiator wasn’t who was on the team or even how meaningful their work was. What mattered most was psychological safety.

Over the past few years, psychological safety has become a buzzword in many workplaces. Although leaders might understand its significance, they often misunderstand exactly what it is and how to create it. Edmondson is quick to point out that psychological safety is not a matter of relaxing standards, making people comfortable, being nice and agreeable, or giving unconditional praise. It’s fostering a climate of respect, trust, and openness in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of reprisal. It’s the foundation of a learning culture.

Grant, Adam. Think Again (p. 209). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In my experience, fear of reprisal is the most significant factor preventing others from telling us the truth.

To hear the truth, you must ensure those around you have no reason to fear telling you the truth.

Which is, of course, really hard.

In summary: Build external self-awareness

External self-awareness is our ability to accurately perceive how others see us.

Higher external self-awareness is highly correlated with high competence. It's something you want to improve on.

When building our external self-awareness for high competence, we must get direct input from experts who will tell us the truth.

So think about an area where you want to improve or even an area you already believe you're strong in: management, collaboration, or a hobby.

Now evaluate:

• Am I getting the opinions of experts who can help me improve?
• Are people telling me the truth about what they think?

The answer is often no.

One of the best ways to kickstart improving your external self-awareness is a survey:

1. Find the right people to get opinions from
2. Write down the questions asking about how you're doing
3. Actually send it to them

Don't underestimate the value or the difficulty of doing this. It sounds easy, but it isn't. That's why few of us do it.

But you can take action. Create a survey and ask people for their honest opinions.

And if your reaction when reading the answers is, "Well, that was hard to hear," then you're probably on the right track.