The Feedback Conundrum: Dealing With Authority

Dear Reader,

A little message before proceeding with the subject at hand.

Those of you who subscribe to the Fulcrum Insights (previously The Fulcrum) would notice the new website. The reason for this new site that is now entirely dedicated to the Fulcrum Insights, and to workshopping processes directly relating to it, has been created in response to the exigent need to focus on the matters that matter most to our collective future.

We are living in times of transition, and being in transition in any context is one of life’s biggest challenges, let alone the early stages of the evolutionary influx that the world is experiencing, with little comprehension as to its meaning and nature of evolving impact.

This work will focus on these matters, hopefully offering greater depth and range moving forward.

Those of you who engaged in the past with Future Dynamics processes may find the new breed of workshops to be offering a whole new depth of engagement, in the spirit of being with, and moving ahead with the times.

With best wishes,

David

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What is your experience in giving feedback to your boss at work? What do you experience when considering offering feedback to a figure of greater authority? Does it include the emotions of the fear of punishing consequences?

The context

As we know, in some cultures spelling the truth about the behaviour of a person that holds sway over others can lead to a whole range of undesired consequences. While the fundamentals are no different, handling feedback in unnatural authority-driven scenarios needs an approach that sits outside of the range of this Fulcrum.

The context of this Fulcrum sits inside of organisational cultures – mainly in the west – where although giving feedback is increasingly embedded in their corporate DNA, many still struggle with unnatural authority syndromes. The reason for this is that the entity of authority is powered by thousands of years of world history. It is in the air, including the threat factor frequencies that live inside this wavelength. As such, it has an invasive aspect, and can get into anyone, anywhere.

Natural and unnatural authority

The difference between natural and unnatural authority is that natural authority lives in people that make helpful, constructive contribution because it is backed up by real qualities, development, and know-how. Unnatural authority is an outcome of swollen egos.

It’s a mindset

Giving and receiving feedback is a mindset-driven process. Having the right mindset goes a long way in the process of creating an atmosphere of safety that facilitates openness and attentiveness.

When I speak, who am I talking to?

When we communicate with someone, we are communicating with how their image lives in us. Essentially, when I am talking to you, I am really talking to myself – to the you in me. My system utters those audible succession of sounds that we call ‘speech’, that you hear and proceed to then talk to yourself – to how I have come to live in you. So, when we have a conversation, we are talking to ourselves in front of each other.

Ghost theatres happening in or minds

If you have come to live in my system in a way that links me to an inferiority syndrome, my self-view will talk to you differently than if the life of you in me links me to a superiority syndrome. It’s a ghost-like theatre happening in our minds. While it’s happening, it evokes all manner of feelings, thoughts, and body language. Truth is that much of it is unreal and irrational, but the superiority-inferiority syndrome runs deep in human affairs. Unless we personally develop through it, it besets us all the days of our lives.

Inferiority complex                                                                     Superiority complex

Consider what the case is for you – perhaps use your imagination to change the sizing of the stick-figures to what you feel is closer to your inner balances.

The time to be human is at hand

There is, of course, another way. This way of giving feedback – and in the much bigger picture of inter-personal dealings – works wonders because it connects to the fundamental case of being human, and what happens when people address one another as a human being first, and whatever else second, rather than the other way around.

There is currently – more than in a long, long time – a deepening, powerful instinct present in human affairs, which is to return to the ways of being human; of human beings treating first themselves and then one another as human beings.

And many of us are responding to this, some consciously, some intuitively.

To discover how deep this runs; to see, feel, and experience the presence of this influence, to evoke it, to trigger it in others, all we need to do is address each other in a human way.

When a human being thinks and acts like one, he or she connect to the human wavelength, and consequently, to all manner of natural arts, skills, and qualities. Humans are natural born feelers, explorers, healers, scientists… not necessarily in a formal way, but in ways that connect to all manner of forces and intelligences that are part of the natural worlds of the universe. Big words, but this is how it is. The manifestation of this reality can be observed in many small ways, inside of the going of our daily living. Some of us create more space for this inside of their life than others do. What comes to life in you when you are in your element?

The magic of the third way

This is so simple. And yet, it works wonders.

When you next find yourself in a moment where there may be a functional calling for you to offer feedback to a person of a higher organisational authority, whatever their bombastic title happens to be, simply talk to them like one human talks to another, bringing to bear the quality or qualities that the situation is calling for.

Look them in the eye and say what you have to say – the reason why you do it will determine the outcome. Let’s repeat this vital insight – the reason why you do it will determine the outcome.

You will experience that he or she will listen, even if it may be feedback that may be hard to swallow.

Note that in the image above, when two humans deal with one another as human beings – that is, when we talk to ourselves as human beings – something else joins the conversation. Because the unseen worlds that accompany human process love the signature signal that goes with humans being human in a moving on way.

Try it, it works wonders.

With best wishes,

David Gommé

World Copyright 2024© David Gommé