Delusion of Success & Feed Forwards

As we are nearing our Employee Survey, Leadership Surveys and Performance appraisal cycle for this year, I came across very contemporary articles on Human Performance change mgmt.

Delusion of Success: The article requests successful people to check the 4 beliefs that help them conjure-up their success image (others may call this self-aggrandizement if you pronounce out in open.) and asks leaders to introspect. The author lucidly describes how some of these beliefs carried too far may be detrimental for success and leads us to believe that we can move material objects on the table with our mind … Some of the interesting human paradoxes such as superstition trap, internal-locus-of control, cognitive dissonance, commitment Vs Compliance are well explained here so one can avoid it by experiencing it. However, this does not necessarily mean that one should not have a positive thinking aspiring to change things in this world lest one believes in moving objects by thinking of course! But also that ppl who don’t take these challenges are not necessarily failures. Jokes apart this is a great article and timely read to give and take good feedback.

Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback: There are many times we seek to give “downward feedback” boss always to his/her reportees or vice-versa based on past facts. Very often this can be a stressful moment for both especially when the story telling method that we often adopt had abstracted and dissipated the real facts. (Do you remember this popular story-telling psychological game where 10 ppl were asked to stand in a circle and someone tells a small fact and his/her judgment in his immediate neighbors ear as a story and when the story came back to the person it has completely changed?). The author provides 11 reasons to provide feed forward instead of feedback. Happy reading!