Good intentions can have negative impact. Start improving your meetings/1 on 1s by understanding how we perceive feedback. Impact vs Intent is the difference between how we perceive feedback or a situation vs how the other party perceives it. While there is a lot in play during feedback sessions, today, I’ll talk about this specific blind spot.

Let’s say we’re giving feedback, and another party is receiving our feedback. We are completely aware of our own ideas as we have them, this makes us pre-disposed to focus on our intention. However, the other party of a feedback session is focusing on our output, unaware of our thoughts and intentions, thus they will be measuring the impact our feedback has. The same is true of any situation involving 2 or more people. This is Impact vs Intent.

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Giving a heads up! Facilitating or managing a team requires much of us. Rather than talk about the fundamentals, I want to share one powerful thing with you for improving your communication with your team, increasing productivity and more.

I was amazed when I struggled to find anything written on this topic; surely I can’t be the only person who thinks a heads up is a ‘skill’ worth developing (let me know what you think).

Some people work well when surprised or blindsided by new priorities/tasks. Others learn to work well under such conditions, but many people struggle in dealing with sudden, surprise situations. How many people do you know who have anxiety about answering phone calls? More importantly, should our team (the devs) be working under such conditions? As leads/producers we should be quelling the chaos so that our teams can continue to work at their best.

Continue reading “Production Pancakes – Heads Up”