Three questions to become less judgmental

One of the major causes of disconnects between people at work, at home, and in relationships is our tendency to make an observation about their behaviour and instantly add an evaluation or judgement: “Joe did not do the dishes, he is lazy”.  In some cases, we don’t even mention our observation and go straight to an evaluation of the situation. Like my girlfriend used to say: “Don’t stress” (evaluation). So, I was asking her what kind of signs she was observing about me that made her conclude that I am stressed. I guess it’s not easy to live with a psychologist.
Many of us engage in knee-jerk, judgmental reactions of others who, in some way appear “different”. We are quick to point out the “bad-ness” or “wrong-ness” (judgement) simply because of their “different-ness” (observation). When we evaluate others based on limited observed information, we open the flood gate for bias. Our brain is a master in making up (fake) stories to quickly fill our information gaps. Those stories help our body to prepare a response and, in that moment, while we are feeling more in control, our response is biased.

How can I make less evaluations about people?

1. Feeding our brain with real information (observations) is reducing our bias. Observing with an open mind helps to suspend initial judgement. Distract your brain from making up a (fake) story by telling yourself: “This is an opportunity to explore something new from a different angle, I’d like to find out more.”
2. Get down to specific observations by asking: “What do I see and hear?” Have a clear visual and simply describe (or ask others to describe) in detail what is happening in the scene.
3. Reflect on the observations by asking: “What alternative, non-evaluative, stories can replace the story that my brain just quickly made up?

The impact of evaluations in performance appraisals

You may say a performance appraisal is by its very nature an evaluation. I agree with that. However, what if there is a way to achieve what a performance appraisal is supposed to achieve without making any evaluations?

Performance is important and needs to be talked about. Everyone in an organisation contributes to achieving certain goals and everyone needs to be clear on what they do, why they do it, and how they work with others to achieve those goals. It just really matters HOW we have those.

Please participate in this 1 min survey to better understand where you see the pressure points of annual appraisals. Once the sample size is big enough to be meaningful, I will share the results for all our benefit.

Frequent feedback is important but again it matters HOW it is delivered. How can this be done in the most empathetic, developmental, and forward looking way? How can feedback be focused on the goals while maintaining the relationship without the distraction of feeling judged or evaluated?

1. Replace generic, evaluative language with specific observations.
2. Replace evaluations and judgments with questions to encourage reflection

And yes, the person who gives feedback will still have their view on what was going well and what could be better (evaluations), but in most cases there is no need to say this out loud. The message will still come across. One goal in giving feedback is to engage the other person in a conversation, get them to think through a situation and get them to come up with possible solutions (classic coaching). When we are talking about our evaluations, we run the risk of disengaging the other person. They either agree or disagree with our evaluation and their thinking is already narrowed down by what we’ve just said. We are limiting their diversity of thought.

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