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C

Carole Robin

Co-founder at Leaders in Tech & Former Stanford GSB Professor

Leaders in Tech

👥 Team & Culture (1)🚀 Career & Leadership (1)🔍 User Research (1)

Key Takeaways

  • 1.Feedback fails when you cross the 'Net': You only know your intent and your behavior; you do not know the other person's reality.
  • 2.Eliminate 'I feel that' and 'I feel like' from your vocabulary; these are thoughts and judgments masquerading as emotions, and they trigger defensiveness.
  • 3.Anger is a secondary emotion that usually pushes people away; expressing the underlying fear or hurt draws people in and solves problems faster.
  • 4.Apply the 15% Rule to vulnerability: disclose just 15% outside your comfort zone to build trust without being professionally inappropriate.
  • 5.Stop asking 'Why' questions; they imply judgment. Switch to 'What,' 'Where,' 'When,' and 'How' to foster genuine inquiry.
  • 6.Mental models formed early in careers (e.g., 'emotions don't belong at work') often become blockers for senior leadership roles.
  • 7.Use the AFOG acronym (Another F***ing Opportunity For Growth) to instantly reframe failure into a learning mechanism.

Methodologies(3)

👥 Team & Culture

A framework that separates an interaction into three distinct realities to ensure feedback is fact-based and disputable. It forces the speaker to stay on 'their side of the net' by only discussing what they know to be true.

Core Principles

  • 1.Identify Reality #1 (Intent): Know that your internal intent is invisible to others.
  • 2.Identify Reality #2 (Behavior): Focus strictly on observable actions (what was said or done). This is the only shared reality.
  • 3.Identify Reality #3 (Impact): Acknowledge you do not know the other person's reality. Only speak to the impact their behavior had on you.
  • +2 more...

"I feel that you don't care and I feel you're being insensitive are not feelings, and that's where we make our biggest mistakes when it comes to feedback."

#three#realities#feedback
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🚀 Career & Leadership

A risk-management heuristic for building trust. It encourages leaders to step slightly outside their 'Comfort Zone' into the 'Learning Zone' without entering the 'Danger Zone.'

Core Principles

  • 1.Visualize three concentric circles: Comfort Zone (center), Learning Zone (middle), Danger Zone (outer).
  • 2.Identify a piece of information or feeling you would normally withhold.
  • 3.Push yourself to share 15% more than feels naturally comfortable.
  • +2 more...

"If you step a little bit outside your comfort zone, you're very unlikely to freak yourself or the other person out... then we settle into a new, slightly larger comfort zone."

#disclosure#career#leadership
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🔍 User Research

A questioning technique designed to suspend judgment and elicit genuine information. It shifts the goal from confirming a hypothesis to a true 'quest' for understanding.

Core Principles

  • 1.Suspend Judgment: You cannot be curious if you have already decided what is happening.
  • 2.Ban the word 'Why': 'Why' questions trigger defensiveness (it sounds like parental scolding).
  • 3.Utilize the Reporter's Questions: Start questions exclusively with 'What', 'Where', 'When', and 'How'.
  • +2 more...

"Questions that start with what, when, where, how. Stay away from why."

#inquiry#protocol#research
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