Unfortunately, saying thank you seems to be an after thought more and more. So at least once a month, I will take a few minutes to publicly appreciate someone that has had an impact on me.
This round: David Hawks
I had heard about David Hawks for about a year. In fact, our degrees of separation were now very small with both Doc List and Jake Calabrese working together (company, project). Our paths were going to cross, it was just a matter of time.
As I was trying to figure out who to co-train with for my CST application (struggle to find aligned dates), Jake threw out David’s name. Suddenly, the balls were moving and we were going to co-train together in a couple of months. Now there are many things to appreciate David for during this process but this post is really focused on one specific aspect: a key piece of feedback he delivered.
We very much approached this as what could we learn from each other (content, exercises, delivery, etc). He didn’t wait to get me the feedback. He didn’t make a big deal about the feedback. He just trusted me to understand our agreement and the intent behind the feedback. He offered that I could/should reduce some of the questions that I ask to the attendees. For a little context of the specific feedback, in between exercises and during the content sections, I’ll often ask quick questions for attendees to participate.
He then explained why from his perspective…that as an introvert, I might exhaust him by constantly including him in the conversation. Immediately, I was able to realize why I do this…the conversation is what energizes me. I don’t enjoy just standing up and talking for any real length of time. I want the back and forth. Yet, I wasn’t thinking about the person who didn’t want that. In my mind, they would just not answer and it would be fine. But truthfully, I can’t highlight a strength is getting people to engage and then claim they they will disengage during these quick questions. He was completely right. I was doing this behavior for me not them. So awareness check. Changing the behavior, I’ll be working on that.
So thank you for trusting me to share that feedback, for delivering with the reason, for not waiting and wordsmithing it to the point that I wouldn’t have understood the key issue. I look forward to a day where we can co-train together again!!!
Much respect!
Picture from LinkedIn
