A few weeks ago, I looked in the mirror and knew it was time to get my hair cut. I went to my usual barber which is one of those places that’s probably meant for people in their twenties, but when it comes to a haircut, I’m a creature of habit. I’m not fussy about who cuts my hair, so I waited patiently for my turn. I was in a bit of a hurry that day so I’d ever so gently asked how long it would be. I got an apologetic response from one of the staff who indicated that there were a few people that had called in sick. Next thing I know, a very muscular guy (in a freaky steroid type way) emerges from a ‘staff only’ room out the back still chewing on his lunch to ask what was ‘up’. As I watched him flex his way toward me, I meekly replied “nothing….just checking in on how long the wait is” and quickly retreated to my seat fearing that I’d not only interrupted this guys lunch but also triggered his extremely low threshold for wanting to fight somebody! I sighed in relief as he asserted his dominance over me and manoeuvred his muscle-bound body back to the feeding trough…. I mean lunchroom. Not more than 5 minutes later, it was my turn. It was about the speediest haircut I’d ever had. It suited me perfectly! There was no offer of hair wax at the end or even a mirror held up to enable me to see the back of my head. In hindsight, it seems suspicious, but I didn’t think much of it and carried on with my day. Since I was wearing a cap all day, I hadn’t had any feedback on my haircut, nor did I feel the need to seek it. I’ve had hundreds of haircuts at the same barber and it always looks pretty much the same.

The next morning I was due to take my son to a physiotherapy appointment so jumped out of bed, got the kids sorted for school and hopped in the car. Bleary-eyed and still waking up, I heard some giggling coming from the back seat of the car. My 12-year-old son then bluntly said to me “What’s wrong with your head?” Sensing the amusement with what would normally be a case of ‘bed hair’ I simply said, “my hair looks fine from the front…what’s up with it?”. My son then said “I think they stuffed your haircut….there’s a big patch of hair on the back of your head that doesn’t look right….I think they broke your haircut”. My two son’s and daughter found this hilarious and cracked into rapturous laughter. My mind quickly reverted to the gentle pressure I had applied in getting my hair attended to quickly….and this was the result.

We arrived at the physio appointment and halfway through the session while the physio was explaining the exercises my son had to do to build his strength, my daughter abruptly said to me “What happened to the back of your head?”. Not surprisingly, the physio then arced his head around to look for himself and said, “yeah….looks like it needs a bit of work”. I thanked my daughter for her brutal honesty and congratulated her on throwing me under the bus of socially awkward moments.

The ‘Truth’

I’ve always been a fan of truth and for those of you that have worked with me past or present, this forms a core part of my purpose. When I was younger, I probably took my need for truth a little too far – like my lovely daughter- and delivered some brutally honest messages as a result. Having experienced the impact of such honesty (as light-hearted as the situation was) it got me thinking about how often we need to deliver a message, potentially a difficult one, to our key stakeholders. Like the layers of an onion, there are levels of feedback surrounding the core message that needs to be delivered.

The cold hard truth

This is the easiest to access and is visible to everyone but rarely delivers an outcome that works for both the messenger and recipient. When it comes to emotional intelligence, the cold hard truth is a blunt instrument that usually delivers a debilitating blow…sometimes even causing death! My daughter managed to use this weapon quite effectively to see how I would react when placed in an embarrassing and compromised situation socially. While it was harmless when speaking about my hair, if it were a colleague in the workplace regarding a difficult relationship that I sought some advice on, it could have been incredibly challenging or even career-ending.

What you want to hear

Peeling back the cold hard truth, we usually identify a more palatable layer that’s both easier to deliver and much easier to hear. In the case of my haircut, it would have been “great haircut…it looks really good”. Given the offending patch was on the back of my head, I would never have known to carry on blissfully ignorant to why people were giving me funny looks. While telling someone what they want to hear is easier in-the-moment, it doesn’t help them long term and erodes any trust you had with that person when they do eventually discover the truth. As far as emotional intelligence goes, this one strikes out as bad as the cold hard truth.

What you need to hear

Peeling back the next layer, we enter into more useful feedback…. what you need to hear. This is where most people get stuck and either overindulge to make it brutally honest or deliver what is known as the ‘shit sandwich’. It might sound like “Your haircut looks good……but there’s a bit at the back that’s not quite sitting right……apart from that it’s really good”. This is most common at work when we have performance feedback to deliver or you need to let a new employee know that how they are behaving doesn’t quite work in the culture you’ve created. The ‘shit sandwich’ is a common technique but can be sniffed out well before it’s visible and doesn’t do much to build trust. It’s logical and is an acceptable approach to most but from an emotionally intelligent perspective….it’s pretty lazy.

How do you deliver the right message?

In my experience, none of the above methods of delivering feedback is aligned with authenticity….they all leave either the messenger, the recipient or both feeling a little bit grubby. To align your desire to be authentic, honest, and build trust with the recipient of your message you need to:

1)      See the feedback from your perspective first rather than step inside their shoes. This sounds counterintuitive to all the empathy-driven advice you’ve ever received but it works. In the case of my bad haircut, it could have sounded something like “Did your hairdresser show you what it looks like from the back? It looks to me like they’ve missed a patch…I’d want to get it fixed up if I were you”. While it doesn’t seem like much of a difference, the emphasis is on the perspective of the messenger, not the recipient. It’s only once the issue has been raised that the perspective is then transferred back to the recipient.

2)      Reserve Judgement as we can never know how self-aware somebody is. Without knowing the full context, we can easily create defensiveness and come across as judgemental. By asking the question first, we are curious and allow the recipient to clarify their level of awareness before we provide our feedback. There’s nothing worse than getting feedback on something that you are well aware of and in the process of fixing – like a stray tuft of hair on the back of your head- or not something that you see as a problem at all (in the case where I’d potentially requested to have a strange tuft of hair sticking out the back of my head to make some sort of statement about my individuality).

3)      Share how it makes you feel so there you can establish an emotional connection and demonstrate how much you care. Delivering your message with empathy is to show your own emotion, not try to anticipate what they are feeling first and filter your message accordingly. Doing this creates an authentic message that’s enveloped in love and honesty.

To sum it all up, rather than deliver the cold hard truth, the message you think they want to hear or the message you think they need to hear…simply deliver the message you need to share. This makes the message all about you and takes any blame or responsibility away from the recipient. Rarely, if ever, is a message delivered objectively so embrace the fact that you are human and share what you need to say…..it’s honest, it’s real and above all it builds trust.