I had a meeting with someone who works for me at the Calgary Language Nerds earlier today.
She is an instructor and also also helps me make social media content. I told her a little while back that I wanted her help with growing my social media following, most notably on YouTube. Today, we had a meeting and she said something to the effect of, “Azren, you asked me to help you grow your social media following. I’ve given you things to do and you’re not listening to what I ask you to do.”
I started justifying why I haven’t been listening to her advice.
I don’t think that was the right decision. I tried to keep an open mind, but I was still more stubborn and defensive than what, in my perspective, would have been ideal.
I think a better approach would have been to:
Ask questions and listen to her feedback to better understand her perspective
Summarize what she was telling me and confirm we are on the same page
Ask for permission to share my perspective
Share my perspective and listen to her reply
Rinse and repeat steps 1-4 as needed
I clumsily and inconsistently followed these steps. More often than not I just defaulted into doing step 4. That’s not an ideal way to have healthy conflicts.
I’m a little bit disappointed in myself.
One could say that I know better. I have years of experience having hard conversations both in personal and professional contexts. I’ve also received formal training on managing interpersonal conflict. As a result, sensitive conversations I’ve had in recent have almost always ended positively.
I suppose today I was completely unprepared. I let pride and ego get the better of me.
I’m grateful though that I have a good relationship with this individual.
I think our conversation ended positively nevertheless. We agreed on steps I would follow through on. I admit to feeling a little ashamed at how childish and stubborn I was throughout the conversation.
Thanks for reading this post!
Here are some places you can find me online.
Email me: https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com/contact
My website: https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com
My podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KqaP5uKhR6oTYsRKIX7gS
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/azrenthelanguagenerd
My Facebook: https://facebook.com/polyglotazren
My Instagram: https://instagram.com/polyglotazren
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/polyglotazren
Good introspection