Bad breath, feedback, and love

In a recent coaching conversation a client mentioned a situation where his colleague had a bad breath. They were sitting close and discussing work matters. But because of the bad breath, it was difficult for my client to pay attention to what his colleague was saying. In a situation like this we face a choice: should we do something about it or just leave it as it is?

Something like bad breath feels more delicate than typical feedback about work stuff. It’s hard to broach a topic like that. We don’t want to offend the other person. It’s much easier to remain polite and avoid the topic altogether.

Often the obstacle to giving feedback is our mental models around feedback. They drive our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions both when we give it and when we prepare to give it. When my coaching clients bring up feedback, the mental model they have almost always has something to do with confrontation: me vs. them, push and pull, I attack–they defend. People prepare for such an event as if it was a battle. They need a good strategy and a few backup tricks up their sleeves because they need to be ready to deflect their opponent’s counter maneuvers. No wonder many people prefer to avoid these conversations. Most people don’t want to attack others.

What alternative there is for a confrontational model for giving feedback?

When I was a manager I had a direct report who was a peculiar fellow. For example, we were sitting in cubicles and when he wanted to say something to a colleague in the neighboring cubicle he would climb his desk and stand on it while talking to a colleague across the cubicle wall. That was probably the mildest thing I asked him to stop doing. And there were others, much weirder but none of them malicious. And they were not related to the technical aspects of his work. Technically, he did an okay job. It just seems that he was oblivious to some social norms and etiquette. Luckily he was receptive to the feedback.

So as his manager, I had to talk to him about his weird behaviors. ‘Don’t stand on your desk please’ was an easy one. Others were more delicate and sensitive. There was one thing that helped me to hold my nerve and to discuss these sensitive topics. I liked this chap. And because I liked him I wanted to support him. I knew what kind of impact these behaviors had on his team members–they were not taking him seriously. The fact that I cared and wanted to help him helped me navigate these conversations. Had I not cared about him, I would probably just avoid them and focus on the work stuff only.

What helps to dissolve the confrontational feedback model? I call it love. And if thinking about love in the workplace is too much, think of its little cousins–care and respect. To a degree that we can access love or care or respect for another person, we gain the capacity to stop pushing-and-pulling game and instead be fully there with them and for them. From love, care, and respect true service and collaboration arise. When you feel love and when you want to serve you don’t attack people. The conversation won’t magically become easy but there will be different energy around it. And you won’t be bothered that much by their defensiveness.

When there is such a delicate thing as someone’s bad breath we need to ‘tread softly’ as Irish poet William Butler Yeats put it. And love, respect, and care are the attitudes that help develop this softness.

Medieval Scottish theologian and mystic Richard of Saint Victor wrote ‘ubi amor ibi oculus est’ which literally means ‘where there is love there is an eye.’ One interpretation is that only when we love we can see another person fully. And it context of feedback that is what we need. We need to see a whole human being. They are not robots producing bad breath that we need to reprogram to not produce it. They are human beings with their dream, fears, vulnerabilities, and insecurities. When we can be present to all their full humanity, with love, not with judgment, then it will be easier to tell them: ‘There is something I want to share with you. You probably don’t know, but…’