What do you do when you have to give critical feedback to someone, especially to people you know?

I have found myself noticing some important things that weren’t done well or properly on a couple of occasions recently.  I have decided not to put the feedback and suggestions for change in an email because words on paper can have a harsher impact than one means, plus they can be forwarded out into the universe to who knows where, and  they can be edited.  (Cyber bullets can be fired dramatically fast and sourced from raw materials so I'd like not to give any unintended ammunition.)

I have gone over a checklist I use in communication workshops, paying particular attention to the advice to “think of whose needs the feedback will meet.”  I’ve done a quick analysis to make sure that I do not merely need to vent as opposed to giving important feedback.

(iStock illustration)

I know how to deliver feedback in a courteous, thoughtful, and quiet matter.  Still, I’ve learned that sometimes it is difficult for people to hear feedback from me.  I see it when they roll their eyes or purse their lips and get annoyed:

“There goes Candelaria again, giving feedback,” I can hear them thinking.

People will get defensive, or feel like you’re saying you could do whatever better than them, or treat you like you’re a know-it-all.  (For the record, I know a lot but I certainly don’t know it all.  I am reminded each and every day of how little I know and how much more I need to know).  People do not like you to fill in their blanks.

Still, because I’m always striving to be my best self and, therefore, appreciate getting feedback especially if it’s given privately and not when I’m smack in the middle of an event or something (unless a safety issue is involved, then, by all means, interrupt me, pull me to the side and tell me what I need to know).

I’m in a dilemma because the feedback is for organizations that I interact with a lot, one as a board member.   One bit of feedback pertains to a potential safety issue, while the other is a question of professional standards.

For now, I’ve decided to swallow hard and hold-off giving the feedback to the organizations and people and just write it out here for one of the wise readers of this blog to give me advice.

I'd appreciate your feedback, please.  Thank you.

        

iStockphoto image

Do you know what good is?  Is a thing good in and of itself or only in comparison to other things? 

What does it mean when we say that something is good enough?  Is it only that way until something better comes along?

I’ve had conversations where I’ve been asked or asked myself:

• What is a good school?
• What is a good teacher?
• What is a good relationship?
• What would good look like?

I’ve had many experiences where I thought what I was getting was good until I had another experience and got something really good and had my notions and standards elevated.  (Does good even need a qualifying adjective before it?)

For example, I realized that I’d only been getting adequate hair care after I went to a hair salon that gave me good, make that exceptional care.  (Epiphany Hair Studio in West Roxbury )

To them their service isn’t exceptional in and of itself; it’s just the way they do business.  Having gone there, I now know what good hair care is and what a good hair salon experience is.  My standards have been elevated.

In thinking about what a good school is, I realize that there are many people who don’t know what a good school is or what they should expect of good teachers.  A school system can have many schools with varying populations, different teachers and different parents.  It is for this reason that the whole standardized test discussion rankles me.  Perhaps we should wait to have standardized tests when we have standardized schools, teachers and kids.  In exam, private and other top schools, certain practices are a given because thiey are part of the standards for top schools (i.e., arts, sports, community engagement, etc.)  Particular educational practices are followed because they work.  So although what works is known, these standards and practices are not applied across the board.  Go figure. Anyhow – I’ll get off this tangent and back to my original point.

The relationship question was asked of me in a series of parenting workshops I facilitated in South Bay Correctional Facility a couple of years ago.  One of the participants said she didn’t know what a good relationship between a man and a woman was because she’d never seen one.  Another participant said that a good relationship was one that lasted but, in the discussion that followed, the women agreed that this wasn’t so.  Together we brainstormed what a good relationship would be.

Developing notions of what good looks like means being exposed or exposing yourself to a variety of experiences.  Not all of these experiences have to be lived; they can also be witnessed, read about, viewed through movies and film, and gleaned from the experiences of others.   

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. –C.S. Lewis

Experience is not always the best teacher, only the most painful. (Source unknown.)

What does good look like to you?  Do you know good when you see it?  Do you expect good from the world?  Can good be multiplied, quantified or duplicated?  Must good be experienced to be known?

Life is good and ending this post rather than going on and on and on is also good.  You can thank me later.

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If you liked this post, you might also like: Sorting for the Good  

        

What of a summer evening when you accept your friend’s invitation and join your fellow humans to celebrate being alive?

The venue is public – O’Day Park next to Villa Victoria Center for the Arts. The music is live. There is just enough sun and just enough of a breeze for summer comfort. Rain teases but does not fall.

The music washes over you in waves and enters your veins making your legs, fingers, shoulders, toes, head, arms, hair and eyes dance in response. Some peoples’ bodies compel them to the space in front of the benches and chairs of the small amphitheater. They fill that space. They dance:

• Women and men,
• Women and women,
• Men and men,
• Children,
• Soloists

in a variety of casual and fine array, the tribes of the human family represented in the skin tones from onyx to alabaster and the hair luxuriantly curly/kinky/straight/bald and the eyes of every shape and size.

We are beautiful people in this lovely world.

What: TITO PUENTE LATIN MUSIC SERIES
 
Who: Son de Madre were the musicians last night. Others are scheduled for the remaining events.
(Remaining Dates: JULY 22, JULY 29, JULY 31 AND AUGUST 5 | 7:00PM - 9:00PM)

Where: O’Day Park next to Villa Victoria Center for the Arts at 85 W. Newton Street.
(Note that some of the concerts will be at other venues – to find out more go to:
http://www.villavictoriaarts.org/programs_2010TPLMS.html

How: Presented by Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Berklee College of Music and City of Boston ParkARTS

FOR MORE INFORMATION: 617.927.1707

Thank you for a little bit of heaven on earth – peace, joy, music, dance and connection.

        

Hello, Boston, do you hear me?
Hello, Boston.
What's wrong with me?  I said hello in Boston and expected a return greeting.


(iStock photo.)

I say hello and you say, well, despite the lyrics to the song by the Beatles,* you often times don’t say a word, Boston; except for yesterday.  Yesterday was an exceptional day because on my walk up Ashmont Street to Ashmont Station, three, count them, three people spoke to me first.

This is noteworthy.

I vowed a few years back to act like the up-South, St. Louis-bred girl that I am and say hello to people as I pass them along the way, throughout my day.

I quickly had to vow that I would continue this practice even when people didn’t speak back to me.  It is my decision to say hello, it’s on them whether they speak back or not.

I try not to get my feelings hurt when people don’t speak back.  This is especially easy on days when I’m breezing along feeling sprightly.  On other days, as I’m trudging along or just feel a need for a spark of human connection, it is hard.  On still other days I’m feeling that all is right with the world and so joyful  I feel compelled to greet people.

It’s hard to have a greeting ignored and avoided. Sometimes I want to shout, “YOU KNOW YOU HEARD ME!  IS IT SO HARD TO SAY HELLO?”

Really, is it?

In terms of speaking, my observations are:

• Teens and younger people speak back more than older people.  (The teens are often surprised that they’ve been spoken to.

• Men speak back more than women do.

• Walkers, joggers and cyclists are more apt to speak, wave or nod than people merely ambulating some place.  (There’s a camaraderie among those of us getting our “exercise on.”

•  

Why do so many Bostonians, New Englanders not speak?

• Is it the cold weather?

• Is it the fact that there are so many of us in this crowded geography?

• Is it that we’re often in a rush?

• Or are we just some inconsiderate souls whose habit of not-greeting each other rubs off on non-natives once they life here? (Sorta like how, in order to survive as a driver in Boston, you have to adopt the dangerous driving habits/techniques of your brother and sister Bostonians.)

•  

I don’t require a whole conversation with my greeting as is done down South.  That would be too much to ask and, hey, I’m usually rushing or heading someplace with all deliberate speed myself and not interested in getting sidetracked.  

But a hello, a return greeting, is that too much to ask?

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If you dig this post, you might also dig:  I saw you see me  (and pretend you didn’t)

*From “Hello, Goodbye” by The Beatles (lyrics by Paul McCartney & John Lennon)

“You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello.”

        

I didn’t do any of it in high school. I didn’t do any of it in college. I didn’t do any of it in my first marriage.

The “it” is those “we’re a couple” moves that some couples do. I wouldn’t say that their old school but I’m not sure how much they are in favor now. You know:

• Wearing matching outfits or, the less gag-worthy, wearing the same colors.
• Sending a Christmas greeting card emblazoned with a photo of my husband and me.
• Getting an annual couple portrait.
• Having pet names.

I never did any of that sort of thing in previous relationships. Suddnly,  I got the urge; that lovey-dovey feeling came over me on the 4th of July. My husband and I were heading up to Maine with our favorite cousins-couple and, as I was picking out what to wear, I realized I had a shirt that was the same color green as one I’d just brought back for him from a trip to visit our granddaughter.

He had selected an orange shirt to wear. So, I ironed both shirts (yes, I’m an ironer) and hoped he would notice my green top and pick the green shirt. He even asked me if I’d like him to wear the green shirt.

“That would be nice,” I grinned.

He gave me one of his “oh, puh-leeze” smirks.

I, ever optimist, just knew he was going to indulge me this tiny, little thing.

I finished dressing as he was heading to the shower. When he came downstairs, he had on the orange shirt. He said it was because he realized he’d have to change his shorts and they weren’t ironed.

It was really because he didn’t want to be all matchy-matchy, lovey-dovey, saccharine-sweet couple-y.

My feelings were hurt for a minute. I got over it – even though our cousins were dressed similarly in athletic wear. (A fact my husband noticed and mentioned.)

I’m here to tell you and him, that while I don’t know what made the desire to wear matching shirts come up in me; I do know that it will happen. It would be nice for us to be co-OR-dinated as the comedian John Witherspoon pronouces it  in one of his famous routines.
(Private message: Darling, what you resist, persists. I am patient and persistent. The matching outfits will be happening.)

So, to all you couples out there – do you do couple-ly things? Holla.
======
If you like this post, you might also like:

Believing My Husband
A Ring-Tone of Love

        

My first instinct, the one I didn’t listen to, told me to walk up to Ashmont Station and take the #21 bus to Forest Hills and either take the Orange Line to Stonybrook Station or walk from there to The Brewery where I was doing a presentation.

My second instinct, that other gal who often gets me into gentle messes said, “Nah, you need to make copies. Catch the bus to Field’s Corner Station, then go downtown. Get off a Downtown Crossing and go to Staples and make copies, then hop on the Orange Line.” “After all,” she added, “It’s 8:00. Your presentation starts at 10:00. You’ll have plenty of time.”

So off I went. The train stopped at Savin Hill. The doors opened – passengers on (no passengers are usually getting off there in the a.m.) and then they didn’t close. After sitting there for what seemed like an eternity but was really only 3 minutes, an announcement said that there was a police action at JFK and the train would move momentarily. I waited and waited and then I decided to get off and catch the train back to Ashmont Station and go the way I originally thought to go.

After about 2 minutes of waiting on the opposite side of the platform, it occurred to me that if trains weren’t being let into JFK Station, trains wouldn’t be coming out of there either. (Duh.) So I hauled ass up the stairs and out of the station, as a couple of cops were coming into the station clearly being watchful for someone, and made my way to Dorchester Ave. I planned to take the #18 bus to Ashmont Station and either take the #21 bus to Forest Hills or hop a cab.

Buses weren’t coming out of JFK either. Meanwhile I noted a number of police cars and wagons going down the street and couldn’t find a cab to flag down.

Gypsy cab to the rescue
I called my handy-dandy gypsy cab guy and he got me to The Brewery in twelve minutes by going through a succession of side streets that got us over to Washington Street, over Dimock Street across to Amory Street and the Brewery. Yippee. I love a driver that knows where he's going.

All of the above was done with pacing and sighs and a bit of consternation that was too wee to be considered anxiety.

I tucked into Ula’s Café to get breakfast while figuring how I was going to make copies when, who should walk in but a friend who has a consulting gig there. I told her my dilemma and she said she’d make the copies for me. “No problem.” It was now 9:40.

Walked to the place my partner and I had contracted with (and paid) to use space for our workshops and, lo and behold, it is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. My partner paced at the outside entry, I paced on the inside entry.

What is up with this day?  I thought to myself. This workshop is going to be great or, no one is going to show up for it.

I Spy
I spied an office across the hall with the lights on and people working. I put a positive thought in my mind, waltzed in, asked if I could speak to the manager or Executive Director, told her my dilemma and asked if I could use their conference room. TShe said, "Yes."  (What a wonderful word yes is!) 

All’s well that ends well
The workshop participants arrived. Workshop went well. Rescue angel declined to accept payment. However, the morals to this story are:

• Listen to your first instinct. I should have gone the way I first thought to go or gone out the night before to get copies like I’d planned.
• Know alternatives.
  There’s more than one way to skin a cat and get from point A to point B in Boston.
• Carry some cash.
• Have the name of a cab driver or friend with car who will come to your rescue.
• Thank your lucky stars.
  After all, the train might have been stopped in a tunnel and there’d have been no way to maneuver or to send a message that I was stuck.

It all worked out. Woo-hoo.

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If you liked this post, you might also like:
Heard on the Bus and Other T Stories

        

Small things make me happy.


iStock photo


I can get deliriously happy over simple things. I realize that this has helped keep me steady even with the doom and gloom that occurs in the world, whether it is distant or up close and personal. I’m here to tell you that the gloom and doom is not the only reality. It is a big part of what happens in the world but not, for many of us, the major part.

Here are some of the small, simple things that have made me happy recently. I don’t know if you have to be me to appreciate them but they sure made me feel good:

• Finding a set of lovely white porcelain Chinese soup spoons for $4.99. I made soups for two weeks just so I could use those spoons.
• Having a former client email me to say she’d like to underwrite my doing coaching for an aspiring artist. The contract is small but it is unexpected and so welcome.
• Fixing a big breakfast (homefries, homemade biscuits, mushroom omelets, fruit salad) for my cousins and enjoying food and conversation. (I didn’t try to impress, I just made my simple fare and it was a hit.)*
• Watering my flowers and dead-heading them.
• Suddenly realizing that a shift of sidetables would (and did) make my sitting room more lovely and spacious.
• Walking Castle Island, the Arboretum, up Guild Hill in Roxbury, up and down the Monroe Terrace streets in Dorchester, down the path by the Mattapan trolley, in the West End by Mass. General Hospital and watching the city wake up, etc. Each walk makes me realize, yet again, what a beautiful walking city this is.
• Having another birthday and watching the birthday cards and email greetings roll in (you give, you get).
• Feeling good about said birthday!  Another year accomplished, the blessings, lessons, happenings of the coming year to look forward to.
• Working my way through my costume jewelry drawer and boxes. and finding new treasures to wear.
• Eliminating paper napkins and using cloth napkins at home. Makes me feel simply elegant and elegantly green.
• Reading the novel in stories, Olive Kitteridge  by Elizabeth Strout, which I found incredibly moving and exquistely conceived and written.

I am so blessed to be happy with small things because small things, it turns out, are my province. I have accepted this.

But some people (plural) – I won’t say who but you know who you are – some people wouldn’t recognize happy if she looked like Naomi Campbell  and was walking toward you naked with open arms.

Note:
*Really anything you cook and share with people will be a hit. It’s the sharing that’s the point, right? But, there have been times when I agonized so over what to fix, the table setting, etc., that I whipped myself into a frenzy instead of just doing what I could do in the moment.

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You are what you do
Love you but not absorbing your pain
Wonderful world, wonderful people

        

It is ending.
Will it end?

It is ending.
Will it end?

It is ending.
Will it end?

______ is ending.
Will _______ end?

You fill in the ______.
You decide.

        

Do you find yourself checking out the list of confirmed guests before you respond to an evite invitation?

Do you look at your telephone when it rings to see who’s calling? (Yes, there are  those of us who don’t bother to set-up distinctive rings for our nearest and dearest).

Do you automatically click the maybe button on your evite responses so you can back out if something better comes along –I mean- something else comes up.

Have you felt perturbed when a live person answers a call when you were planning to just leave a message on their answering machine.  (Leaving a message is not the same as actually delivering a message and engaging in dialogue with the recipient of said message.)

 

Admit it.  You know you do.

 

Such is the ambivalence about electronic medi.  While it makes processes and symptons efficient and helps us be organized, it also:

• allows us to spy,
• demands that we snoop, and
• turns us into avoiders of people and definitive decisions.

 

 

It is so last century to actually pick up a phone just because it rings - something we used to do back in the day.  (I’m so 2010 you’re so 2000 and when?*  I’ve been waiting to use this line for some time now.)

 

It’s so inefficient to just send an email, invite people to something and make a list of who’s coming, who’s not coming and who hasn’t replied.  (To heck with them any way.) Non-repliers should be deleted from future invites.

 

Send a print invitation? Really? Unless it’s a wedding who bothers with those any more?  (Except maybe for a few of us holdouts who have a collection of invites that we are trying to eventually use-up.)

 

This i-spy, snooping, deciding to respond based on who else will be at an event rather than one's availability or the importance of the event itself is impolite jive.

 

I’mon try to do better.

 

Ms. Jive Turkey

 

 

 

 

*My apologies to the Black-Eyed Peas for tweaking this lyric.

 

 

 

 

        

Dear Reader,

I need your support.  Two children’s stories I have written were selected for the launch of a new site:  smories.com .  It features children reading stories that were submitted and selected by the site founders. There is more information about them at the end of this post.

Please click on my stories,  Jump! Jump! Jump!  and Tracy Became a Frog One Day .  
Then listen to them (they are short).  The writer whose story has the most views, wins a cash prize for the month.  It’s that simple.  The stories are not long.  The same little girl reads both of my stories in her lovely British accent. (I had no hand in selecting the reader.)  

If I win, I’ll use the money to support my Random Booking project as well as to help fund self-publishing one of my children’s stories. 

Thank you.

Candelaria 

http://www.smories.com/watch/tracy_became_a_frog_one_day/
http://www.smories.com/watch/jump_jump_jump/

About Smories (from the website)

Smories are free original stories for kids, read by kids. 50 added every month.

 

“We got the idea for smories.com during an extremely long journey in a very dirty Land Rover from the Kalahari desert in Botswana to Cape Town in South Africa in February this year.

Our daughter (8) had the idea to film herself with our ipod reading Enid Blyton short stories, and then play them back to her younger sister (6). This kept them entertained for hours.

Our kids have always loved reading to each other and are transfixed when other children read them stories. They are also obsessed with the internet and will make their way to youtube any time they get their hands on a computer.

We thought a website that had a continuous flow of new stories, read aloud by kids, would make a healthier destination than so much of the stuff out there. Imagine you're stuck in traffic and need to keep a miniature person entertained in the back. Access a playlist of smories stories from your i-phone and voila...

Once we had the idea for a site that publishes stories for kids read by kids, we also thought it would be a great unthreatening forum for showcasing unpublished stories. This allows writers to test their work in a straightforward and transparent way, hopefully giving them exposure which they might otherwise not have received.

- Lisa Swerling & Ralph Lazar, March 2010

 

Go to the website to submit your own story.  Who knows, you may be selected.