Growing Through What You’re Going Through

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (00:00):

The title of my course is actually Strategies for Building Resilience Growing Through What We're Going Through. And this is really the essence of resilience, which is how to use adversity challenge, and change our acute shocks and chronic stressors as ways to really adapt, survive, and thrive, which, and that's where the growth part comes. So one of the exercises I love to do on the first day of class with my students is we do the rollercoaster exercises.

Troy Blaser (00:37):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Simply Feedback, the podcast brought to you by Learning Bridge. I'm your host, Troy Blazer. It's great to be with you today. I'm super excited for today's conversation. Our guest today is Dr. Sonia Alvarez Robinson, associate Vice President for Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness at Georgia Tech. With over 25 years of experience leading change across industries, and as a teacher of a building resilience course at the university, she helps organizations and individuals grow through feedback and resilience. Sonia, welcome to Simply Feedback. It's so great to have you with us today.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (01:15):

Thank you so much. I'm so excited about this conversation today, Troy.

Troy Blaser (01:19):

Well, wonderful. I wonder if you could tell us about a time that somebody gave you feedback maybe it had an impact on your life, your career, or personally, but is there a story that you can share with us about feedback?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (01:31):

Yeah, absolutely. You know, there are moments of feedback that you get in your life that really stick with you, and you never forget them because who they came from, when they were given to you, and the impact, the difference that it made. For me, it was early in my leadership career, I was found myself in a challenging organizational dynamic situation. And I realized I was learning that there were information that was traveling across the organization that was getting distorted, like that game telephone.

Troy Blaser (02:07):

Mm-Hmm .

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (02:08):

Right. And as a leader, when you communicate something, you want people to receive it as you intended to give it to them.

Troy Blaser (02:16):

Yes.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (02:17):

Um that's not what was happening. And so I, I asked my mentor for some guidance, and what he advised me was that he said, "Always wear a lapel pin when you go to work and pretend that it is a hot mic, and that everything that you say in the course of your workday is being piped out through the PA system. That way you never have to worry about what you say to who. And you will always measure the degree of clarity of the communication that you are giving to your people." And that's always stuck with me. I don't have a lapel pin on today, but I usually do.

Troy Blaser (03:00):

Well, and you have a hot mic right now, so

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (03:02):

. Absolutely.

Troy Blaser (03:04):

Oh, how interesting. And, and that's like you said, there are times I think for everybody where you, you have that interaction with your mentor and it's something maybe you replay in your mind or it comes up on occasion where you're like, oh, yeah, that's important. That piece of feedback affects your communication in your job, potentially even in other parts of your life as well.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (03:26):

Yeah. And it also taught me that as a leader, your team members who are looking to you for leadership and guidance, they're, they're not your confidants. They're not for commiseration. That's what coaches and that's what, you know,

Troy Blaser (03:42):

Mentors yeah.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (03:43):

Um other mentors and other objective neutral third parties are for. And I learned that thankfully early enough in my career. But it was definitely a lesson that has stuck with me.

Troy Blaser (03:58):

I almost wondered when you would come home from work and take off the jacket or take off the lapel pin, was there this physical sense of letting down a little bit? I, I, the hot mic is no longer on my lapel

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (04:11):

Permission to speak freely.

Troy Blaser (04:13):

Yes. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. That's funny. Well, here at LearningBridge, a lot of times, well, we talk a lot about feedback in a lot of different ways, but one of the ways we like to frame the process is just give, get, grow: how to give feedback, how to get feedback or receive it and, and how to grow from feedback. And we talk a lot about all the, the, those three different aspects of, of feedback. So I wanted to kind of ask some of our questions today around that same framing, that idea of giving feedback, getting feedback or, or growing from feedback. So with that in mind and with your background in resilience and leadership, what are some ways that leaders can ensure that their feedback helps employees navigate adversity rather than discouraging them? You know, when they find themselves in a moment of adversity? Are there ways that leaders can, can encourage them and help them navigate that rather than just giving feedback that is discouraging?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (05:12):

Yeah. I love the work of David Cooperrider, and appreciative inquiry and the art of using good questions to draw out from people what their, their purpose, their passion, their interests, but also where they see their own opportunities for improvement. When I do performance reviews with my subordinates, I always first have a conversation completely dedicated to them providing that self-reflection first. And in that conversation I'm asking them, let's, let's unpack that a little bit more. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Was there anything that you learned or anything you would do differently if you could do that over again? Because I think a lot of times people will go into those conversations kind of armored up. And you want to tell the best side of the story because this is your performance review and this is gonna be part of your official record, and this might even impact your compensation.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (06:17):

So allowing them to kind of disarm themselves to be able to have an open conversation and know that that vulnerability that they take, the risk to display in that discussion is not going to be used against them. And, you know, trust is built over time, and trust goes two ways. And I think when I'm trying to give a person feedback, I like to help them find it, those answers within themselves first by asking them questions that will get elicit that generative reflection. That is such an important part. I think we learn a lot more from our own reflection than we do when we find ourselves in a deflection mode. There's reflection and deflection. But I think yeah, sometimes when you come at somebody with, oh, here's all the things you're doing wrong, it's automatically the instinct is to defend myself. Yeah. Right. So not making it a frontal assault, that this is really about helping you understand opportunities to get better.

Troy Blaser (07:32):

It almost feels like a, a Socratic method of giving feedback in that you're asking questions that, that help the, the individual come up with the solutions that are probably already there anyway. And those kinds of questions can help bring that out. And, and as you point out, then that individual owns the feedback that much more because they were the one that that spoke it aloud rather than, as you say, it just coming, being handed to them where they may be defensive or wanna deflect it.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (08:01):

Troy, honestly, as a leader, have been doing this for a long time. It's something that I've had to learn and get better at over time, too. Like I, that's not how I approached it when I was a, a early career supervisor or manager. But I've learned over the years that the best way to get someone to grow is to help them, is to engage them in a way that they want to grow.

Troy Blaser (08:24):

Yeah. I think many leaders struggle with giving difficult feedback for a number of reasons. And, and maybe there are times when it's not going to work because of the situation. It's not going to work to ask the questions, to elicit the feedback that will be helpful. A manager might be in a position where they just, it's a difficult situation. They have to offer that feedback. Are there ways they can reframe a conversation to, to inspire growth, to inspire adaptability, rather than just giving that difficult feedback?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (08:55):

Yeah. It's a great question. And I think not everybody is in a place where if you ask them a good question, they're going to identify their own areas. There are some people who just really, one, either lack of self-awareness to be able to recognize the areas that they have opportunities to improve, or they're just so armored up that they're not going to, they're not gonna go there. And so, but I always err on the side to listen first. And even if in my own mind I am hearing them and feeling it's incomplete or sometimes inaccurate, I wanna give them that place and that space to reflect. And then I will come back and say, okay, well, let's talk a little bit more about some of the interpersonal dynamics. So it's my observation that you've struggled in your interactions with other members of the team.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (09:58):

Can you talk a little bit about how that might be an opportunity for you? Um what, are there some things that you can do differently? And sometimes you'll get the answer of, "No, it's all them. They're the problem, it's not me. And then, you know, knowing that, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna go all the way down this path. And so in that instance which I've had a fair number of times to say, well, my observation is this. I've noticed that when you are in a meeting, you're completely ignoring the contributions of your peers. You know, that kind of thing. Giving specific, but the more specific, the example, I think the easier it is for someone to understand what you're saying. Generalizations or broad statements about areas of opportunity for improvement almost never help a person who does not possess a self-awareness to be able to recognize those examples themselves.

Troy Blaser (11:06):

Yeah. It's too easy to discount that or to rationalize that general feedback away and say, well, it doesn't apply to me, or it doesn't apply in this situation, or things like that. Yeah. I like the, the idea of those specific examples. Here's when I observed that this behavior happened,

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (11:25):

And the other part is to align then the feedback to what the expectations, whether it's the norms of the group or the specific responsibilities of the job, is that I'm seeing a disconnect between what you do and what we represent in terms of how we deliver. Like, for example, our group, we use a model called the Trusted Advisor Framework by Andrea Howell. And she came and did some work with our team, and there's a, there's a equation for being a trusted advisor that we all have agreed are our operating norms. And so when we see each other, not adhering to those norms or deviating, which we will because we're humans, we can call it out with each other in caring ways, but we have really painstakingly laid out the norms for the group are these are the way that we operate, these are the ways that we interact with each other, and that we are expecting to be in partnership in the way that we serve our clients.

Troy Blaser (12:39):

I always love a good story. Is there a time that you can think of when delivering feedback that giving feedback led to a transformative change for, for an individual or for an organization?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (12:51):

Oh, I have lots of examples, but just one that comes to mind. We were in a conversation with a client and we had a, our, our delivery, our service delivery team or consulting group. And we had some early career members of the team that were there. And I think that you know, we had made some assumptions that everybody within our group understood, like, hold your comments unless you're asked to do that. And I think there's always this balance, right? So we had a team member who said something out loud in the meeting that was not, the timing was not good, and it really was not an appropriate comment to make at that time. And so we, I recovered the discussion, we got back on track and, and then the next you know, after we hung up I reached out and immediately when we got back together, what we connected on the call that that person said to me, I know exactly what you're gonna say to me. And, and I said, okay, tell me what I'm gonna say. And, and I think it was a really great lesson for them to have had that experience, but also just their own self-awareness, I think was such a Yeah. Important and powerful thing that happened there.

Troy Blaser (14:14):

And I know you teach a class there at the university as well. Do you find you, are there differences in giving feedback to students in class versus other team members or, or full-time people that you work with?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (14:28):

Well, my class is a bit unique in that it's a pass/fail. It's a five week, 10 session. It's really more like a workshop to teach resilience to the students through a series of both evidence-based research, but also experiential activities that I have them do. And I created a model and the whole syllabus is structured on this model. So it's really not about giving the students feedback as much as it is about allowing them to examine and explore the ways in which they might be limiting their own ability to be resilient.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (15:16):

So the model is this. So it's called the first model, something that I developed a few years ago when I was doing some writing for a a magazine. And, and then I just use that to really structure the course. The f is for find your locus of control, because so much of what happens to us, around us is outside of our control. And we can become consumed by trying to change things that we have no control over. The I is about investigate and manage your fears. And that's really, you know, fear is imagined, danger is real, there are dangers, but sometimes fear can drive our behaviors in ways that are not productive for us.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (16:02):

The R is to reprogram negative thinking. One of the areas that we examine in that is self-compassion, because we're often our own worst critic, especially when we experience adversity, challenge and change. And if it was a self, self inflicted adversity, we'll beat ourselves up all day long. So, and then the S is about seeking healthy support is that a lot of times people feel like they have to go through difficult things by themself, or there's a stigma associated with it or shame, and they go inward. And then the T is about taking time for self-care. And so the feedback I give them is really about engaging them in these activities that help them see where are they, where do they have gaps, you know, like I have one student when we did the piece on self-compassion was, you know, like recognized that because they were raised in an environment where nothing was good enough, what that never did enough, gave enough that they were always self-critical in a very harmful way. They were harsh. So through that experiential opportunity, the student was able to discover that feedback for themself through that interaction.

Troy Blaser (17:27):

That's, that's fantastic. I think, you know, a lot of times people can struggle around receiving feedback. You know, you, you watch an employee who receives some feedback and they have a difficult time taking that on board. It can be a very anxious timeif they feel like they're receiving feedback. Are there strategies that you teach to help individuals process and use that feedback constructively?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (17:56):

Absolutely. Well, one, just going back to the locus of control, is that we have to recognize, okay, what is it that I can control? I can't control if someone has a perception of me that is different than my perception of myself. What I can control is what I decide to do with that feedback. Right. And so, recognizing that there may be misconceptions is that that's still a narrative. I've learned this from Glade Holman, and the, you know, the LearningBridge is that, that narrative, whether you believe that it's true or not, it is what it is.

Troy Blaser (18:38):

Right. It's the story that person's telling themselves about you. Right?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (18:44):

That's right. And you can't do anything about what is in another person's head. All you can do is manage your own behavior and conduct. So, you know, I always challenge my students and my team members is like, let's look at the feedback. We get this a lot. We will ask clients for feedback on the services that we provide. It might be like a day long facilitated activity. And in variable, you'll have people who didn't wanna be there, they got other stuff to do, they didn't really find it important. It's not personal, but it's important that we take that feedback and we look at it and we say, is there something that we can learn from this so that the next time we design this, we can make it meaningful for the largest number of people? We will not make everybody happy. And if we have to figure out what does success look like for us? And be okay with that.

Troy Blaser (19:42):

So you're really looking forward, you're saying, okay, this is useful feedback. What can we do better next time? Let's look forward, let's look ahead

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (19:49):

Lessons learned,

Troy Blaser (19:51):

Thinking of the first model and your locus of control versus your fears. Are those, how are those two related? It seems like I can think about it in two ways. One, I can, I can think, well, I recognize that's outside of my control, and maybe that increases my fear of that thing.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (20:12):

Absolutely.

Troy Blaser (20:13):

Or I can recognize that it's outside of my control, and therefore I can let it go and not be anxious about it because I I don't have any control over it.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (20:21):

Well, we will be anxious about things that are outside of our control. But I have an activity, it's called the worry buckets. And so we write down everything that is worrying you, everything that's stressing you out, making you anxious, making you afraid. So your fears are on that list too. Right. And these, those lists are pretty long these days, and then so we go back through and we say, okay, I want you to put each of those items into one of three buckets. Either you have no control over it, you have partial control over it, or you have total control over it. And I want you to think about, so let's go back through and let's disposition. Just put 'em in the buckets. All right. Let's look at this bucket of these things that we have no control over. So how do you release yourself then from trying to resolve those things?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (21:11):

It doesn't mean you won't worry about them anymore. But it means that you'll let go of the idea that you have to fix it. And then how will you release it? And the example that I love to give to my students is that for several years, our family has had members of the family who suffer from the disease of addiction. And when you have an addicted loved one, it is very hard to watch them inflict harm on their self, especially because it's prolonged over such a period of time. But one of the first things they teach you when you go into sort of this, the, I call it the, the recovery for the family is that you have to release them to their higher power and their higher power is not you.

Troy Blaser (21:58):

Mm. Yeah.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (21:59):

Because sometimes we have a false sense of being responsible for other people's stuff.

Troy Blaser (22:05):

I have to fix it for them somehow.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (22:07):

It's the heroic. Sometimes we're just wired that way. But I think even as leaders, we feel like everything that our people tell us is something that we have a responsibility to fix. And some of it is our responsibility, some of it isn't. And that's where I think these buckets are also important for leaders, because there's in the no control bucket, right. So there are things that affect our organization that are related to forces in the environment, forces of influence around our organization that our people are worried about. I have no control over them, but we wanna talk through that, right? So partial control. So there may be some things. The example that I like to use is when we got a new president to the university and our team was moved into that office and we had a new reporting line and a new boss and said, well, we don't have any control over what's gonna be important to that new person, but what we do have control over partial control is what he knows about us.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (23:14):

We can't control what he thinks about us, but we can control what he knows about us. So let's get our annual report together. Let's make sure that our KPIs are tight. Let's make sure that we're very clear and explanatory about the value that we deliver. Like that's a partial control thing. And then the total control is like, we have total control as a group. We just did this this morning over how we operate internally. How consistent, how synchronized we are in terms of our, our delivery, how we show up. You know, we can't control the land of traffic, but we can make sure that we leave early enough that we're not late for an important event.

Troy Blaser (23:53):

There you go.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (23:55):

Which in Atlanta, that means three hours before you're supposed to be there.

Troy Blaser (23:58):

Well, I'm sorry for that. Well, okay. So we've talked a little bit about giving feedback. We've talked a little bit about getting feedback, receiving feedback. If we think about growing from feedback, you know, and if you think about professionals who want to advance their careers, what are some ways that they can proactively use feedback, whether it's from managers, but maybe also from peers or other teams or even setbacks? What are some ways that they can use that feedback to accelerate their leadership growth?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (24:31):

Yeah. I love this and I love the grow part of your model, because the title of my course is actually "Strategies for Building Resilience: Growing Through What We're Going Through."

Troy Blaser (24:42):

Oh, I love it!

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (24:44):

And this is really the essence of resilience, which is how to use adversity challenge and change our acute shocks and chronic stressors as ways to really adapt, survive, and thrive. Which, and that's where the growth part comes. So one of the exercises I love to do on the first day of class with my students is we do the rollercoaster exercise. It's actually one that I learned when I started my doctoral program during new student orientation is that you take a look back at your life and you map it out on two axis. Along the horizontal axis is time. And the vertical axis is the quality of the experience. And you just take a moment to reflect. And you can go back five years, 10 years, beginning of your career, the beginning of your life, if you want to go back that far, and you just say, okay, what are the milestones, the major events that have happened in my life that have shaped my outlook the most, the highs and the lows?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (25:49):

And then you map 'em out, high, low, high, low. Where are they? You can do the same thing with feedback. Right. And you can say, let, let me look at the things, because life is feedback. Feedback doesn't just happen verbally. It happens through our lived experience. And so, as these parts of our lived experience are either high or low, or in the middle, I have 'em actually map it. So when you get done looking at it, they all go like this, most of them. Mine is like this, this, this, you know, it's just really, really high highs and super, super low lows. Then we go, okay, let's go back and say what, what gave me the energy to power back up again? And what did I learn from those points on that map? And how does it shape the way that I see myself? Invariably we are much stronger than we ever think we could be until we go through something really difficult. And then it's like, wow. Like I, if you told me before that happened--you know, my husband died when he was 47, and I was 44. My son was 10.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (27:06):

If you would've told me a month before he died that that was gonna happen, I would've told you my life would be over. I could never have gotten through that. And it was, you know, in reflection, it was actually one of the catalysts that has gotten me to where I am right now. I wouldn't be having this conversation with you, Troy, right now if that had not have happened. Because of what I learned through that, which was my purpose is much different than what I thought it was.

Troy Blaser (27:40):

Well, first of all, thank you for sharing about your husband's passing and how it helped you realize how strong you are. I, one thing I like about that rollercoaster exercise is that idea of looking back even farther back into the past to see what kind of lessons might be there. I think it's a useful thing to stop and, and take stock of where did I come from all the way back to the beginning of my career or my, you know, education or whatever it might be. And saying from my perspective today, are there lessons to be learned from that experience that maybe happened to me 10 or 15 or 20 years ago? That maybe I, I didn't see those lessons at the time, but because I'm, I've changed over time, I can look back and say, oh, there's a lesson for me for today from that experience from so long ago.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (28:32):

Mm-Hmm. Yeah.

Troy Blaser (28:33):

It's a worthwhile thing to do. You know, obviously you don't wanna live in the past, but every once in a while to kind of take stock and say, "Where did I come from and, and what lessons are there for me to use going forward?"

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (28:44):

Well, that's the, you made me think of the Sankofa bird, you know, which is a African symbol of a bird where it's head is actually facing backwards, but it's going forwards. And, you know, it is that power and importance of reflection while continuing to move forward. One of the things I've been working on writing is, is about life in the rear view mirror. Things are much closer than they appear.

Troy Blaser (29:14):

. Okay.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (29:16):

And you know, you can't drive down the highway looking through your rear view mirror the whole time.

Troy Blaser (29:21):

Right.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (29:23):

But you have to glance at it periodically to know what's behind you.

Troy Blaser (29:29):

That's true. Yeah, to know where you came from and what else might be lurking back there.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (29:34):

Live through the windshield, glance at the rear view.

Troy Blaser (29:38):

Okay. That, yes. I have a daughter who's 15, will be 16 in a few months, so we're working on her driver's license, and I'll pass that particular tip onto her ,

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (29:50):

Don't linger there too long.

Troy Blaser (29:51):

Not a metaphor. Literally, here's how you should drive .

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (29:57):

Don't linger in the rear view mirror too long.

Troy Blaser (30:00):

Sonia is there, is there a project or is there something you're working on right now that you're especially passionate about that you would share with us?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (30:08):

Well, I have a book that I'm just finishing up. It's called Lessons in Resilience. And hopefully it'll be done in the next few months. So taking a lot, you know, it's like every time I have a cohort of students that I'm working with, it's like, oh, I need to add that, because as you teach, you learn. So it's been one of those projects that I can't end because there's so much new, new really insights that I've been gaining through this experience. But the, the cohort itself is actually going to be ending in six weeks, and we're actually converting that course to a full semester three credit course in the School of Psychology in the fall. So I think that's my breaking point to say we've closed this chapter, finish that up.

Troy Blaser (31:06):

Version 1.0 of, of the book is ready to roll out now. Maybe there's another version down the road, but for now, these are the lessons. Tell me the name again.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (31:17):

Lessons in Resilience. There's a subtitle that I'm still working out.

Troy Blaser (31:22):

And is this your first book or have you been through this process before?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (31:26):

I've written a lot, but this will be the first book.

Troy Blaser (31:29):

Well, congratulations. I, I know that it's not an easy thing to do to publish a book, so I admire that.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (31:36):

Thank You.

Troy Blaser (31:37):

Wonderful. Sonia, if people have been intrigued by our conversation today, if they want to know more or if they want to connect with you is that something that you would be open to and, and what should they do?

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (31:48):

Absolutely. so I have a, a website for my resilience work called whatcouldyoube.com.

Troy Blaser (31:56):

Okay.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (31:57):

You can certainly reach out to me there. That's mostly the work that I do outside of my role at Georgia Tech around helping people navigate life transitions. Or if you're interested in the work that we're doing here at Georgia Tech, it's consulting.gatech.edu.

Troy Blaser (32:13):

Cool. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. I've really enjoyed our conversation and the ideas that we've been able to explore together. Thanks again for joining us.

Sonia Alvarez-Robinson (32:22):

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.