Thanks again to Manager Tools! 

This past week my sermon featured an insight I got about sharing feedback from a podcast called Manager Tools. I presented a three-step process that allows us to work out problems with others. It’s based on the idea that we cannot know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. We refrain from describing motives or thoughts that are not our own. 

Instead, we

• 1. Describe Behavior, 
• 2. Share our feelings about it, and 
• 3. ask what they could do differently. 

Perhaps You’d Like to Get These Ideas from the Source!

If you’d like to hear hosts Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne describe it in detail,  check out their podcast episode here. If you really like that, then part 2 is right here.

It’s not often I use a sermon to endorse methods like this. However, I’ve used this and have found it to be a respectful and honest way to share feelings and to learn more from others. The sermon was also about Providential Theology, which has been a part of the Judeo-Christian heritage for centuries. I encouraged folks to consider that with humility we can admit we do not know the mind of God. But that makes our conversations with God like those with others: we can never know the mind of someone who isn’t us. 

If you try and use this tool for sharing feedback with others, let me know what you think about how it works for you.