Ep #27 - How do leaders vet ideas? When should you listen to negative feedback?

Rethinking with Alex Torpey

Join former mayor, municipal manager, professor, and consultant Alex Torpey as we explore some of the dynamics behind how leaders vet (or don’t vet) their ideas. And what do they do when faced with negative feedback?

In this episode, we’ll talk about some of the traps that people in leadership or influence fall into, such as creating false positive feedback loops or accepting loud feedback as accurate feedback. And then we talk about four basic questions you can build into your own self-reflection practice so as to help you understand when negative feedback might be indicative that you’re doing something very wrong and you should step back, or when it’s indicative of some sort of biased or non-representative negative feedback loop and you can, and maybe even should, continue to push onward.

We’ll cover five important concepts to think about when building a feedback environment, and whether you’re a leader, manager, influencer or just a person who wants to think critically about to ensure you are being rigorous with new or different ideas you’re putting out in the world, this episode should be interesting and relevant for you.

How we vet ideas and understand the reactions we see from them is extremely important, and I believe that our failure to think about this process more directly and intentionally is responsible for much of the bad decision making and poor outcomes we see around us, especially these days, especially in most governments.

So join me as we explore thinking about these important topics together by searching for “Rethinking with Alex Torpey” on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, let me know what you think!