I’m an expert wrangler of teams and committees, but never imagined how this would help me deal with the dreaded inner critic.
Call it the critic, the judge, the itty bitty shitty committee, these back-seat-driving commentators don’t let up. Any time I try something new, there they are, making comments, like “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” “It’s going to take you a long time to do it.” (They have already commented that this post is going to be boring.)
Enter: The Inner Critics
I know that these voices are just trying to keep me safe, but the chatter is unhelpful and distracting.
But wait, a committee? I know how to handle teams and committees.
Reflecting on My Inner Committee
So I tried imagining my itty bitty shitty committee members sitting around a conference table. (Since every committee needs an acronym, let’s go with IBSC). They called this meeting – or I called it after hearing their unproductive offline comments for too long.
Like any good team, everyone on the IBSC is allowed to give their perspective, and listened to respectfully. And like any good team, there is only one decision maker – me. And, if there are truly badly behaved members of the team, they are asked to leave.
There’s no room on this team of mine for bad players.
When I ran this fictional scenario in my head, I felt calmer and lighter. It wasn’t that I got a lot of new information. It was that the voices quieted themselves. Maybe they will keep their snarky comments to themselves until the next meeting, and then I can decide how – and whether – to address them.
I was thinking, maybe some people’s IBSC is so toxic that it cannot be worked with. If it just won’t play nice, you have options. One is to disband it, if it is not serving a purpose.
You know, it’s very satisfying to disband committees that serve no purpose.
So what will you do, with those tedious and unimaginative voices in your head? Gather them, query them. And then thank them for their feedback.
This team is not run by consensus.
