How to Use Hiark (9/2018)
We can’t offer a definitive answer to “How do I use Hiark?” It depends on what you want to get from it. There is no one “right way” to pose requests for feedback or to give your perspective anonymously to your contacts. There is, however, a wrong way to use Hiark. If you want to intentionally harm others or manipulate, trick or embarrass people courageous enough to put their egos at risk to ask for help locating their blind spots, you’re in the wrong place. You are not welcomed on our platform and we’ll permanently remove you.
Giving feedback isn’t easy (and receiving feedback is even harder). Clear, direct data about your personal experience of another person can be difficult to give under any circumstance. With the semi-anonymity Hiark offers in providing feedback, there is another layer of complexity added to this already nuanced process. We take as the starting point for any feedback provider the desire and intent to be helpful to the other person. Within this context, we’ve found that specific details about past events can pierce the veil of anonymity (by making the feedback giver easily identifiable), thus we don’t recommend this. Rather than focusing on concrete minutia of the past, we’ve seen expressing your feelings the receiver evokes to be more fertile ground on which to begin a Hiark conversation. For example: “I feel you can act inconsiderately in public places and that you are dismissive of your impact on other people” which describes how one feels, rather than “It was embarrassing for all of us when you were loudly cursing at the park in front of children last Sunday.” Beginning feedback with “My experience” or “I feel” helps to highlight this is a single, subjective data point you, the provider, is offering, and this does not represent the “objective truth” which we don’t believe exists.
Unfortunately, we can’t tell you exactly how to phrase your responses, but we have consistently found that clear expression of your feelings, rather than details of the situation or changes to a person’s behavior tend to yield more ongoing dialogue. The purpose of providing feedback is to be useful to the recipient, to help them see the blind spots they cannot see on their own. It is not to attack or shame or belittle a person for making a mistake or being unaware of their impact. THE FACT THE PEOPLE ARE UNAWARE IS THE BASIS FOR USING HIARK! Please keep this in mind when responding anonymously. Our standard for discourse is “intention to help.” Every single exchange should be intended to be constructively useful to the growth of the recipient. It should be a data point to be integrated into a new way of seeing oneself and making new decisions on how to interact with the world. We’re all on this journey together.
On the requesting end, we’ve found that a constructive starting point for a fecund conversation is often: “What’s one way I…?” For instance: “What’s one way I could be a better friend?” or “What’s one way I could improve my performance at work?” This approach helps focus responses into more manageable data points, and touches on “Specific” and “Relevant” of the hallowed, if somewhat clunky SMART framework for feedback. This is certainly not the only route to useful feedback but this can serve to make each private 1-on-1 conversation more comprehensible. Rather than confronting a laundry list of perceived issues and having no idea where to explore, “What’s one way” gives each individual conversation a topic, and if the same topic emerges across multiple individual conversations, there is a strong signal that this needs attention.
We believe our users will figure out better ways to use Hiark through trial and error and that the spirit of exploration about ourselves and our impact on others will influence how we seek and provide feedback. It will not always be cheery. This is critical to understand and accept before requesting honest feedback from people you care about. The superficial niceties of white lies and blandishments due actual harm to us, if less overt than insults. The expectation when we request feedback should be to challenge our self-image and be reflective about what we might be getting wrong about how we come across and effect other people. Though not easy, and sometimes frankly painful, growth, change, and fully realizing the latent potential in each of us is virtually impossible without this challenge.
The path to our best self is not linear. The path is found groping, struggling, working with the help of people who care about you. And Hiark can make the process somewhat more efficient. But Hiark is not the end in itself, the feedback you receive is not the ultimate truth, nor the last word on who you are. Hiark is the start of a conversation, it is the start of a re-evaluation of previously unquestioned beliefs about yourself and the world. It should be used as a tool of discovery to find useful information and to change how you make choices.
