Latest / Leading in Change / The Secret to Giving Great Feedback (And Why It Matters)
Transcript
- Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Adrian. Speaker 1: I'm Melissa. And today, Adrian and I are going to be talking about feedback. So ⁓ this has been a topic of conversation that we've been talking about for a long time, but especially because there was a recent study that came out that said only one in five employees get the feedback that they actually need. However, if you ask the managers what feedback looks like, feels like, and how it goes, they think that it goes really well. So something is missing, and we want to discover what's missing and how do we do feedback better. Speaker 2: To say it blunt, I feel like people are terrible at feedback. Yeah. ⁓ but one of the other things that Gallup found that I thought was really fascinating is that regardless of company size, ⁓ employees who said that they received meaningful feedback in the past week are three times more engaged than employees who didn't. So the single highest leverage thing you can do on any given day is give your team real feedback. And so what I would love to dig into today is why is feedback matter? How do we get better at it? And what are some tactical, practical tools and tips that people can take forward to get better at giving and receiving feedback? Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, but first let's start with an icebreaker. Okay. What is the most ⁓ recent piece of feedback that you got? And was it actually useful? Speaker 1: It's the iceberger this time. Okay, so actually it was from you. Okay. I got some feedback slash advice from you. something, a project that I've been working on that I feel like I've just kept ⁓ hit roadblock after barrier after roadblock after barrier. And and I felt like I was pestering a client. And you said just keep having a bias towards action. Like keep asking, keep reaching out, reach out maybe in a different way. And they have yet to respond to me, but I do feel a little less awkward about it and much more that I'm just trying to be helpful and I'm trying to h provide something to them. So that bias towards action keeps me from getting in my head and and not moving forward. So thank you. Speaker 2: You're so welcome. I love that. Yeah. Speaker 1: What about you? What ⁓ do you have a recent piece of advice or feedback that you've been given? Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a piece of feedback from my husband last night, ⁓ Will Jones, as we lovingly call him. ⁓ full name. Full name, Will Jones. I have realized that I can be really blunt in my delivery. I really value myself for candor and and being comfortable giving and receiving feedback and transparency. ⁓ but he said, you know, honey, I'm not saying to sugarcoat things, but you could work on your bedside manner. Speaker 1: ⁓ interesting that you say that 'cause I got some things I want to talk about related to Speaker 2: And so I thought it was such a good, perfect segue into this, you know, and I I wrote in my notes app to talk to you about this later. You know, you have a PhD in healthcare communication, like you literally studied bedside manner. And so I was like, what could I learn from Melissa's experience and how to deliver potentially hard news or hard information in a better way? So I think that's like a good way to tee up. Speaker 1: Yeah. That's so interesting that you say that because I think that you're better at giving the feedback that people actually need to hear and I might soften it too much. So maybe we can Goldilocks and meet in the middle. I love that. What's wrong with feedback? Speaker 2: I I think that sounds great. Well, yeah. So ⁓ why does feedback matter? I think that number one, without external information, people can't really calibrate performance. One of the things that I've been thinking about is if you want people to get better, they have to take a shot, ⁓ potentially miss a little bit, and then they get feedback on how that performance is going. When you play video games. Or when you are doing sharpshooting, which I grew up doing, you know get immediate real-time feedback, right? You hit the target or you didn't, you land in the fire or you don't. But in the workplace, people aren't getting that real-time feedback. And so it's up to the manager or to the teammate or to somebody outside the individual to let them know what's working and not working. And you mentioned earlier that gap of one in five employees. Speaker 1: You Speaker 2: say that they get feedback on a weekly basis. ⁓ and we know that that impacts engagement. So those are two big reasons that I think we need to be spending some time talking about feedback. Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's also not just a people problem. Thinking about some of the companies that we work for, whether it's a hospital or a petrochem plant, there's an operational risk too. I I remember distinctly thinking about what I wanted to talk about today and how there is like such a a big risk, especially in the industries we work in, but thinking about most of the big disasters that have ever happened, whether you're talking about like something as big as Chernobyl or ⁓ the Columbia disaster or deep water horizon here in Louisiana. Almost always once you research the problem of what happened, you can go back to somebody knew about the problem and didn't do anything with that information. And it terrifies me to think about some of the people that we are coaching and working with that they may not feel comfortable giving feedback about a work product or a it's something very small, but that small thing creates a culture where the big thing is missed, and that's terrifying to me. Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it's like those are high risk examples, right? And they totally matter. And we deal with it a lot in Petrochem and in healthcare where safety is on the line. But I even see it with project management teams. You know, when I worked at a creative agency where the stakes were very low, but like what it would ultimately result in is a really pissed off client. Maybe people spending a lot of extra time working on something that if it had been flagged earlier or feedback that had been given. Things could have gone a very different direction. Speaker 1: So this just isn't a people problem. It's ⁓ it's bigger than that. It's it's a cultural problem. ⁓ and I understand why how important it is, but we're st even if you understand how important it is, you still might be really bad at it. So why are people bad at feedback, in your opinion? Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. why are people bad at it? I think about ⁓ Kim Scott's radical candor framework, which is my favorite. So it's a a ⁓ two by two matrix. and we'll share it in the show notes. But you know, in the upper right quadrant, what you're trying to get to is radical candor, which means you care deeply and challenge directly. So on the vertical axis, it's how much do you care? And ⁓ and the horizontal axis is how much do you challenge? And so you want to care deeply and challenge directly. And most leaders fall into the category of what's called ruinous empathy. They care deeply, but they're afraid to challenge. And what I always say is that's about you, not them. Like you think you're doing them a favor by not telling them you have spinch your teeth. Guess what? They still got sponge in their teeth. And somebody else is still gonna see it. Like it's one of the like number one ways to like erode my trust. It's almost selfish. It is selfish. It it ruinous empathy is truly ruinous to the relationship because you are doing it to protect your own feelings, not truly the feelings of the other person. Because if you did care about them, you would say the hard thing because you want them to be successful. Right. And that's I think one of the most important things to understand about feedback is it's one of the best ways you can show that you care. Speaker 1: Right. That feed that that shift in mindset about feedback is similar to the shift in mindset that I that finally stuck into my head about delegation. It's not just me getting something off my plate. It's giving some like somebody reframed it for me as it's giving somebody else an opportunity to learn and grow with this new task or this new skill. Plus, it also frees me up to be able to do the things that only I can do. I like that shift that same shift in feedback that it's less about you and it's all it should all be all about them. And so thank you for always telling me when I have spinach in my tea. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ so you know, talk about what are some of the ⁓ ways that people can get better at feedback or what are some of the maybe what are some of the excuses that people have for not being good at giving feedback or not delivering feedback. Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is where I would talk about one of my favorite humans that I've never met, but I feel like I know her because I read her books and listen to her podcast. It's Brene Brown. ⁓ so thinking about the ⁓ behaviors that people identify as barriers to courage. So she has an entire book, Dare to Lead, about courage, and especially it's really helpful in the workplace. But that could include avoiding the tough conversations, or including giving that honest feedback. That was the biggest. barrier for a leader to be able to be successful or to feel like they have the courage to to lead a group of humans. ⁓ the ability to give that feedback and especially when it might not be the most positive feedback in the world, though we'll talk about positive feedback later. We're not great at that either. ⁓ but that that dodge that happens, it kind of reminds me of what you're talking about with the ruinous empathy. ⁓ it's going to be a culture and climate buster. Speaker 2: What do you mean? Speaker 1: I mean that the dodge of of not giving the feedback is still going to create trust issues. People are still gonna talk about you behind their back. People are still gonna make mistakes that they keep not getting the feedback on. ⁓ people are gonna feel like they're not, they're not gonna build their confidence through constructive or f helpful positive feedback. They're not getting that. So that that toxic mentality is still going to fester and potentially create. A culture breaking scenario. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I've been in a culture where everyone would talk about someone and not give them that feedback directly. And I would sit there and think, What are they saying about me behind closed doors? You know? It makes you think, gosh, it so the I it first makes you think that a bar of excellence is perfection. And if you don't hit perfection, everybody's gonna talk about you behind your back but not say anything to your face. Speaker 1: And that bar of perfection probably keeps moving. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we talked about the care caring personally. ⁓ on the bottom of that spectrum i is not caring, right? So there's ⁓ I can't remember the exact phrasing of it. It's like toxic insincerity or or something manipulative insincerity. That's when you say everything is good gravy, but it's not out of a place of care. It's out of a place of just being manipulative and mean, like you're You're like, ⁓ no, you don't have anything in your your teeth. That's a mean person, right? When it's coming from a place of, I want you to walk out of here with spinach in your teeth, because that's gonna make me look better. That's a the small, that's a small minority. Ouch, that sucks. But the other side of it is when you don't care about the person, but you are comfortable challenging directly, that's when you kind of come off as obnoxious aggression. That's when you're a jerk. And honestly, I'd rather have somebody that's obnoxiously aggressive and I know where they stand than I would somebody who's gonna be manipulatively insincere or ruinously empathetic because you know, at least you're getting the feedback that that is gonna help you develop and get better. Speaker 1: It reminds me of the types of communication styles that we ⁓ focus on here at Success Labs where there's the and how we try to coach people. Most people fall in that line of aggressive to assertive, but really the most destructive kind of communication type is the passive aggressive. And but assertive can feel aggressive. So there there's just some nuance there of of the different ways that you could give feedback and and care about people. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Like the way you frame that. It's actually giving me a little bit of food for thought. So ⁓ but I will say one of the things that becomes the biggest barrier if you don't have it, but also the biggest benefit if you do have it to giving feedback, in my opinion, the two most important things are communication and relationship building. And I want to focus on relationship building first. You cannot give good feedback, and I don't mean like good, like positive, but like helpful, valuable feedback that's actually going to help the other person without having a good relationship. Because if you don't have that relationship, you don't know how to frame it. You don't know what to say. You don't know when to say it. You have to have the relationship first. Speaker 2: People have to believe that you care. You genuinely care. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The relationship building part is ⁓ I have a metaphor for that that someone gave me and I wish I remember who it was because I would love to give them credit. So I did not come up with this, but I did add to it. ⁓ so somebody once said we treat relationship building like a checking account. It's transactional. Money goes in, money goes out. And so there's little human element there. But what we need to think about is that our relationship building needs to be more like a savings account. We are doing things to bank them away for a later use. And the way I've kind of reinterpreted that is what we really need to do is think about relationship building as investment portfolios. You don't, you need to, you need to do the right thing and it will compound over time and gain you better, better results later. And you're not thinking about tit for tat or what's, you know, a tennis match right in front of you back and forth. It's truly because you care about the person and you care about the relationship and you care about the work. Speaker 2: Yeah. Going back to Brene Brown, she always says put marbles in the jar. She would literally have a jar on her desk that you would put marbles in every time you'd done something, or she would put marbles in every time you'd done something that built trust, encouraged the people around her to do the same. So that way it's a visible representation of trust building, of vulnerability, of candor, of positive and constructive feedback. And so Speaker 1: Tell me. Speaker 2: Each of those kind of vulnerable moments or trust building moments adds marbles to the jar. And then when things go sideways, it might take a marble from the jar, but that's okay because you've got you've the jar. To use your example. Speaker 1: really like that, ⁓ the visual for that, but also the act of like stopping to name, we just went through a vulnerable moment. And I feel even though we we need to let the emotions and the dust settle, I feel like I'm closer, more closely connected to you. ⁓ and I I that builds trust over time. I really like that. I might get us some jars and some marble. Speaker 2: I love it. Okay. I love it. Okay. Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about this, but I want to dive into I want your take because you see this a lot with some of the people that you work with here. What are the ways that people get feedback wrong? Speaker 2: Yeah. So where or how exactly are people bad at feedback? I think the number one way is people are not specific enough. So they say, Great job, or that was a little low energy, you know, but getting super specific in what that feedback looks like is how people can make it actionable. So an example, ⁓ instead of saying you did a great job in that meeting, say you did a great job with the client. you you know listened really well, but then showed them that you understood their problem by articulating it very clearly at the end. I appreciate the way that you circled back to the concerns that were voiced at the very beginning of the conversation. It showed that you followed the thread all the way through. You know, that's something that's very specific and very concrete and helps the person say, ⁓ okay, I really added value By keeping track of the conversation, rearticulating at the end and showing the customer that I heard them and they're understood the problem. Speaker 1: And let me do that again in the next meeting. Speaker 2: Yeah. That's the whole point. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. ⁓ I think the ⁓ another way that people are bad at it is just by not giving it at all. ⁓ yeah. You know, I mean I think that's the ruinous empathy piece, right? It's the well, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to hurt their feelings. And so you walk out of the meeting and everybody's like, That was great. But then it's like you have this like sinking feeling that maybe it wasn't actually great or you know you could have done better, but you're not sure exactly why. ⁓ I had Speaker 1: Else is wrong with feedback. Speaker 2: I remember an example of I'd been working with a speech coach. ⁓ I had to give my first keynote and she had filmed the ⁓ filmed me giving my speech and then said, You did great. I no notes, excellent. You just need to go back and watch your tape. Just watch your tape and then, you know, come back and do it again. Speaker 1: Any things did you find to change in that speech? Speaker 2: And I was like, how many times did I touch my hair? How much did I smack my lips? Like all these things I ⁓ how I was swaying, like all of these physical things that it was like obvious that I was doing. And had she just named it, it w it's like she thought she was saving me the embarrassment, but it's like, no, that's what I'm paying you for. Actually, you suck and I don't want to work with you anymore. Sorry, you know who you are, you know? And so like, you know, ninety-eight percent of employees. will fail to be engaged if they don't get feedback. Like that's what the research says is we have an an engagement problem in our country, historic numbers of disengagement. What is driving that is largely the manager and their lack of feedback and engagement with the employee. Speaker 1: If I could tell managers all over the country, I've got the secret sauce to make sure that 98% of your team is going to be more engaged. Like, can I bottle that up and sell it? Tire really quickly. Yeah. ⁓ another thing that I was gonna talk to you about and see what your take on it is that feedback, when we talk about feedback, I think people only think about the negative. Speaker 2: We think that you could. Speaker 1: They don't think about how there's a whole other half of it where there's helpful feedback. You did a good job. Like it's only constructive. It's not, ⁓ there's no like recognition or praise in it. It's I think Speaker 2: Think about it like a heart pulse monitor, right? So if this is your baseline, you gotta be pulsing above the line and a little bit below you wanna have more pulses above the line than below the line, right? I don't know if that's how they work. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the way they work. Yeah. ⁓ well, and that's funny. ⁓ I was just talking. ⁓ I have a a client that I'm working with right now. I was coaching this person this morning actually. And I said, Your homework I gave you two weeks ago was to give more compliments to your team. And I literally said compliments, not feedback, because I wanted him to focus on the positive. And I said, How's that going? And he said, Well, I gotta admit, I did a really good job. But I think I'd I think what I was doing is telling them something good and then saying, but you also need to do this. I said, buddy, every time you say whatever and but they only hear what comes after the butt. And I said, your new homework assignment is to give compliments and to only make them positive because he's not, he doesn't feel comfortable enough to do that. And we talked a lot about how ⁓ that's probably because he doesn't have good enough relationships with the trust is not there. And that trust. Speaker 2: That's right. Trust isn't there. Speaker 1: has to be there. You have to know your people. You have to know in what ways, what can I say to turn up the dial here and turn it back here. You have to know your people. That's why relationship building and communication are crucial to feedback. Yeah. And leadership. Speaker 2: In general. And I think that's why some people struggle with ra radical candor, right? Because the feedback can be perfectly worded. This is why I think radical candor got a bad rap in Silicon Valley, because it was like, I'm just gonna be radically candid and then they would roast somebody, right? I worked in a culture that did that. That is different, right? That is obnoxious aggression on the because they weren't caring directly. If you care directly, you're gonna give your feedback in a specific way. Speaker 1: It'd be demoralized. Speaker 2: one on one in a timely fashion, and it's going to be with the intent of improving the other person's performance or or helping them see something that will help them be more successful. Speaker 1: That's ⁓ yeah, kinda spot on. Yeah. I would hate to work with people like that. Thank God we don't. Yeah. Speaker 2: No no bueno. ⁓ you mentioned relationship building and communication earlier. How does communication come into play? Speaker 1: It's everything. It's it's absolutely everything. ⁓ so this is where I get really nerdy. And if you'll if you're okay with it, I'd love to share a little bit more about some of the the research that I did back in grad school. But it it's not just verbal, it's also nonverbal. ⁓ and the nonverbal matters a whole lot more. There's ⁓ there's a research study that is ⁓ the one of the most misquoted research studies that's out there. They say that. It says something to the effect of like 92% of a message's meaning is derived from the nonverbal. Okay, but that's that's technically correct, but there's a caveat, there's added context to it that actually makes it a little bit, it's a little bit more nuanced. Essentially, what that study proved is that when the person receiving the message is confused, they will rely on the nonverbal 92% of the time more than the verbal. Speaker 2: Ooh, it's same more. Verbal. Speaker 1: Only when there's confusion. But when there's not confusion, when the person says, Hey, you did a really good job today they're gonna accept that as I did a good job. But if they're like you you did a really good job today, you are confused because saying one thing and saying another thing. So you're going to take you ninety percent percent of the time will take what I didn't say, what my body said, not what my mouth said. Yeah. So Speaker 2: Definitely. Yeah. The first thought I had is like this is why it's important to like have bathroom breaks and snack breaks. Because I can't tell you how many times I've looked like very grumpy in a meeting and I'm like, no, I just have to pee or I just need an uncrustable. We should be Speaker 1: sponsored by Increscible Eaton in this office. Yeah. But yeah, you've got to take a break ⁓ and make sure that you get get it right. Not only what you say, but how you say You've got to get both of those right. It's so important. Speaker 2: Yeah. So we'll dig into here in a second, maybe some specific examples of how people can use body language. Okay, good. so then I I think the question is how do you get feedback right? And the first thing that I tell people to do is prepare. This is especially important for someone like me who can put their foot in their mouth, right? I'm an external processor. Yeah. And so I need to make sure to process my conversation in advance. And prepare so that way I can be thoughtful and intentional in how I do it. So ⁓ you know, there are three types of feedback. I'm gonna look at my notes so I get them all right. There's coaching, there's evaluation, and there's appreciation. And there's three separate things and you wanna make sure, like one, what type of conversation is this? Is this a coaching conversation? Is this a feedback conversation, or is this an appreciation conversation? And just defining it on the front end. Speaker 1: Separate thing. Speaker 2: is going to ensure that you've got the right tone and tenor for the intent of the conversation. Speaker 1: Interesting, you know, I said this today on a coaching call with ⁓ a client where we are not used to getting feedback from our ⁓ our bosses that's not that evaluation or coaching. So for in the in the call that we were doing, we're having an alignment discussion around the person's ⁓ their individual development plan that they created. So the boss knows what the the person wants to work on and can help give them feedback. And I said, this is not a performance review. Performance reviews look backwards. This is a development plan. We're talking about what needs to happen in the future. And that shift in the feedback, it's like I gave them freedom to not think about you didn't do this right or you should do this more. It's less about that as like, here are some opportunities that you could take advantage of in the future. It shifted the whole conversation. It made it much more hopeful. And it was probably the first time those two individuals had ever had a conversation like that. Speaker 2: What? I love that. I mean, this is how you can grow in the future, right? I think that's really smart. ⁓ and then part of that it, you know, tailor the way that you talk to the person. Know what motivates them. You know, I'm somebody that's really motivated by hard feedback. I like clear, actual. I'm like, hurt me, you know? Right. Yeah. But I know like you like it softer. Yeah. Right. And so Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: That's where, you know, I've got to calibrate my tone and I'm like learning that over time, spending time with you ⁓ of how to get that way. You know, I've had employees that need to see data. They want to see the numbers, they wanna see the proof, they want receipts. I have other employees, they're like, please don't show me anything. I got it, you don't have to say anymore. You know? ⁓ I'm good. And so understanding and then understanding what motivates the person. Like if you get this right, this is what it could mean for you. That's going to look different for every employee. And so taking the time to think about that on the front end is really important. And then the last thing I would say in terms of, you know, preparing maybe two more thoughts. One, I would say really separate out observation from intention. And this is hard. When you do this, it can result in this, or I feel this. But don't say you're you are so lazy or This is you're lazy when you do this. Don't ascribe intention to it. Say, I I'm struggling to I'm struggling how to interpret this when you fail to do all the steps that are outlined in the process. It reads to me as lazy because I can't understand any other reason for why you wouldn't do it since you know all the steps to the process. And the person might say, ⁓ I thought those were just questions or whatever, you know? Or I I was Speaker 1: Suggestions. Speaker 2: I'm coaching a client right now. On the call with her executive sponsor, he said, You know, I just don't understand why you don't join the eight o'clock meetings. She said, What eight o'clock meetings? The eight o'clock meetings that we're all on. She said, I've never gotten an invite to an eight o'clock meeting. He was like, Well, there's no invite, you just call this number. And she was like, Well, nobody's told me anything about this. And so it's like they have been perceiving her and gave her explicit feedback that she wasn't being a team player. That she wasn't being visible. Little did she know there's this call that was happening that she was never invited to. Didn't that break your heart? Kills me. I was like, okay, what lesson are we gonna take from this time now? You know? So that's where, you know, taking the time to talk about action and then ask for interpretation rather than make draw the interpretation yourself. You know, help me understand why this is happening. Why might be nobody ever told me. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And if you were if you were s the the we give I feel like we build up so much anxiety around these conversations, especially the big the higher the stakes, the harder the hard like the harder the anxiety hits us. What do you do like to start the conversation? Speaker 2: Hmm, I think you've got to plan you've got to plan your first line. I mean, I think one Yeah, I think that's a good idea. And I I I mean, you've seen me do this. I will say, Hey, I wanna talk about this thing. Do we do you have some time to do that? Or hey, I've been thinking about this. I'd like to talk about it with you. And give the person some context and then, you know. Speaker 1: Write out your first sentence. Speaker 2: Plan out what you want to say in the beginning. Because like if you get the beginning right and you can show that you care personally and yes, you might be challenging directly, but there's more care than not, then it's going to set the whole tone off very differently from just barging in and indelicately starting the conversation. But I'll take an indelicate candor over the ruinous empathy any day. Speaker 1: Okay, fair. Yeah. Speaker 2: Okay, so once you've prepared and you are in the room, what advice do you have for people to make sure that giving that feedback goes well? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would you gave lots of great tips on how to prepare for that conversation. I think this is ⁓ I mean, honestly, there's some times where I would even practice the conversation before you get in there. But once you get in there, there's a lot of things that are happening all at once. So this is where, like I first want to say to people that are new to giving feedback, you're not gonna get it all right, especially in the beginning. You are not expected to be an expert at something the first time you've done it. But it does get easier and you do get better at it over time. So you don't shy away from those conversations. You got to have the conversations. I would also say that you need to be as specific as humanly possible. ⁓ I if like if I I use the example from some of the role play activities that we do in our in our leadership labs, where if you say, you mentioned this earlier, like the lazy part. You have shown up late to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, and Tuesday and Thursday of last week. You've got to be lazy. Like you well, you must hate your job. Like that's one of the worst things. Say. Instead, I use the ⁓ we use the the model of the SBI method, situation, behavior, impact. The situation is I've noticed that you've been clocking in late. Behavior last Tuesday and Thursday, and this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you showed up more than 15 minutes late to your shift and then switch over to impact. When you are late, that means the rest of us can't get started on our first safety meeting of the day, and which puts us back and it it delays the entire day. Right. What I did there is I've gave the context, talked about the behavior, not the person, not their values, not who they are in their heart, the behavior and the impact. And ⁓ that takes away not we're not saying this is a character flaw, this is a behavior that can be fixed. Speaker 2: Yeah. I think one of the things that is also worth considering on that behavior piece or the impact piece is it can just be the literal impact. We start the day late. But I'm a big fan of saying how you feel and recognizing you may not be understanding what's happening. Yeah. Right. I I'm not somebody that actually loves to talk about their feelings, but when you can say when you show up late, it makes me wonder if Something is wrong. Am I not setting the right expectation? Do you not know when we start? It leaves me really confused and and struggling to understand why this would be happening. I'm gonna it makes me assume maybe you don't care. And I wouldn't think that's the case. So help me connect the dots. You know, you can explain what you might be interpreting, right? So that way they can fill in the gaps once you point them out. Speaker 1: You just did and said one of the most important pieces of what you can do when you're in the moment of giving feedback is to ask questions. So when you're preparing, prep a couple of questions ahead of time. And then when you're in there, ask questions. And if you ask a question and you're getting no responses, sit in that awkwardness. Sit in the silence. Let them think about it. And it's it's also okay for you to say, I'm gonna, it seems like you might not have an answer. I don't want to push you to have an answer just because we're in this conversation. Why don't you take time to think about it and we'll regroup later today or something I love that. ⁓ it's okay to take a time out. The other thing that I would say is going back to it's not what you say, it's how you say it, how you say it part is critical. And I don't just mean word choice and tone of voice, though those things matter a lot. There's some subconscious things that we might do with our body language that can create tension where it doesn't need to be there. Speaker 2: I love that. Speaker 1: or create either whether it's literal or metaphorical barriers between you and the other person. So this is where I'm gonna go back to my days in studying how healthcare providers communicate with their patients. I was very fortunate that when I was in grad school, I got to work on a research study where I got to observe ⁓ making decisions around end of life care for their loved ones. And ⁓ I don't take this lightly to talk about it, but I was afforded the opportunity to be present during those conversations, which is an incredible that's an incredible gift that I was given. They did not need to give me that, but I it was such a great learning experience and a touching moment for me to be able to get to witness how you communicate like that. And I saw some doctors do it really well and I saw some do it really poorly. And there's a lot of the same things that are good and bad that we could see in how a teacher talks to a student. Or how a boss talks to an employee. It's the it's the same kind of things with different contexts. Some of them include the number of barriers between you and the other person. So if I had my cell phone open or just in my hand, that automatically signals something else is to my attention. If I'm sitting at my desk and it's and you're across from me and I've got my computer open, that is a literal block. It also could be that I'm sitting in the conversation like this, pulled away from the conversation with a barrier here. That's not just showing disinterest, it's also showing something else a little bit more primal. This is a weird thing. But all of our most vital organs are from here to here, our hips to our chin. And so when we feel like there is a threat, when we feel that we need to be defensive, we will put barriers between ourselves and the other person. Because we're trying to protect those vital organs. It's a subconscious thing that we do when we feel uncomfortable in any way. Whether that's a threat or just that it just makes us uncomfortable. ⁓ but also ⁓ you can think about proximity. So, like how far away am I from that person? The more, the more comfortable you feel with the person and the more intense the conversation, I would say get closer. So maybe not sitting across from each other at a desk. Maybe y'all are on each corner. So like somebody sitting right here and talking to me. ⁓ also, whose office is this in? If it's in my office, I'm the boss and I'm giving feedback. That's gonna be taken very differently if it's in your office, if you're the employee, or in a neutral space. And I would also consider timing. ⁓ I would consider when you're having the conversation, is it at the end of the day, the beginning of the day, right after they finished the big project that you want to give them feedback on, you got to be considerate of timing. And you can also be ⁓ aware of that ⁓ thinking about spatial proximity. There's a difference between standing like if I'm high like if my chair was higher than here, I'm gonna probably be out of flame, but I wanna show this. I take the feedback very differently if I'm sitting up over you. Like this automatically changes the way we're talking to each other. Versus like we're even that's a little bit more even versus all the way down. I'm getting all the way down. That's actually me sh showing a sign of respect. I'm not trying to tower over you. I'm actually like putting you as a sign of respect. It's why certain cultures bow to each other or why in certain conversations like at the bedside in a hospital, the physician will actually sit down so they were lower than the patient and actually hold their hand when they're giving them bad news. Speaker 2: That's how I can work on my bedside manner. Speaker 1: I there's some things that we could do, ⁓ but yeah, you're you're better than you think you are, but it's it's it takes conscious practice to soften our approach. But our b body language is the way that we soften it. Speaker 2: I love that. I want to drill in on something that you said that made me think about a piece of feedback I received once that was so valuable. I had just taken over a VP level role in an organization. I had the Cushy Corner office with big windows like this. I mean, I was like, and I had been in a cubicle for years. And so I was having my one on ones in there because I had a whole little seating area and it was great. Speaker 1: You are you are riding high. Speaker 2: And one day, ⁓ after a one-on-one, one of my other team members came in and said, Hey, can I talk to you for a second? I said, Sure. And she goes, I'm gonna close the door. I said, Okay. She said, I just want to let you know that when somebody leaves your office, everybody looks at them. So we can tell when you've had a hard conversation with someone. ⁓ yeah. And I was like gut wrenched. I mean, like I felt my s stomach drop because I had just given someone hard feedback and I could tell they had glisteny eyes about it and it was feedback she needed to hear, but I didn't think about the fact that she then had to walk out of my office and see everybody look up from their cubicles at her like little prairie dogs. B I forgot I'm the boss. Everybody's paying attention to my corner office. And I was like, okay, thank you so much for that feedback. I feel awful. Right. But it's the things you don't think about. So I started doing one-on-ones in a a little co-working space upstairs. That again, neutral ground and a space where it was close to a restroom. If people had had I, you know, sometimes you make people cry. They've got room to go process the feedback or sit in the break room after, or just, you know, walk out without feeling like they're being watched and observed. And so that was just such a valuable lesson for me in power dynamics and how that plays into giving and receiving feedback. Yeah. Speaker 1: Absolutely. There's other things too beyond that, which I could talk about that all day. Maybe that's a future episode. Write that down. ⁓ but I do think that I want to reiterate something I said earlier, but I really mean it that silence is a tool that you can use, not to empower them or take power over them, but silence is a tool sometimes that you just need to let it sit. I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see young leaders make when the the first time they have to have a feedback conversation is they put the thing out there. And then there's a little bit of silence and they get uncomfortable. They're like, Well, but it's see, it's not that bad. And then they just then they go off script. Yeah. And then they're yeah, they look like they're not in control of the conversation. They look like they're not confident. And then you start to go, Do I believe this? And if I was also easily intimidated in a situation like that, I might start to go, I don't know where this is going or where this is leading. And if I was not easily intimidated, I'd be like, I smell. Blood in the water. And I I now you now feel uncomfortable. I'm gonna continue making you feel uncomfortable until I can get out of this conversation. Speaker 2: Yeah. I've seen that happen. But I've seen both versions happen. Yeah. ⁓ somebody totally check out and you can tell you've lost them. And I've seen somebody get totally ⁓ sharky. ⁓ so that that's a good segue. Like what happens when things start to go off the rails? What what what what can lead things off the rails and what do you do? Speaker 1: Guess the first thing I would want to say there is it's okay if it goes off the rails. We are humans, we you never know how you're gonna react in the moment. I think if you have really good intent, ⁓ that can help you, but it's it's not the whole thing. But I think you need to be paying attention as hard as it is. I mean, I've done this for years. I've spent a lot of time researching body language, and I still have a hard time. If I'm truly engaged in the conversation, I am not doing that thing where I lean back and like. study what's going on. It's hard for me to see it, but I'm in it. And so ⁓ but there are some things that are obvious signs. Like if somebody starts crying or shuts down, starts to change their body changes, right? Or ⁓ they feel like there's a counter like you're you're getting a counterattack. Well, but so and so is always late too. Why why are you only getting on to me? That's where things start to go off the rails and you can start to pick up on it before there's a total meltdown. And so in those moments recognize You have triggered something and it is okay. And it's okay to acknowledge it. And it's also okay to take a time out to when you can come back where you're both a little bit more level headed and ready to have the conversation. ⁓ so what I would do is slow down, acknowledge the emotion, talk about it. I can see like your body, and I wouldn't say it looks like you're angry. I'd say your body language has shifted a little bit. And I recognize that that might be like an emotion that you're feeling. Tell me what tell what you're thinking and tell me what you're feeling. Speaker 2: One of the things that I am so comfortable saying is I don't know how to interpret your face right now. Cause I sometimes I do struggle with it, but I've used that when I could cease one of my employees that looked angry. And I didn't want to say, I don't know why you're angry. You know. I said, I I don't know how to read your face right now. Tell me what you're feeling. Yeah. And that what I realized is they were holding back tears and I was totally misinterpreting it. Speaker 1: Tell me what you're feeling. Hm, and there you you feel very different when somebody is treating you with anger versus sadness. Speaker 2: I could hear in their tone that they were fighting back emotion. Yeah. And that changed my tone because I could feel myself tensing up and getting a little bit defensive because I thought they were getting angry. Yeah. And so I was glad that I paused in that moment. Speaker 1: Yeah. ⁓ another thing that ⁓ like the pause is really important to take up take a time out. You it the the more important the feedback, the more likely you're gonna have this conversation more than once. So if it's really important to that person's development, it's not the spinach and the teeth, that's a one time thing. But if it's something where they have a recurring problem, you're probably gonna have to have this conversation more than once. I like to joke, ⁓ I say this, but ⁓ and I mean this with like the best of intent. Speaker 2: Mm, what do you what tell me more about that? Speaker 1: ⁓ we're adults are just grown-up toddlers. Yeah. We need a nap, a snack, and a hug. And we sometimes need to be told over and over again, don't hate your brother or or whatever it is, don't grab the cat's tail. You gotta be told that over and over again. And sometimes as adults, we still miss the message or it doesn't connect or resonate with us in some way. So sometimes you have to keep having the conversation. That's okay too. So get it try get it right, but recognize that you might have to have this conversation more than once. And that's Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: That's okay. It's might be frustrating because you'd want them to just pick up on whatever you're telling them immediately, but it might not always work that way. Speaker 2: This is where I think about the role that positive feedback plays as well. So, you know, I was talking about the heart reminder, which maybe I don't know how those work, but you know, it's like if you want more pulses above the line to build that trust than below the line, what you also need to do is when you give somebody feedback, constructive feedback, and then they come and improve performance, come tell them. So I remember I had a woman on my team who was wicked smart. She was an analyst, she was brilliant, but she was like a cliche. nerdy analyst, right? Her hair was frizzy. She did not care what she wore. She drank hideous gray protein smoothies that everybody could see and smell. Right. She was just like a beast, you know in the best way. But she wanted to advance in her career. And she really wanted a more visible role. And so I said, like I hate to tell you, sister, but one of the things you're going to need to do is put on a blazer and comb your hair. And like I gave her that feedback. And I've probably used a similar example in other times because so often it's the physical ⁓ limitations of people that are holding them back. Yeah. I gave her that feedback. She bucked me whatever in the moment. But the next time it came to a presentation, she had on a blazer, she had on some cute little pointy flats. She had clearly she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, but she'd clearly like made an effort with it, right? And so I took the moment as soon as we were done with that meeting and people had cleared the room. I said, Hey, I just want to let you know, you not only did you nail that presentation, I see that you really put effort into your appearance. I promise that was not superficial. That was part of what gave this room confidence in you presenting the information. And she was like a beaming, so happy after that. She would like send me J. Crew sales or whatever, you know. When the It's that calibration, right? It's Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: real time feedback to say, Hey, I saw you taking my feedback and applying it. Great job. It worked in your favor. It all Speaker 1: It also sounds like you tailored that feedback to her, to where it w and let's let's ⁓ side note, men need to pay attention to what they're wearing and how it plays into their leadership just as much as women. Just put that out there. Speaker 2: Seven percent. Can I tell you the God's honest truth? What women are oftentimes more open to it than men are. Absolutely. Like that has been my experience. I have given similar feedback to my male colleagues. ⁓ and they still show up in the untucked polo, but Speaker 1: With their finance bro vest one. Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, so to each their own. Speaker 1: So that that making it specific is not just about like the thing that you observe, but it's also making it specific to the human that you're giving the feedback to. And one of the things you can ⁓ that a lot of people have heard of love languages, right? And that's in romantic relationships. But there is, I for a long time I've loved love languages. And I said I kept saying, like, this would be so cool. I need to write like the workplace version of it. Well, little did I know the Gary Chapman, the guy that wrote love languages, he already wrote one. It's called languages of appreciation. And I have a very short story of ⁓ to explain like the bet it's the same five languages of how you love someone or how you show appreciation. It's the same ones. What is touch? ⁓ it'd be high five. High five pointing at somebody. ⁓ you had a really great idea today. ⁓ workplay, the HR version. Speaker 2: ⁓ Okay, sorry, I had to ask. Okay, keep going. Speaker 1: Or it could just be like sitting in proximity to somebody or pointing your body towards them when you're giving them feedback or talking to them. It doesn't have to be literal touch, ⁓ but just like ⁓ connecting with that person through body language. ⁓ but I had I am very involved in my sorority as an alumna and I had a role where ⁓ for I'm keeping it as simple as possible, I was w I had some peers. And my peer was elected to be my supervisor in the organization. And she asked me, we had a c our first conversation in this new role. And she said, look, I'm just gonna name it. We used to we are friends, we are sorority sisters, we are friends, we used to be peers, and now I'm your supervisor, for lack of better words. That could be kind of awkward. ⁓ but I want to just like go ahead and name it. I was like, Thank you. This is great. Let's talk about it. Like, because that's what we do here. But then also she asked me a very important question. She said I would like to understand in what ways I'd like to receive praise. Hmm. I was like, nobody's ever asked. Speaker 2: No one's ever asked me that before. Speaker 1: We do this we do this work for a living. So I was like, can I think about it and get back to you? And I thought about it. And what I realized is it's a nonprofit organization. We do not have budgets for to send people like gifts if they do something really nice or or we live all over the country. So there can't be proximity or time really spent. And I said, you know, one thing that this organization is really good at is if you go above and beyond at a project that you're working on as volunteers, sometimes the only thing that our supervisor can do. It's a five dollar Starbucks gift card via email, which is lovely. But no offense to Starbucks, I cannot consume coffee or caffeine. I cannot consume gluten. I try really hard to not use single use plastics. And I think that Starbucks coffee shops smell bad. Speaker 2: Okay. Wow. Shots fired. ⁓ my God. Speaker 1: Their their playlists on Spotify are wonderful. But like that, that that gift, that, that token of appreciation, it doesn't actually mean much to me. And in fact, I would just give them to somebody else on the team and say, hey, I can't use this. You can use it. ⁓ and so I said, that doesn't mean much to me. It doesn't feel like you're customizing that level of appreciation or praise to me. And she said, Well, what would you like? And I said, Well, I'm a words of affirmation girly. I like people to tell me nice things. And so she said, Okay, well, I'm gonna start emailing you when you do something really well, and I'm gonna copy my boss on it. I said, That means way more to me. In fact, I have in every inbox that I have, I have a folder called keepers, and I just keep those emails that make my heart flutter. And if I'm ever having a bad day, sometimes I go back and read a few of them because I'm not all bad. I just may have made a little bit of a boo-boo somewhere. So that means more to me. So I think we have to the point of that whole story is that. We have to not only ⁓ be consistent with our constructive feedback, but be consistent with our positive feedback and tailor it to the human and their motivational or our love language, language of appreciation, tailor it to them. It's going to mean so much more. And ⁓ they're probably gonna believe it and use it. Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah. Thank you. That was a great example. ⁓ okay. So let's talk about what we've heard. Let's recap. ⁓ so one what I heard is feedback is a relationship skill before it is a communication skill. So you've got to invest in those deposits, those marbles in the jar before you need them. most people aren't failing at feedback because they're doing it badly. They're failing because they're not doing it at all. So it's not feedback if it's not specific and it's not timely. ⁓ so one of the biggest mistakes you can make is just being silent or being ambiguous. ⁓ and then we heard that positive feedback is not just fluffy stuff. It's really like the fuel that helps someone understand when they're getting it right. It puts those marbles in the jar. ⁓ and it's how you really tailor appreciation. to the individual. Absolutely. So if recognition isn't a regular part of your rhythm, then your feedback isn't going to land in a consistent way. Did I miss anything else? Speaker 1: really great recap. And I think hopefully this was like food for thought. It we planted a seed to help people feel a little bit more comfortable around the concept of feedback and how to do it well and where we get it wrong. So we can watch out for that. But I think that there's probably more to learn and more for us to learn too, which we can continue sharing. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ do you have any recommended reading or resources for our listeners? Speaker 1: Well, I think you would probably say that we need to all read Radical Candor by Ken. Yes. And then ⁓ one that has been on my bookshelf for a long time. And so I'm saying it out loud in front of whoever is watching so they can hold me accountable. I need to read Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone. I think that and ⁓ Sheila Heen, I think that would be a really great one for me. And then of course, anything about Brene Brown, but especially Dare to Lead, I think that's where you can really dig into courage and ⁓ how clear is kind, unclear is unkind. Speaker 2: Absolutely love it. Speaker 1: And then of course I mentioned ⁓ most recently Gary Chapman and Paul White's book, The Languages of Appreciation. And they have a free assessment on their website that you can take to understand what yours is and have all of your teammates take it too, so that you can understand what their language of appreciation is as well. Speaker 2: Awesome. I love that. so with that, that's our episode. ⁓ thanks for joining. If this resonated with you at all, if you would like some additional resources for having those development conversations or ⁓ constructive conversations, please reach out to us on our website, successlabs.com. Follow us on social. Melissa has a great communication guide that you can find on our website that she's teased on social as well. And Is there anything else I need to say, Kelly? And that's it. Speaker 1: Happy feedback sessions. Speaker 2: Yay!