E018: Feedback 1

This is the world of work podcast with James. And

hi. This is James and Jane, and here we are, Episode 18. Wow, wow. Wow. World of Work. Podcast

still here, yep. January 2019 when we're doing this pretty exciting time for us. We actually, we're doing two today at the same time. So we actually just finished the episode on stand up meetings and huddles, I say, just finished. It was like, you know, an hour ago or something, but a nice little chat and catch up. And what are you saying, James, we deviate from what we meant to be talking about. You never know what you're referring to. Sometimes that happens.

So yeah, so we're getting ready to go with this episode, Episode 18. We're going to be focusing on feedback. And just a bit of a heads up, there is a huge amount to say about feedback. So as a special treat to everybody, we've got a stopwatch up and running. We're going to try and keep to the point a little bit more following some of the guidance from the session that we did on huddles about focusing and all that stuff. We'll see if we can do it. But before we jump into it as usual, you can get in touch with us. You can use the usual thing. So welcome to Twitter. They can tweet us at the wild podcast, and thank you to those who are already tweeting us. Yeah, it is nice, isn't it? It's lovely. And what about the website? Any thoughts on that? Where can they find? Www dot wild podcast.org, wild podcast.org, yeah, that's right up and running. And you know, we'll do the usual thing, we'll stick some slides up, we'll stick up a web page for people to look at with some content on feedback, yeah, and just an early reassurance we are going to go through quite a lot today. Yeah, we're going to come back to some of the sections of feedback in future episodes and talk about some of the stuff in more detail, because we're really conscious that it's quite a big area. And certainly when I chatting to people, it's something people worry about quite a lot, of course. So I think there's quite a lot to go that we can shed some light on Yeah, I think so it's a starter, right? It's an eye opener for feedback, something like that. Absolutely, we're going to do it in the usual way. So we're going to kick off with a definition discussion. We've got some great definitions for you this week, some of our better ones anyway. Then we'll go on to our tongue twisters. We've got tongue twisters. Yeah? Nice bit of alliteration. Then we'll go on to research Roundup. And in research Roundup, we're going to do a few things that hopefully you guys find interesting. So we're going to start by looking at what the purpose of feedback really is. We're going to reflect on the role of feedback in relation to performance management and assessment. And then we're going to go into some things that I think are really interesting about feedback. So, why is feedback hard? You know, everyone finds it hard. Why is that? What are some of the challenges there? Then we're going to flip things up a little bit. We're going to start by focusing on learning to receive feedback. We think that's really important. So quite often when people think about feedback, they look up feedback models, they look at how to give people feedback. But really, we want to focus initially on how do you receive feedback, because we think that's a great starting point. And then once we've talked a little bit about receiving feedback, we'll go back to the more traditional view of, how do you give feedback? And we'll focus on a few, a few sort of models that people can take as a starting point. But of course, you know, I mean, you guys need to go out and learn more yourselves and all that stuff, so it's just a starter. Is that fair? Is that fair, that it's a start? So yeah, I think that sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, cool. And then we'll be rounding up, as always, with our list the week,

some stories from the keyboard, of which we'll try to make it not too painful this week, because feedback stories nice. And then check it out, saying, See you later, catch you next week. Folks,

alright? Event? Do you want to? Do you want to share some of our fine definitions? So as always, kicking off the show with some definition discussion and some of the terminology that we talk about, I've got to manage to get my tongue around these words, some of them. So when we talk about feedback, what are we talking about? We're talking about information, about reactions or opinions of a product person's performance,

their behaviors, and usually it's used as the basis for improvement, or it should be. I think we're going to talk later about when it gets used for other things.

Then we've got sort of more specifics around things like positive feedback. So that is about very specifically, stuff that tends to magnify a process increases output. It tends to be, we're talking about it, in a sense of where you are trying to be,

magnify something that's going well, yeah, it's easy to describe it. And then thinking about.

Negative feedback, which sometimes can be specifically constructive, sometimes it's corrective.

I'm currently training a puppy, and we talk about corrective feedback quite a lot. Yeah, yeah. And the negative feedback in business is mostly related to either employee feedback or customer feedback, and with an particularly

with the employee, employer relationship, tends to be looking at whether the workforce and individuals are doing everything they need within their job to deliver the best results, whether they're performing at an optimum level. I guess these way describe it. My personal, I'm not gonna say favorite

rant causing strong opinion, giving subjective 360 degree feedback. Those of you who do know trigger warning, everybody, oh man, if you have had or been part of a 360 degree feedback process, you will have opinions without questions. I love it. Some hate it,

but for those who don't know, it's a method of performance appraisal, and the idea is it gathers feedback from 360 degrees around the individual, or 360 degrees around the product. So you might get it from your peers, but people also who are direct reports, and people who are your line managers, and sometimes customers. I infamously, was once asked to contribute to a 720 degree feedback. Wow, I know what is that? Yeah, it was a family member, alright, yeah. I So, I Yeah, and a I thought, how, what a gimmick. Yeah, it is. It is

1080 feedback. Oh, yeah, right. How many more? I mean, it's literally, like 11 hours, yeah, watching a parody. I'm gonna give 120% to that. So how intrusive, right? How intrusive on someone's personal family life, to ask them, to ask them, to identify family members, to give feedback on them. I just, I was baffling to me. Yeah, tough. So intervention stuff, isn't it? Oh, it's just anyway, deeply uncomfortable about it, and just about the role of work anyway, and how they would view that. And then the other two to talk about, probably are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. So positive reinforcement is the offering of desirable effects or consequences for a behavior with intention of increasing the chance of that behavior being repeated. The best example that I've heard is what James said earlier to me when we were discussing it, which is, basically, you do something I don't like or want you to do. I nag you. You stop doing it. I stop nagging right? And that would be

a negative reinforcement, all right. So that is, when you do something someone doesn't like, they want it to stop, so they change what they do. So if I just sit here and go, Hmm, and you've got a grand speaker with that, right? Yeah. I mean, if you want to try and stop me talking, the problem is it tends to, and that's a really good example, because the problem is, it tends to create completely different reactions as well. Yeah, you reactions as well. Yeah, you can be surprised in the face. Not like that, not today. And positive reinforcement. The example would be, you know, bringing some sweeties into the office every day that we hit target, because people have been nice to everyone with answer the phone within it's kind of Pavlovian, isn't it? Right? Like, things are bad when you don't do something good, things are good. When you do something good, it's brief second. We're just coming back from a long break, right? So I should say that I'm a little bit rusty. No, I did. That'd be a great reward for

and so it is, I think it's, it's important for us to understand when we move on to the other stuff that we're going to talk about, because I don't want to get deeply into it. But certainly,

feedback has multiple purposes, and I'm not always sure that that's that alone is the best way to change behavior. Yeah, yeah. I think that's right, and I think that's part of the reason that we're talking about reinforcement. So reinforcements an extra thing that can support feedback as a toolkit for changing the way that people work. And in the episode, when we're speaking about feedback, we're focusing really on individuals, as opposed to products and things like that. So it fits across all those areas. Yeah, but I think where people in the world work generally, look for help with feedback. It's around managing performance, managing helping people develop, managing relationships in the organization, behaviors, ways of working, productivity, isn't it? Because, like, generally, products don't have feelings, no. And that's where it comes from. Although I have a conversation about feedback in the context of robots in the future. Oh, yeah, okay. I think that's going to be really in 2020, 2020, well, we've not had to, we can have a chat about it again. No, no, no, yeah, I'm not ready for robots. Sorry, but there it is. I am. I'm not ready. I'm kind of excited. Are you? Yeah, I'm really excited. Anyway, we'll come back to that. We'll do a whole episode.

Overnight. Yeah, so should we move on to research roundups? I know, yeah, I think second I'd like to, but I just had, I guess, one question. I want to chuck you first and see what you think, in light of the definitions we've had there. Do you think, or what do you think the role of doing nothing is? Do you think if you're a leader and you do nothing, but that is feedback, or where does that fit within influencing the behaviors of those around you. What's your thought on that? I don't know what my thought is really but I will tell you a story about something quite specific. So I had a specific behavior. Well, it's not, was it behavior? Anyway, I had an issue with my performance in one specific area around my productivity. And it was, it was, it wasn't procrastination, but it's similar. Anyway, me and

my boss had, oh so boring. How many conversations we had about it? We he was bored of talking about it. I was bored of talking about it. He tried loads stuff, and one year, and I mean the year, because I was, he was my boss for four years, five years more than that. One year, he just said, You know what, let's not talk about this year. Let's just forget it. You've worked really hard on it. Let's just not it. Let's just not worry about it this year. Yeah. And let's just talk about the stuff. And if you let's talk about other stuff. You can prove because you're bored of it, I'm bored of it, and it was the most I mean, I didn't get much better, but I haven't got much better any other year, right? And it was the most liberating thing for our relationship, for him, not to have to constantly tell me off about it. Yeah, I use tell me off loosely. He never told me. Yeah, you know what I mean. And for me not to have to constantly feel guilty and ashamed of the fact that I hadn't improved, it unbelievable. So in that sense of doing nothing, it can be incredibly powerful when people know you're doing nothing, yeah, okay, that's interesting. I think there's a bit extra around it as well. I think you know, if you're a leader, I think if you don't give feedback in some instances, then sometimes it feels like you can be giving tacit agreement. Do you know what I mean, like if or tacit disprove or tacit disapproval? Yeah, so you can. So I think there's something in there. I think I think there's something about not providing feedback, being feedback in itself. It like when you don't provide feedback, it creates permissiveness about certain things that I would 100% agree with, unless it's a deliberate choice to not. So, for example, where you sort of say, You know what, we're just not we're not going to have it's been a really stressful transition. We've lost three people. We don't it's done, yeah, and how have you behaved? And how have you didn't behave? We've either already had a conversation.

But I think generally, yeah, I think it's absolutely the way that I see behavior, poor behavior in teams, creep is usually because I leave that and cool down. Did you use an analogy one time about like a balloon or something? Was that? Yes. So I one of the analogies I use quite often about

and it works with performance as well as behavior and all of that. The idea is that if you are inflating a balloon, yeah, and

if you don't keep pushing it back, if you don't keep containing that balloon, it will expand, expand. It will take up all the space in the team. And if that's a negative behavior, and you allow it, and you don't keep pushing it back, yeah. Then it just, it gets everywhere, and it gets into everything every little time. When you imagine it, if you imagine popping a balloon into a space, yeah, it fills that box. So the square watermelons, they grow out of exactly that, right? The watermelon of feedback, right?

So that would be me. So that's my analogy. Yeah, okay, cool. All right, well, yeah, so I think there's something in there. I think, you know, feedback is important, and I think if you don't deliver feedback, there are consequences of that as well. So I think it's important when you do it, and it's important when you don't do it. So I guess it's important who does it, yeah, I'm gonna get onto that. Yeah, it is really important. It's sometimes it's not your place, yeah?

All right. So then let us jump on to a bit of research. Round up. So purpose of feedback, development and performance, why it's hard how to receive it, and some thoughts on how to give it, is what we're going to try and do. So we're going to hammer through these. Hopefully

they are of interest to you. So part one, what is the purpose of feedback? Okay? So feedback has multiple different purposes, and people sometimes conflate them. The one that's most often in people's mind is particularly in relation to giving feedback to people, is around helping to develop or change behaviors or, to some extent, skills, right? So it's about trying to increase positive aspects of somebody's delivery and capability and things like that, while at the same time reducing negatives. So in that sense, it's a really positive thing to receive. It's somebody helping you be better at what you do, and helping you stop the things that aren't useful and helpful, right? So part one is around developing and changing behaviors. Another purpose of feedback, which is, I think, a separate one, is to provide information around evaluation as the language that some people use, and so this is a sort of comparative feedback. And the purpose of this feedback is to let you know, as an individual, how you're doing.

Compared to your your peer group, or how you're doing against the expectations for your delivery. So this is a placement piece of feedback that helps you understand your relative performance, but that's a different purpose than is the helping you develop and change your behaviors. And last purpose for feedback is a really around celebration. So, you know, gives you time to celebrate and reflect, and through that mutual celebration, that's a relationship building tool as well. So I think those are the three core purposes of feedback that we've seen when we've when we've looked into this little bit. And I want to jump straight on to the next point here, which is around the role of feedback in development, which is really our first point there, around developing and changing behaviors versus performance management. Have you got anything your eyes just kind of, I'm letting you, I'm no, I'm letting you give your say first, alright, because,

because I think that's before I ran, you can take some deep breaths while I do this. We've got a brown paper bag somewhere. You can breathe into that for a bit, and then we'll, move on. So, so development versus performance management, what's, what's the role of feedback? So for me, in my experience, when feedback is really about helping individuals develop and supporting them to better performance, then it's valued and it's effective and it's helpful, or at least it can be. It has the potential of being those things. However, there's another time when when feedback pops up, and this is kind of about the comparative performance purpose of feedback that we spoke about earlier, and when feedback is really about performance management or justifying somebody's position, and it becomes a bureaucratic task associated with sorting and alignment to buckets and things like bonus allocation and things like that, then it can become quite toxic. So when it's that case, it becomes about justification of feedback and placement and ceases to be about good intentions and helping development. And when that's the case, I think people cease trust. They stop to trust the messages. They don't look at coaching opportunities through them and opportunities to improve themselves, and things fall down. So in my view, feedback has a great role in development, but it becomes much more difficult when it's a performance management piece, and I personally look to buy for Kate for two if it were mine. That's a very fancy word. I know I did a little hand gesture as well for all of you on the phone. Yes, if you hadn't been the hand gesture, I wouldn't even know what you meant, split into bifurcate. Yeah, yeah.

Is that giving you time to No, not really. No. I'm so. So the one of the best blessings in my entire life was that I worked eight years with someone who agreed with you that they should be split

because it's just a nonsense. It is a nonsense to conflate feedback and performance management. These are two completely separate things. Sometimes you will need to accumulate or combine all your feedback that you've given over a year in order to create something that is meaningful for someone else in the organization, to be able to make some decisions on it, or to make recommendations. Fine, the relationship that you build as a manager or a leader with the people that you are managing or leading needs to include an open way for everyone to give feedback. If it doesn't, you're not good enough. End of you are not good enough. So there's a really big thing for me about this, and it really upsets me.

You need to it to well, we'll get on to giving receiving feedback in the moment. But there is an assumption in all of this, right? And the assumption is that everyone needs to believe they are not the finished product,

right? And that is the starting point for all of this. We'll talk about growth mindsets and stuff like that. Yeah, we will at some point, but it's but it is really, even before you get to that none of us are perfect, right? And that needs to be articulated by leaders and managers day in, day out. They are not perfect, right? Um, because as soon as everyone is not perfect, everyone's got room to get better, right? Totally. And as soon as everyone's got room to get better, it's okay to let people know how they can do that quickest. And people are so much more comfortable with it. But as soon as you associate it with money, with positions with with positions of authority, with job titles, with anything that you have a vested interest in as a manager of media, and you do because your budgets and things like that, and people aren't stupid, right? As soon as you do that, you undermine the process of helping someone totally. People have to believe that you are doing it for them, you are helping them, and they only believe that if A, it's two way street and B, you haven't got any other benefits. Yeah, at all. And if you, if you look at it from a perspective of people seeking feedback, if I know it's for performance management, I don't care about the messages I want to get from the people that I know, 360 or otherwise, the messages that support my case. But I'm good. I don't care about anything else. That's why I'm doing it. So I'll ask for people who I think will give me the best things. I'll work in certain ways to.

You know, ensure that I get the best messages. I might edit messages, but I'm not listening to them while we're on this feedback. And we've mentioned 360 and you put it up, sorry. So bad about this, right? If you work in a small or medium sized organization, do not use 360 degree feedback. Just don't find another way to do it. Because do not for one minute believe that other people in the team don't know who's giving feedback support, because we recognize writing styles, we recognize the words, we recognize how we know how people feel about us. So if you've gone and asked someone about how they feel about me, I am going to dismiss it if I've got a poor relationship with them instantly. Yeah, so we'll talk about that relationship. Yeah. So, so, so just performance management and feedback are two separate things, right? Sorry, I'm just so mad. I think increasingly the world's moving that way. Which is good? Do you I do? I think, I think a lot of organizations are changing performance management for various reasons.

I've had the three degree degree feedback in the last 12 months from various people in different organizations. Definitely aren't going to happen. Tell them to step back to the nods, right? I mean, I think that's a bit of a piece of work once. Now

I thought, surprisingly, there we go. Well, yeah, okay, all right. So anyway, you can tell development, performance management and a mode of topic, and I think it is in many places. So maybe some of you guys to discuss in your your places of work as well. Yeah. Do you know, genuinely, if anyone is out there and manages people and has an effective way of combining feedback, process and Performance Management, and hasn't experienced challenges, I would love to know, yeah, because I've never seen it done. Yeah. All right, so now we're going to drill in a little bit more and get to

maybe slightly deeper reflection on the feedback process itself. So what I want to talk about now is, you know, we've said that when it's performance management related, it can be a bit toxic and things like that, but when it's really about helping develop and helping change behaviors and helping people improve feedback is a really positive thing, right? And people should value it, and you should value giving it. It's your opportunity to help somebody be better, right? So there's a lot of positivity around feedback in that context, but nonetheless,

it's really it's difficult. Everybody finds it difficult. It's difficult to give feedback, it's difficult to listen and receive feedback. So it's worth reflecting on why that is right. You know, I'm not sure that people really do take time to think about what makes feedback difficult. They just know it's hard, it's uncomfortable, and that's enough. But the reason, and sorry, before I go on, a lot of this is from a woman called Sheila heen, I think is how you pronounce it, h, w, N, Sheila heen,

so, so the reason feedback is difficult is that people have conflicting needs, right? As a receiver of feedback, we've got conflicting needs. One we know that we want to develop, so we kind of want the feedback for that, but at the same time, we want to be accepted for who we are, you know, we want to be valued and, you know, maintain our status and have pride and and all those positive things that are associated with being good at what we do. So we've got that conflict between developing and being good as we are. And what that kind of means is that when we receive feedback, we can find it threatening. So it can be challenging. It can undermine our sense of goodness and sensibility in ourselves. And actually, what happens with that is it can trigger the sort of amygdala response that we spoke about in one of our earlier episodes on emotional intelligence, sometimes known as threat response. So amygdala response to threat response, basically what happens is feedback has the ability to create a situation to which your brain responds in the same way that it responds to physical threats. So you get overwhelmed with emotions and you don't you know, you go into a fight or flight tech response and things like that. And for feedback, there are three different sort of routes through which feedback can have that impact on you. So Sheila speaks about truth triggers, relationship triggers and identity triggers.

So in order, truth triggers are related to the content that's delivered. So if you receive a message that you think is maybe wrong or unfair or unhelpful or unsubstantiated or all those types of things, you can feel that you're you're kind of

wronged. You know, there's unfairness in the world. This isn't right. This is wrong. You can become indignant, and through that, you can become kind of angry and unresponsive, and that threat mechanism can come out. And of course, when the threat mechanism comes out, you don't listen, you don't see value, you just get emotional about it. So that truth trigger associated to content and validity of content is the first area. The second area is around relationship triggers. So you can, you can have your threat response triggered based on the relationship that the person that you have with the person providing feedback. So you might say to yourself, and you might Who are you to give me this feedback? Right? What have you ever done? I don't like you anyway. You don't have any credibility, you don't have any status, all those types of things. So you might.

I have a bit of a threat response based on your relationship with the individual. So if somebody I think of as junior to me, or whatever lower status in a social order provides me feedback, I might feel that my status is really threatened, or, you know, different things like that. So your relationship triggers can kick in and initiate a threat response, and then the last one is around identity triggers. And these can can be really difficult. So the identity triggers is effectively saying somebody gives me a piece of feedback, and I hear it and I accept it, and suddenly I'm not who I thought I was right. So, so my self perception, my truth, was based on a set of assumptions, and at the point a set of knowledge around who I am and how I deliver, and you're telling me that that's not true. So the anchors on which I base myself and my personality are flawed, and that can make me feel empty, right? It can make me feel vulnerable, it can make me feel confused, it can make me feel uncertain. And through all that stuff, I can get my defense mechanisms up. And certainly, I mean, if I'm going through, to some extent, a sort of existential crisis based on my identity being undermined, I'm not going to listen when you tell me something nice, or you start to say, Hmm, how can we get better at that? Right? I mean, this can be a really big thing. So, you know, though, feedback can be positive. Even if it's positive, it can lead to these threat responses and be really difficult to respond. Yeah. And I think, I think the other thing I would add in, which is is very related to why you get such extreme reactions, is when it's true and that person knows it, yeah. So I've, I've been given feedback and given I've been in both situations for this, where the feedback has been accurate, it's been appropriate, it's been in a trusted relationship, and there's still been monstrous amounts of tears on both sides. Actually. Sometimes, yeah, it can be and that's because sometimes we're not good enough. Sometimes, particularly if you get very self aware people who are very conscious, as I've worked with, a couple of people who are incredibly self aware and way harder on themselves than I have ever been as their manager. Yeah, they beat themselves up 10 times a day more than I do, so I have to be really careful anyway. Yeah, and then when you have to give them critical feedback, and it's true and it's something they have feared, yeah, because,

and then they're told it can be very it's emotional, right? Sometimes it's exotic, sometimes it's acknowledging. Sometimes it's horrible for them because they're like, Well, I thought that was bad, but I'd kind of convinced myself I was doing okay, yeah. And that can be really, really hard, and I it's much quicker to get past than those other ones, but it's equally emotional, I think, equally difficult, and I think and that stuff kind of starts, you know, we did a change curve, a couple of episodes here, but kind of like self challenge stuff can start with change curve without question. To me that that stuff can be really close, personal, psychological change. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. So, so that's why feedback so difficult, or some of the reasons why it can be. And what we're going to do now is we're going to go on and talk about being better at feedback. But to do that, as I said earlier, we're gonna we're gonna focus first on learning to receive feedback, right? I genuinely believe that to be good at giving feedback, which is what most people look for training on in relation to feedback, to be good, you need to do the hard, hard yards of learning to receive feedback. You need to put yourself through the shoes, be able to manage it, and then through the experience of developing your own ability to receive feedback, build out your style and capability to deliver feedback. Well, to do it so it's effective, so that messages land, but so that you do in an empathetic way as well. I would completely agree with that, pop quiz, quiz, pop quiz for you, it's not quiz question. At the beginning of your career, out of 10, how good were you at taking feedback?

I probably wasn't very good, genuinely, mainly because I was kind of, like robustly self confident. So it just kind of bounced off, which meant, in reality, I was dreadful at it, yeah? But at the same time, I probably didn't present as if I was dreadful at it. Does that make sense? Yeah, you didn't take it. You think that? Go for it. And what about now?

What about now? I'm I'm better at it, and I think a lot of it is experience and practice and recognition of some of my own flaws every time they've worn me down. I believe it

Okay, so I think I've gotten better at it actually. So I am radically better, and it's predominantly to do with a rise in self confidence and also a rise in self awareness. And it has to be both of those,

super confident about what I am good at, but I'm super comfortable with what I'm terrible at, yeah. And therefore it's much easier to take it Yeah, because I recognize there's a whole load of stuff I'm no good at, yeah, yeah. And I probably went, like, through a bit of a curve of sort of imperviousness to start with, then sort of not so good as I had some Oh, you see, whereas everything was the end of the world for me, yeah? Yeah, toilets, privately and crying every single time, whatever,

different approaches, ladies and gentlemen, taking feedback, neither are helpful. No yourself in the toilet and not talking to anyone, yeah? Similarly, ignoring Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, yeah, good question. I guess. The reason I'm asking is, I just want to, I kind of want to shout out to all of you start early careerists. It gets easier. It does. It really does, much easier to take feedback. What however hard it feels right now, or however challenged you feel, depending on your James or Jane approach, it does get a promise. It really does. That was a great question.

All right, so if we're going to focus on learning to receive feedback, how do we do that? How do you get better at actually seeing through some of the challenges that come with emotional responses to feedback and being better at it? And we're going to tell you. How about that for a little treat, we've got, actually seven points here. Again, some of the stuff is sort of sheer the heen related, but there's a bit of a bolt on and a bit of a reinterpretation of some of it, but basically it's based on her work. So as ever a bit of a source. Check it out. Make up your own mind. I would definitely, definitely, I know I said this sometimes, but particularly this week, the slides are really helpful. Because actually, in real time, you could sit down with these slides and they would be enough to think about how you might just pick one or two things to get better at each time you give it, yeah. Help you development panel. Yeah, good. All right. So, as I said, seven stages. So, so part one, and this applies to lots of things, is just work on your emotional intelligence. You know, back when I was impervious to feedback, I probably wasn't the most self aware and emotionally

intelligent. What are you saying, James?

But you know, the more you understand your emotions and have control of them, for better, you'll be coping with these potentially emotionally challenging things. You'll know that you'll have an emotional response to something. You'll be better at managing your way through that feedback piece, and you'll be able to remain calm throughout the receipt of feedback process, you'll be able to assess stuff more clearly. You'll be able to make more rational choices about accepting or rejecting feedback. You'll be able to have better conversations to understand it, all that stuff. So work on your emotional intelligence is step one.

Step two is kind of related to it, but more specifically focused on feedback. And this is, learn how you react to feedback. So pretty much everybody responds to feedback in different ways. Some people will receive feedback and they'll justify it away immediately. So the little voice in their head will say, Yeah, but that was a special extenuating circumstance then, oh, and there was an extenuating one then, and they'll justify their way out of it. Or some people will in their mind, say, oh, yeah, but, but you're much worse at that. So I don't need to listen to that, right? So people respond to feedback in different ways. Some people will say, Oh my god, I'm so dreadful. I'm a dreadful person. I must be dreadful, whatever. So, so people have their own sort of mind talk type responses to feedback. I quit once, did you? Yeah, I quit because of some feedback. I was like, I can't do this job, I'm not good enough. My boss went, and then I cried, and my boss went, you are good enough, yeah, you've just made a mistake. Yeah, it's fine, yeah, gave me half consent. Off you go. Yeah. Well, there we go, yeah, and we wouldn't recommend quitting. No, please don't that I gave that example. Being

aware of how seriously I took it and allowed me to deal with it later, absolutely. So I was a bit more prepared, and also my boss was a bit more prepared. Yeah, might take it to heart. Yeah, yeah. So learning how you react just helps you prepare for your responses as you say, and know what you'll do. So stage two is learning how to react, or step two, step three is trying to focus on separating the message from the individual. So when you're in these conversations, it's really hard, because the words are coming out of this person's mouth, right? And like they're so embodied in that individual, but it's hard sometimes to think of the words as separate from that individual. And even if you really hate people or think somebody's an idiot, they might have some really good stuff to say. You know, you really shouldn't care whether good messages come from, but that's an inhuman thing to do, to separate that instinctively in the moment. So practicing that's really good and separating the message from the person's really powerful way to, you know, sift for nuggets of gold in the riverbed of messages. I don't know, I was going to use some other words there, but I think they're not appropriate for clean podcasts. I think it's a really, really, really important part, because there's, there's two parts that one, as a recipient, you're making it easier on the giver, because you're allowing them to approach it as a joint, shared piece of information.

But also from your own perspective, you're much more, much more likely to take that feedback for the work that has, yeah, good or bad, yeah. So my problem was always taking all feedback from someone I respected is true, and actually, sometimes they didn't, yeah, they might need feedback as well, very occasionally.

So you know, with that, you might want to, you know, even if you're in the meeting, you might just want to, like, capture the words and take them away and write them down.

And reflect on them away from a person, things like that to help separate them. So that's point 3.4. I think, kind of links to the point that you had there and and this is around

making sure that you look for the coaching and all the messages you get when we receive particularly more negative or constructive or corrective feedback, we can see negativity

and sort of challenging that. But in lots of instances, with those messages comes an opportunity to improve yourself, to coach yourself to be better at what you did. So try and focus on that right? And if you can always look through that coaching lens, then it makes it easier for you to see positivity, and makes it easier to for you to respond well to feedback and take advantage of the good messages for that

point five is around making sure you understand your feedback before you act on it. So when people are communicating with each other and giving feedback, people use shortcuts in language all the time, right? So I'll say something, and I've got this really complex, nuanced situation that's been going on for two weeks to do with your performance or behaviors, and I'll give you a two sentence piece of feedback on it, but, but, or 10 sentences, whatever, that condenses a whole lot of information down into really small communication. And with that comes, I think the word technically is probably like entropy around lots of information through communication and and so you have this really small message. And so what's happened there is, I've condensed this complexity into a small message. You've received it, then you need to UN condense it through your whole, you know, history of being and stuff, so you reinterpret it in a different way. It's just horribly reductive to a person. It is, yeah, you know, if a person is as complex as we all know people are, why on earth would you be so try is to give them a two sentence speaker or something that's really difficult, yeah, just nonsense. And if you're everyone receiving it, you're not going to get a clear message. So to be better at receiving it, what you need to do is you need to understand it. So you need to ask questions about the feedback. You need to delve into it. You need to explore it with a person. You need to look for more examples. And you just need to really get clear on what's actually being said, and that helps you overcome your own assumptions and the way that you know. One of the things I would say about that is it's really hard, and it comes with the emotional intelligence part, and also it comes with a little bit self discipline, is try really, really hard to note and moderate your tone when you're taking feedback and you're asking questions, because it is important to ask those questions, but they can sound but they can sound defensive without meaning to it. And so what do you mean by that? So, except. Can you give me more? So the classic, more examples that, yeah. So when did I do that? And that can be, that can be except, and okay, I did it. Firstly, yes, they should have examples, but they're, they're probably not their best right now, either. Yeah. So one of the really positive things that I've had experience of when someone's received feedback from me is

thank you. I don't I'd like to go away and reflect on that, but also just to help me, would it be okay if I came back with you and send you some questions, just so I can really understand what I need to do? And that is incredibly powerful as a recipient to a giver, incredible because it you're basically saying to the giver, I take what you're saying. I'm not accepting it wholeheartedly, but I am absolutely you're credible, and I

but I do need to process it, and I think, I think that that is a great signal as a recipient. If you're not ready for something, you're like, Whoa. I was not expecting that, just asking for some time, but leaving the door open to ask your questions. Do it in a nice way. It's a really thoughtful way, and it tends to prevent you from going give me more answers. Yeah. And if you know that you're prone to that kind of stuff, maybe prepare your your prepare that message in advance, like if you're going to feedback thing, if you think that might happen a little bit. There's a phrase for the for the look I get, and it's not reflective how I feel. I can't say it, but an equivalently resting mean face, yes, resting mean face and and that's I will look like that. Even if I'm broken down and upset insider, still look like that. So I have to be really careful to look Smiley. Yeah, thank you for that feedback. Yeah. Okay, so cracking on. Point seven, this is one I really like. It's about being on the front foot regarding feedback. So if you're seeking feedback, you know, it's all about receiving feedback. To be on the front foot means to control that feedback a little bit more. So instead of waiting for people to give you feedback, and maybe it happens quarterly or something, and you get a fair amount of it, then instead, be on the front foot, you know, go out and ask for feedback and kind of have it be on your terms. And don't ask for a whole lot. Ask for, you know, one piece of feedback every two weeks, and take it in bite sized chunks, but you can manage. And by asking for it yourself, you're kind of owning it. So the more you're on your front foot regarding feedback, the better of a relationship you'll have with it, and the more you'll listen and be able to absorb this. That was, that was always my, my secret weapon, yeah, so I would always ask to kick off my reviews and any feedback conversations with Can I tell you what I think has I haven't done brilliantly, and then maybe you fill in blanks, yeah? Because it's a doesn't demonstrate your thoughtful and you are taking on and you're looking.

For improvement, but also it makes it much quicker, because I can go without any emotion I've already thought and processed. I'm not good at this, this and this, yeah? And it also gives your the giver, an opportunity for positive where they can go actually, I don't think you're that bad about being hard on yourself. It's this that I'm really worried about blindside, yeah.

But you know, at least you feel like you've demonstrated a thoughtfulness. Yeah, that's true. And then the last point that we had around receiving feedback is around experimenting with the messages that you've got, that you've get,

be better at English. This one the messages that you've received or been given. You know, I guess two things. One, just because you've been given feedback doesn't mean that you need to accept it, right? And just because you accept feedback doesn't mean that it's true. So, so when you're responding to feedback, advice is not to change wholeheartedly. Rather, it's to do a little experiment. So if you've accepted a piece of feedback, instead of changing everything based on it, maybe change a little bit, and do it in a safe space and see if it leads to better results. So change the way you work with a certain group of people. If it leads to a positive result, then great, go on and accept that as feedback and roll it out more widely.

But Don't, don't fully embrace feedback, or don't fully change on the basis of feedback, I think is a big thing, so understand where it's coming from and who it's coming from. Yeah, because I think, you know, we don't redesign products because one person doesn't like them exactly, but if that person has a far bigger role and is important, it is important to understand why and how, yeah, and manage relationships, right? It goes to me, this whole thing goes full circle back to step one, which is then emotional intelligence, which is experiment and be honest with yourself, yeah, when that, when you actually, you know, give it a proper try, and then, if it works, great. Yeah,

cool. Okay, so that's a little bit on receiving feedback. So I would argue, yeah, I would not argue. I would reinforce what you said. If you could have only got time to read one of these slides, and if you've only got time to do one thing, you one thing try and prove the way you get feedback, because you will become so much better at giving it through pure empathy. Yeah, that you killed two birds of one stone. Yeah? Giving feedback without an understanding of how how you receive it is just pointless. Yeah, it's not going to work as well at all. But

speaking about that, should we go over and speak about giving feedback now? Yes, I mean, we can. I mean, you know, right? We'll do we'll do it quickly. We will Okay. I'll try. Okay, so we've got, as I said earlier, you know, people, when they look at or look for content on feedback, they generally want to be better at giving feedback. So we've brought to this class. You want to put one more better or they think want to be what they want it to be easier for them.

I think, I think they want it to be easier for them, but I think they also probably want a bit more stickiness of message. Do you know what I mean? I don't think either of those things are about being better at it. Well, yeah, I think, I think it's always about the givers outcomes. I think I think predominantly, predominantly it is. I think a lot of people, when they search for that, they look for their own outcomes, as opposed to my, of all of this, I and we're going to Jameson and talk through three models. I'm not a big believer in models when it comes to feedback, my number one suggestion to you would be give feedback for the right reason. I help someone, and you probably not got wrong, yeah, genuinely want to help that person. I suspect you won't go wrong in the whole process. Yeah, and treat them like an adult. If you do both those things, I'd say you've got to, yeah, be aligned to them. All right, I'll let you have that second. Yay. You got a model, yay.

All right. Okay, quickly. So, yeah, so we're gonna rattle through these fairly quickly. And the reason we're gonna do it fairly quickly is we think the interesting bit of this is about learning to receive and the points that Jane said. And you know what? You can find models for feedback online and you can teach them. Yeah, so we're gonna just really quickly fly through three. That's the hard sentence. Fly through three. Fly through three Yes,

all right, we won't be doing that then. Okay, so model number one, the feedback sandwich, aka the beep sandwich.

So this is out there. People use it. We say, just don't use it. We'll tell you what it is, and then we'll move on quickly. So the feedback sandwich is a bit of an old model. It says, deliver a positive message, then deliver a more negative, constructive or corrective message, then close with a positive message, yay. We say that's a really bad idea for multiple reasons. One, some people know it's happening and think it's disingenuous. Two, people don't hear the constructive message because they take away the positive things, which is fair enough, yeah, and you've given them two positives and one constructive way, you know. And the third thing is, it's not fair on the people you're speaking to, because if people don't hear the message, then you know what, they're not going to change. And then six months down the line, you'll say, Oh, well, you haven't got any better. You're really doing bad. And I say, Well, you never told me to and I say, Yeah, I did back when I told.

You as really positive things, and you didn't listen, and then you're in a mess. So and I would say sorry as well, which is that if you do it, unless you are super clever, you will find yourself rushing the constructive so even as a giver, you will be poor at it, because you don't want to tell them that. Yeah, the only reason people use this model in the first place is they don't want to tell people the bad news. So then they rush through the bad news, and then that's even harder for the person to negotiate. It's the 20 minutes you told them that they were brilliant, just so you told them the bad bit. Yeah? So just, just don't do it. Don't, don't, don't. Throw it out. Yeah, don't do that. Key message, we're being controversial today. Okay, just throw it out. Get rid of it. Don't use it. It's not your toolbox anymore. No, all right. The next one is called the SBI model, which is Situation, Behavior, Impact. This is quite

I guess it's a useful thing to have in your toolbox, because it's a bit more direct. And you know, this is about trying to ensure that people recognize and accept feedback when it's deliberative. And that's kind of what it's about. So three stages, SBI, stage one, situation, stage two, behavior. Stage three, impact. So when giving feedback, you don't beat around the bush with positive, negative, whatever. You just go and you've got your message, and you say, you know, I want to start by focusing on a situation. So you introduce a situation and say, you know, do you remember in that instance when this happened? Sorry, in that instance, with a specific situation. We were in this meeting, and Jane spoke over you, whatever it happened to be situation. And then you move on to behaviors. And here you describe a specific observed action or behavior in factual terms, but somebody's done so this should be things you've seen yourself. So in that meeting, when Jane spoke over you, I noticed that you became totally quiet and switched off and started looking at your phone, whatever. That's a specific behavior. So let's call out that behavior. And then the last point is impact. And so the message, what you're trying to say, is, what is the impact of that behavior? And in this instance, I've made this example up, so I'm not terribly proud of

it. I noticed in that meeting, when Jane spoke over you, you became disengaged and switched off and looked at your phone. Situation behavior impact, which meant that everybody else was uncomfortable, and nobody paid attention to the meeting, and everybody didn't do a good job, whatever. So have you been in my bad meetings? I'm just telepathizing.

So so the purpose of this is to define a situation so people can really be clear on where it was, and that's a genuine thing behaviors, so people are aware of a specific behaviors or action that you're talking about. And then the impact, which is, why does this stuff matter, right? So if you go through the SBI process and delivering a message, people visualize the situation, but understand what you're talking about, and if you explain the impact well, then they understand why this is a relevant thing to be talking about, right? So that's all it is, I would say. So my opinions on this one are twofold. One, this is useful if you are good at giving feedback immediately. So if you are good and have a healthy, happy relationship with the person you're giving feedback to, and you've both got an open relationship with trust, then being able to say in that meeting just now, yeah, then it's a great model to remind yourself why you're giving that feedback, because it actually tests whether you should or not. Was there an impact? No, well then making them worry about

what I would say is it can feel very legal or very well, yes. And if you then sit down and do a feedback after three months, and you go, I'm going to go through four situations, it feels like someone's building a court case against you, and that is deeply uncomfortable. So for me, there's a real context that works brilliantly. I've used that when I've come out of a meeting and literally so there was a classic where someone was biting their nails in the meeting. So silly, but we were in front of someone, and it looked like they didn't care. And I know that he bites his nails when he's nervous, so nothing to do with that. But it was a really quick thing. But because we were coming from a place of total trust, comfort in our relationship, total honesty, it was like you can't do that. You know why? Because this is what it looks like. Yeah, right. And because it's a media I don't even have to explain situations. It's right then and there. Great, yeah. So that's just tipping me on, yeah, yeah. And, you know, you brought in the point about timeliness of feedback, which is, really, you know, we should frame this a little bit more on what makes good feedback, but, but timely feedback is a better piece of feedback as it's doing it in the right sort of space, you know, like private or whatever, it's so much easier to make it. I would always go timely over everything, timely over private, as long as it's not serious, yeah, because if you can give it in a timely fashion, it feels less serious, less impactful. And like you haven't, you know, the worst thing is, when you sit there and think someone's been thinking, mulling it over for months, on the impactful thing, I'd say it can be more impactful. It just feels less of an issue in the receipt, alright? So

that's the SBI model. So worth having a new toolkit, I guess. You know, it's just useful, but a framework. Be careful, yeah? Just be careful. Don't with all of this, yeah? But you know, be aware of it. Then the next one we want to, want to touch on is really sort of two.

You combine into one. And really, it's a bit of a build on this one. It's another model that's out there. First one we're going to talk about is called coin. And then we've, kind of, what have we done? We've, we've injected some thing into it and turned it into a coiled model as well. So we'll just run through the coin piece really quickly and then move on. So So coin again, we love, or this world loves models with acronyms in them. So, yeah, chunking, memory, chunking, yeah.

So connect, connection, observation, impact and next steps. So the first three are really kind of similar to the SBR model. So point one, connect with the individual and the topic, set the scene. Welcome them to the scene, very much like situation in SBI. So we could use, for prior example, point two, observation. So introduce what you've observed. So again, the behaviors very much the same as SBI impact. So again, very much the same as SBI, in fact, the same model, but here n is added. So next step. So effectively you do s, B, I, N, right, whatever. So set the scene to be observation, to be impact. And here you move on to next steps. And with next steps in the coin model, it tends to be okay. So, so, Jane, I noticed that,

you know, in that last meeting you were I noticed you were biting your nails. The impact that had is it made us look, you know, less credible, and it made you look nervous. So how can we be better at that in the future? How can you make sure that you stop biting your nails until you start to go on the next stage and say, Okay, well, so next time you're in a meeting and have an urge to bite your nails, what are you going to do and try and get the individual to visualize how they take corrective actions, and I would always add into that sentence. And is there anything I can do to help you? Yeah, you should do that. You should, because it's just solidarity. It probably isn't what you might be able to keep me on the table, but probably isn't anything. Tell me. It just, you know, helps. So that's the coin model, basically SBI, plus a next step on it, yeah, some of the stuff I've read on record model makes it feel fairly directive and one directional, and it really is a delivery piece. So what I think is worth thinking about is how you can make it more of a collaborative approach, more of a two way, adult, adult type meeting. So with that on the slides, you'll see we've got coiled on there. You ditch next steps. Well, I've ditched next steps, or grown next steps into three next steps, or something like that. But yeah, so co I do them the same, and then we'll go into the LED. So having explained the impact, I'd actually say, but at this stage, it's good to listen. So, you know, in that instance, so you bit your nails down, it felt like that made us feel less credible, and it showed you were nervous, which maybe made it harder for us to negotiate. What do you think? You know, is that a fair reflection? What are your thoughts on that? And try and listen a little bit there, and give the person that you're providing feedback to a voice, and have an adult, adult type of conversation with them. So that gives them a way in and values their views and opinion to attract your relationships. So that's the L then E is around starting to establish a solution. So that's very much like the next steps, but instead of next steps, which is often fairly directional in coin, this is around a little bit together. So in next steps, as the person providing feedback, I would often tell you the solution. Here, it's around working together to come up with a solution. So this, in this instance, it's much more asking what we can do. How can I help? Maybe coaching them towards a solution, and establishing a solution that way, and then closing out with a D, which is a definite agreement. So having talked about a solution, it's trying to say, okay, you know, so what are you going to do? How are we going to make sure that you're going to do that and get the person to put things in their word? So we're sure we've got that agreement. So that's the coin and coil piece. So for me, they're just three models to share. I think coin coil is the most complicated of them. Spies were you never middle one, and the feedback sandwich is the one that you just shouldn't do, ever, ever, ever. If you took one thing from this podcast, you don't like that sandwich, don't do it.

But the others, it's worth being aware of. And you know, thinking about feedback in that way, prepping in that way, if you to be fair out of all of this, if the only thing you take from this is you need to be a bit more thoughtful when you give it and you need to be more reflective of when you receive it. I I've considered this an entire win. Yeah, yeah. Cool. All right. Week, yeah, listen, week, I think we've done the research. You're disappointed pipes. Disappointed pipes. James is really upset because this week spells pipes not pies. I don't really understand why pipes is that not as good as pies, but I was quite excited about pies. I don't know. I just thought it was fun. I think pipes is fun. I've got pipes in my head, right? Yeah, pipes is pretty fun, okay, right? And pies are pretty good as well. Anyway, so this week's list, five tips to help you. Uh. Give feedback. Well,

number one, prepare, understand your messages, prepare them in a model, or prepare them in your own approach, and practice delivering them. Now we've put in do a role play with someone if you want to practice. Sometimes that's the difficult. Sometimes you just need to say them out loud, yeah. So don't worry too much about the role play, necessarily, but definitely say them out loud, because when you mince your words and mix them up in a feedback situation, that can be really uncomfortable, and so, you know, you're trying to make it better for everyone. Intention, be clear on your intention. This is huge, right? Don't give feedback because it's part of a process that someone's making you do. Don't give feedback and make it up and try and sort of pick things out thin air, because you haven't paid attention all year and you've suddenly been asked to give someone feedback. It's not great, you know, in which case, if you're really not sure, why don't you ask them. Just say to them, what do you think I should be giving you feedback on? What do you think you've done well on them badly? To be really clear in intentions, if you if you've got a genuine piece of feedback to give someone, and you know why it's going to help, then that is hugely helpful, because you'll be able to articulate that. Well, yeah, it's about getting wanting to help them. It's like, you know everything, if you are a good manager, you care about the people who work for you, and you want them to be better. Three is presence, and I have hugely been found wanting in this one before. Ensure you are fully present when giving feedback. Focus actively listen. Ensure the conversation is your priority. Turn off your phone, lock the door, don't let anyone come in. Be in the moment with that person, and be ready to cancel the thing after because you cannot predict what it's going to unlock. Okay, you just don't know for all you knows, and I've had situations where intensely private people have broken down in feed sessions because something completely different is going on and and you know, you need to clear the day. Yeah, you do, so don't walk out in the middle of a conversation. I know we've talked about that before. When people leave and aren't ready to do stuff, empathy, consider all your words, Who the is, recipient, acknowledge and accept emotions. Know the people you're giving feedback to well enough to understand how they might react, and if you don't know them well enough, go gently, right? Nothing so urgent. Yeah, you got rarely, something so urgent that you need to do it with someone you don't know that well, yeah. And if you really don't know them that well, you're probably not the right person to be given the feedback. And then self care ensure you're in this is huge and really massively underestimated. Ensure you're a good emotional position from which to give feedback, rest, reflect, relax before your meeting. It is absolutely imperative that if someone takes feedback badly and either attacks you, not physically, emotionally, or undermines you or is very resistant or defensive, you will only be able to cope with that if you're feeling in a good place, right? You really it's really important, because you owe it to that person. You owe it to that person to be in a really good place when you give them feedback, because you need to be ready for whatever's going to happen. And I know I sound melodramatic about it, but generally, giving people negative feedback in any form tends to unlock things that you don't expect. It to phrase that I can go with, yeah. So there you go. There's our five tips. Prepared for,

prepared for, sorry. Number one, care number two, intention three, presents four, empathy, five, self care. And then the little six, that isn't in there, but we've mentioned is about timeliness. Oh, yeah. So if you can

get over yourself and do it as fast as possible, yeah, once you've had time to prepare, obviously, cool. So pipes. I love pipes. I'm much and also I'd like to point out pipes is way better than pies. Well, we'll see. We'll have a pipe pay off at some point and see, see where we end up. I don't have any idea how that would work, but what a pipe off I do? How would we do that? Well, we do two sets of feedback, one without preparing, one with, oh no. I was needing an actual pipe and an actual pie to work out which was better between pipes and pipes. Okay, now I understand why the problem, because pies are obviously better than pipes.

Okay, all right, I'll be, I'll be with you forever. The image of a pipe. I've got an image of a bagpiper, yeah, piping at a beef pie, yeah? Or probably up here, like a macaroni pie, or a Scotch pie, or something like that. I think do that haggis, haggis pie. We can do haggis anyway.

Very Scottish at the moment. Okay, the sweet so are we going to move on to story? Yeah, yeah. Do you want to lead us off? If you got a story you want to? Yeah, I do, actually, and it's, it probably doesn't cover me in glory, but I once had a situation with a team that I was managing where I'm unprepared

and unaware, they asked to speak to me that that day, in that moment, someone asked speak to me and then explained that it was all three of the people online managed to give me some feedback how I was managing a group intervention, yeah, yeah. And ironically, the feedback itself was fair, yeah, although they weren't aware of so in their cons.

Text. It absolutely was fair. I knew some stuff sure that had led to the situation that they were dealing with. They weren't happy with it. Fair enough. They absolutely had the right to give feedback. But what was lost in that was trust for a long time, because I was so hurt that they didn't trust and I've spoken to this person since, and we're very good friends, but I was so hurt they didn't trust me to give it to me individually. Yeah, that I fixed the feedback almost straight away, almost instantly, because I was I thought it was right thing to do, but it took me a while. It took me a real while to feel like that relationship

really well, if it just felt like they I had done something somewhere along the line that made them feel like they couldn't just sit me down and say this is how I feel, or that I wouldn't take it seriously enough. Yeah, and I guess there's two things to that. One is, as a manager, I probably wasn't checking it was a really stressful time. That's not the excuse, but that's the context. I should have been checking in with them more, because then maybe they wouldn't have felt the need, or, particularly this person wouldn't have felt the need to get someone to back them up. And also, if you ever think about doing it, if you like the person at all, or have any respect for them, understand that what you are doing is quite a quite big thing. It's quite a big thing. It's an intervention, yeah, and it's, and it's, I mean, very specifically, you're saying to that person I don't trust, you'll take me seriously. And if that's true, and that's the situation, fair enough, but, but it's not sometimes it's probably not the best place to start. And I was at least given the chance on their own first, yeah, at least try and talk to them about it on their own first. That's a private thing. Feedback. I mean, it's just a different thing. And agree, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think, you know, it's interesting when you were talking about healing, stuff around identity, for me, that's exactly what happened. I had an identity as a manager that's approachable, and I was being told that wasn't true and and I am also someone who takes off, I struggle not to take back on so yeah, that's my advice. But you know, the good news that came out of it is that because we do have a really good relationship, and because that wasn't a great time in our period, in our period of our relationship, we have talked about it since, and we've both learned from it, but, but anyway,

so that's my story. Cool. What about you? So what I want to just touch on is just tears, right? I mean, you talked about tears a lot. I, at various points, rolled out sort of feedback training to groups, you know, rolled it out to 20 or 30 leaders in a room and

and I used to ask, you know, I mean, how many people have had to experience tears and delivering feedback? And I just do it because people don't talk about it, but pretty much, when you ask that question, everybody raises their hand, right? So it's such a common thing, but we don't really speak about it, or often acknowledge it. Or even worse, I heard someone tell me it was unprofessional once I was I've never been so mad in all my life. And it's probably their sort of response, right? That makes them do that somehow, yeah, but just, you know, if you're not used to giving feedback, people are going to cry. It just happens. It's just such an emotional thing, but you know that they do, and that makes it difficult, you know, in all kinds of ways, if somebody cries, then it's worth asking if they need time, maybe pausing a conversation. Do you want to come back to this later, all that kind of stuff, and then things get really hard. If somebody is a perpetual crier, which seems like an unfair label, but you do get situations where you know if people always cry when you start delivering a message, you can never deliver if a message if you always stop it, right? So, so what do you do in that instance? Sometimes you need to go through with it, and that's hard. So there's, there's two big recommendations, particularly specifically on perpetual prize that I make, partially because I was one, and I'm not anymore, but I was one, although this is in the context of giving feedback as well. Number one,

have a conversation about them crying at another time. Yeah. So even if you get through or not get through when they're in a good place and you're having a general conversation in a light hearted manner, say, look, feedback didn't go great, did it? Yeah, I was trying to tell you something. I can see you're upset. What can I do to make it easy for you next time? Right? Say that and do it. And do it in a nice time when there's no feedback, when you're not gonna tell anything, because actually you're you're addressing the process. And the other thing is, believe whatever they say. So I had someone who's perpetual crier, but she used to say to me,

it's okay, I will probably cry Yeah? Again, the first two times I was like, Oh no, I feel really bad. She's like, No, just get on with it. It's fine, yeah, okay, but I do tend to cry, but it's fine, yeah, I just want to get it over and done with just, let's, let's talk about it, and then I'll be okay in a minute. And then I'll probably cry again, yeah? And actually, that's fine. She's in control of it, and that's what she wants practice that bit. It really, I have to say it's really hard. Yeah, it is. It is because you want to laugh, not because it's funny, but, yeah, attack the problem of crying or

the issue because it's honestly, I've done that two or three times. It's always been super effective, and we.

Make a joke of it, right?

Yeah, okay, all right. So, final thought, top tip, key message, anything you want people to leave with about feedback generally, yeah, there's one thing right, and it's really important be giving feedback for the right reason. Okay, okay, I feel really strongly about this. If you are not giving feedback because you want to help that person be better, if you're giving feedback for any other reason, just don't just find find another way to comply with the process, because

it is, it's an emotional roller coaster for everyone involved, and there needs to be something coming out of it, positive and the other, the other one is, can you give people the chance to see if they know what to be improved first? Yeah, so I open every feedback with I'd really like to talk about something that I don't think it's gone brilliantly lately. Do you well, you know, the danger of that is if they go off on something completely different? Yeah, that's generally, mostly, particularly for certain level, people know what you're talking about. Yeah, it can be helpful, and it's so much more powerful if they can talk about it. It is the whole ownership piece. Yeah,

all right, so my final thought, I guess it's a bundled one treat people like adults, adult conversations. We'll do an episode on transactional analysis at some point, but please, yeah, soon. But basically, just treat people like adults, is point one, and then point 1b is that you've got to remember, I cheated there, that if you don't tell people for truth, chances are you're just hurting them later on, right? So sometimes telling them, you know, truths about performance is really the best thing you can do. And it doesn't necessarily feel like it right away, but, but it is.

So that's it for me, you know, treat them like adults and tell them the truth. I think, I think that true. I think the tone, the truth thing, is really important. I think it's a lot easier, like I said at the very beginning, if you have a culture that says we are, none of us perfect, and I'm never going to say any of us are perfect, because we're not. And that's the point of human life is better than we are at the moment. Then you know what? It's a lot easier. It's so much easier if everyone sees each other like that. Yeah. And we might do an episode on feedback culture at some point as well. I think we talked about that. So Well, given how much we'd say about feedback. Okay, so 43 the robots

do it. Yes, my phone, yeah. What frightened thought? Okay, so that wraps us up, feedback, I think, yeah, that's us. Feedbacks down. Feedbacks done. Happy, happy January. We're doing this in January, so it's great to get that done. Happy July. Happy July, right? Happy month of the year.