Changing the Nature of Feedback

Sara: Welcome to Can I Offer You Some Feedback? My name is Sara, and this is the podcast for those who have a complicated relationship with feedback and are looking to hear from real people across levels and industries with their ideas, perspectives, and best practices on feedback. Before we dive in, I'd like to introduce our guest for the podcast today, Jeff. He's the president of an independent marketing strategy firm. Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

Jeff: Hi, thanks for having me.

Sara: Absolutely. Well, let's kick things off with the main question of the podcast. When I say the phrase, can I offer you some feedback, what's your gut reaction when you hear that?

Jeff: So I think my Neanderthal gut reaction is sweat. Like it's nervousness. But my relationship with feedback has changed dramatically over my career. So I think that recesses quickly from that into something in a much better context.

Sara: Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of people have that. It's the gut reaction, but then how long does it take you to shift, right? How long does it take you to know that this is safe or potentially safe depending on the context.

Jeff: Well, there's a couple of things that have happened throughout my career, I should say my life that have kind of changed my trajectory to that feedback. I grew up as an athlete playing sports and feedback was immediate and it was regular. And that to me was very therapeutic. I liked that. I love having coaching in that capacity. And then when I got into the professional world, I found that it wasn't as readily available. And so I recessed quite a bit. I recessed into, uh-oh, now it only comes very, very periodically and so now I fear it.

And so there's this long period of time in my career where I deeply feared it after having wanting to be coached for a long time, and then it got lucky enough through some mentorship relationships and some really positive corporate relationships, business relationships where people started once again, giving it to me with frequency and thoughtfully with care. And it's amazing how my mind has shifted back to it as such a positive. But the bruises of that probably 10 or 15-year period where I felt very different about it, they are still the underlying immediacy of the feeling.

Sara: And I would say that probably echoes true for a lot of folks that start in the athletic space, right? You get so much feedback or even the student space being a classic and educational setting, you get a lot of feedback about your work, about your product, etc. But that changes over time. I think you're kind of leaning a little bit, but I want to ask the question anyway, which do you prefer, to be that giver or the receiver of feedback? So far you've talked on the receiving side, but I'm curious.

Jeff: My relationship to both has evolved a lot, which I think is what's supposed to happen. I think it's an evolutionary thing. I still deeply want to receive feedback. And so being in a leadership position now, I need to surround myself with peers and with people where that's a reality, where that can happen. So that's a super big thing for me.

But I think I've now come out the other side of at least this point in my career where I don't think there's anything more gratifying than seeing people grow and seeing people and even if it means leaving you or your organization, seeing people expand to that relationship of feedback. So I love to give it. I view it through coaching. And that's the way I couch it to everybody is, you're not supposed to know everything. Nobody's ever going to know everything. If you don't have this kind of open back and forth and you wait until a quarterly review or whatever, it's a surprise and it doesn't hit the same way. You can't action it the same way.

And so I think the thing I love is giving small little bite-sized feedback in the moment, not these periodic on a calendar larger pieces of feedback like, your work product sucks. Well, why does it suck? I don't know. I forget all the times that it sucked. I just think it's more valuable for everybody given in the moment.

Sara: Yeah. I'm curious. You mentioned on the receiving side, surrounding yourself with a team that gives you feedback. How do you think about, or how do you approach, or the awareness that you're in a leadership position, and these are folks you supervise? I mean, you're getting feedback, but how do you think about like the realness of the feedback?

Jeff: So my own personal shortcomings in my career came from the idea that I was supposed to know everything, that I was at these certain points in the road that I couldn't go and ask for help because people would expect that by this point, I knew it. And then a handful of failures and then some really, really great mentors over time. It wasn't one like some sort of cataclysmic conversation over time. I just like, oh, and I saw it happen well enough that I was like, I think that's what it's supposed to look like.

And so one of the things that made me more comfortable to start giving feedback was to early and often be vulnerable with my own skillset because I'm good at just a handful of things. And I'm really not good at a handful of things. And when I started to say those out loud, people who work with me or potentially in a subordinate position who had that skill set really strongly, I could be like, "Hey, I suck at this. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. You look to be fabulous at it. I would love for you to take on more of a leadership position with me in terms of doing whatever, this thing."

And I found that having that conversation, being open about my own shortcomings made giving feedback easier. The place where I felt, especially early on, the biggest challenge was making sure that those relationships stay in a place where it's not too friend-ish. Where I could still say, "Hey, this is the expectation. This is the expectation we have to meet and exceed. This is what I expect from you," and still be able to really push that person. That becomes difficult when you're too friendly or you get too deep on a friendship side of things.

I mean, it's juggling though. The things that I think I do right with it now might end up being shortcomings for the next version of what I am. And the things that I think are vulnerabilities now might be real strengths. But I think that the key is you just kind of got to be looking at it all the time. And that's where I think most people fall down is like, is it the honest conversation with yourself? Because most people like to think, all right, I figured this one out and then they just move forward with whatever the next thing is.

Sara: Yeah. And where the truth is, you've figured it out right now based on the variables today. And it's good enough. But what you're doing right now may not work a month from now, may not work a year from now and that's hard when you're thinking about internal development or team development. But we just "finish that", you know. Like, we already did that team stuff. We already did that hard work. Can we just forever maintain effective relationships? No, that's not how it works.

Jeff: But I think I find myself in this... You know, so we're a 100 plus 100-plus-person organization, we serve enterprise-level clients. They expect a certain level of buttoned-up nature about how we operate. I find myself now gravitating more towards people in both a mentorship relationship for me and subordinates who either naturally do or now subscribe as a part of their careers to that evolution, to that, like, I'm not constantly in a state of figuring it out.

And when you find those people, they want to have the back-and-forth conversation. They don't shy away from it because it makes everybody better. But those things that go unsaid are the ones that wake you up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. Those are the ones when you don't feel like you have an outlet or a person that you can go to and say, I know I'm screwing this up and I don't know why. Man, those relationships are worth their weight in gold.

Sara: And I think you know maybe one of the cores of those relationships is trust that that person is going to support you along the way for that. Not put it out in the open, not put you on blast, but you trust that they'll hold it, but also that they will care for you in the delivery of that feedback. Right? Like I want it real, but it doesn't have to be rough.

Jeff: Yeah.

Sara: It could be two things and I want the truth. I want that candor as it were, but I also need that you hear me, you see me, you get the perspective I'm coming from and you hear why this is hard.

Jeff: So that's a soft skill from a leader's perspective or a feedback giver's perspective that I think goes so sorely untaught. Because feedback without thoughtfulness and caring is just scolding. And depending on the person, either you're going to reinforce some really negative things or you're going to cap some really positive things in a person. And so as somebody who felt imposter syndrome, still deal with it, having those people who've been there before me, and this is something I tell people that I mentor to cultivate. Having those people who've been there before me have no stake in my success other than their personal satisfaction of seeing me do well or yourself do well.

Those people who can lovingly say something to you where you know it's coming from a place of betterment versus a place of, oh, my bonus is on the line if you don't do this right. That doesn't get taught. Real leadership like that, that doesn't get taught very often. And that's why I think you find teachers, and teachers are extraordinarily valuable. But teachers come in your life and then go out of your life for certain instances.

Coaches stay. Coaches and mentors stay. You remember because those people deliver to you not just information, they deliver to you truth. And good, bad, or otherwise and they shape your ability to intake it with the positive. And I think people that succeed, fortunately, or unfortunately are ones who are graced enough with those types of people in their lives to keep moving forward. Because I think it's not about failure. It's about I screwed up. Do I keep moving? And when you keep moving, you end up getting better.

Sara: Yeah. Well, especially if it's in the direction that everyone else is going to.

Jeff: Sure. Yeah.

Sara: And I'm thinking, because you're in this leadership role in your organization, well the top leadership role, but when you're in this role, I'm kind of framing this from the perspective you've talked about on the individual level, right? Coaching can be valuable. Mentorship can be valuable. How do you think about integrating this organizationally as a part of the culture? Do you have a way that you think about feedback and the structures for it?

Jeff: Well, it's hard. It really is. I think you have to do a couple of things. You have to have those gate posts, check-ins. You have to have those kind of things that everybody has an expectation. We will be discussing this quarterly. We will be discussing this annually. You know, I have that very top-level expectation of check-ins. I think you have to have a really honest understanding of expectation.

And I think that is hard. Most organizations don't do that well. They either do it completely to the numbers side of things or they don't do it. I think when you find organizations or leaders who create expectations really well, those are people you should really do your best to stay around. But then I think the best of the best, have those formal spots but have really mastered informality in the moment personal... And that's a touchy line. I mean, that's a real place that you have to be extraordinarily cognizant of.

And so I think level of success or failure is probably not my place to determine how we do this. It's probably other people in the organizations. But I think if you set those parameters of, hey, we have these gateposts. Here are my expectations. My expectations are going to be changing. When my expectations change, I expect to communicate them to you. When you're not seeing alignment to those expectations, I expect you to call me on it.

And then I expect us to have informal in-between and frequent discussions about where things happen. I think if you do those things, you take most personality types who take feedback differently. You can get almost all of those people, those different personality types, in a good spot where they feel comfortable. And the changing nature of expectations, both corporate and personal, can be voiced.

Sara: I really love that. What's striking me is you're sharing about how expectations can be used, not just as like a work product conversation. I think oftentimes when I'm hearing about expectations, it's very much, you know, we should communicate like this, or we should have the product look like this, or the service delivery should be like this. I'm hearing you articulate a lot more on how we should be with each other, how we should act with each other.

And I think that you're right. A lot of organizations don't spend the time to talk or share the expectation of behaviors around how we are with each other, how we interact with each other, and what happens if we don't, right? What happens when we miss that opportunity? And when we've been talking, I think it's one of those areas that is very much a you style. And I think that that clarity is one of those key components. So I appreciate you for sharing that example and kind of your perspective on that.

Jeff: Well, think about it. Sales are really easy to judge. And so at least common denominator-wise, did you or didn't you? And you can look at all those things. As a leader, one of the tough parts of my career is the further I went up, the less I was asked to do the work. And I had always identified with doing the work.

And so when you get to the point where you aren't expected to do the work, you're expected to lead people, that becomes a real murky area of like, all of a sudden my hands aren't busy. So are you at that point being judged off of how clearly you give expectations to others? I don't know a lot of organizations that do that. I think probably the great ones do.

Sara: Or I'm not familiar with many that do it well. I think that it's not articulated clearly if it is. Right? It's measured in some other way with some other kind of metric, but not in that kind of crisp way of getting that feedback from other people on whether or not you're actually setting them clearly. That's the key part there.

Jeff: Yeah.

Sara: Well, Jeff, for our last question in our time together, could I offer you some feedback?

Jeff: Please.

Sara: I wanted to share with you, and this conversation that we've had today has really kind of refreshed a lot of those thoughts and you've used some of those terminology. We've had the opportunity to work together or study together in a couple of different capacities, and I have always appreciated the realism that you bring to a conversation. I was thinking about things like the groundedness or the honesty or just the trueness of who you are. But you mentioned it a few minutes ago in this formal informality.

There's a way that I feel like you show up that feels very casual, comfortable, collected, but I also know you're there to get it done. I also know that you're ready to do the business. And you were describing it in the context of your team even. There's a certain expectation in how our team of 100 should show up. But we can also be ourselves. And I think that that is something, and it sounds like it's kind of exuded into your organization as well and it's a part of that culture. It's the expectation of, I can be me, I can show up and be how I want to be, and I can do the work. And those don't have to be mutually exclusive.

I think that one of the things that I've seen sometimes as people move up in a leadership position, they lose more of themselves. And I know our group has teased you when you became the president. But you didn't change. And I'm sure you have also experienced folks that as they move up in the organization, they change. That's something that I've really appreciated and from my perspective, I think it's a great example of staying true to the oneself and having that realism, and keeping that sense of self. I know that's something I've really appreciated and I hope that your team gets to see it too and all the folks that you have the opportunity to coach and mentor as well. I wanted to thank you for that.

Jeff: That is one of the great compliments I've ever received. I'm very grateful.

Sara: Absolutely. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and thanks to you for joining us in another episode of, Can I Offer You Some Feedback? You can reach me at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you on your thoughts on feedback or any other perspectives that you'd like to hear from next. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. And I'm hoping that tomorrow, you take a chance and offer some feedback when it's needed most.