Creating a Culture 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, Sara. She's an outdoor education consultant and doing guiding in the New York area and also has spent time as a teacher, camp director. I don't know what other titles we can add to that as well.

Sarah: Thanks so much, Sara. I'm really excited to be here.

Sara: Welcome to the conversation today, Sara. Excellent. 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?

Sarah: Honestly, I get a little bit of that nervous, excited feeling, a little rush of adrenaline, a little fight or flight response. And while my knee-jerk reaction might be like an uh-oh, I remember that I'm strong enough to receive feedback. It's not going to make or break me. It's just there to help make me better. And I guess that's just a part of my continual growth. I was really fortunate to grow up with fantastic teachers and coaches, directors, ministers who were all just really invested in me as a student-athlete, you know, whatever I was into at the time. So I got used to looking for feedback from those types of mentors. And now that I've moved into adulthood, I continue to seek out mentors but I also have recognized the value of peer-to-peer feedback as well.

Sara: So that segues really nicely, which do you prefer to be the giver or the receiver of feedback?

Sarah: Oh, the receiver, without question. And that's because I don't think I'm very good at giving feedback to adults yet. I've tried various methods between the different professional hats that I've worn, but I haven't found one that consistently comes across as genuine rather than critical and is focused on the growth of the person I'm giving feedback to rather than being nit-picky. I've also been out of practice for a little while and so I would definitely need to take a little time to find my groove again.

Sara: Absolutely. I mean, practice makes perfect, of course. But there's also something that you bring from having all of that experience and the intuition around that feedback. I'm curious, when you're thinking, how do you define meaningful feedback?

Sarah: Yeah. For me, meaningful feedback is born from a combination of the culture of an organization as well as the approach of the feedback giver. There needs to be a foundation of feedback within the culture of an organization. If not, it can feel like it's just a box being ticked off or random, unnecessary, or even punitive. And then the approach is really important too, noticing what the receiver is already doing well, the value that they bring to the table and making sure that they note that you have seen that, and then also focusing on areas of growth. Being specific and then actionable are really key.

Sara: Right. And I know you have a lot of experience not only working in larger organizations or smaller organizations. You now work with yourself. I mean, obviously in partnership with a lot of other individuals, but you've also been on teams, you've been in working groups, you've been in a lot of different settings. I'm curious if you could share an experience where you've seen that meaningful feedback delivered.

Sarah: When I think of an example of meaningful feedback and really sort of looked back over my experiences. There was a summer camp that I worked at and the executive director made it really, really clear that feedback was an integral part of the culture. He was really able to make sure that everyone understood that giving positive feedback was everyone's responsibility. So counselors were giving other counselors positive feedback, noticing when they were doing great things, like saying to each other like, hey, I saw you giving high fives to the campers on their way to lunch. That made everyone smile. That was really great.

And then counselors were encouraged to do that for campers too. It was kind of like a catch them being good type of situation. And so that created this amazing environment where feedback was just a part of your day-to-day. It was a lot easier to do because it was part of the culture.

This was when I was the day camp director. And so I had about 30 counselors who I regularly met with individually and we would talk about what was going well for them. I would help them set a goal and then talk about how they were going to achieve that goal. And these were really small.

And I remember that there was one counselor who his academic year job was actually a teacher. He was a veteran teacher. He was many years my senior at that time. And I remember at the end of that summer, he told me in one of our one-to-one sessions that he did not think that these little feedback sessions were going to be worth anything. He thought they were just going to be a waste of time.

But because he was able to focus on such small goals, he was able to really improve his relationship with some younger campers who he did not think he could have a relationship with at all. But because it was a small goal, we talked about action steps, he was really thankful in the end that we had this all in place so that he could grow as a counselor. And he felt even more excited about going into that year of teaching.

Sara: Yeah. I think that's fantastic.

Sarah: So true.

Sara: I'm so glad that they gave you that feedback about giving the feedback activity. I mean, what a perfect way to kind of say, you know, like, hey, we have a very short amount of time to all get on the same page. And so here's how I'm going to do that. Here's how we're going to make it actionable.

And I really like that you provided that example from that prior executive director of showing leadership is one of the ways in which we give feedback, right? Not just from me to you, right? Not just one-directional, but within your colleagues, within your peers. And that has to be done immediately. And that has to be done all the time.

So, I love that connection between those two stories of examples of how culture doesn't have to necessarily mean built over many years and many months. We can do it in six weeks. We can make it happen in a short amount of time as well. I'm curious, when you're thinking about others, and let's pretend I'm giving out wishes, what wish would you have for people if they could do one thing better regarding feedback?

Sarah: Create a culture of feedback. Make it both formal and informal. Make it part of the conversation. If you're a manager, ask for feedback before requiring others to receive it. Model the process, be a part of the process. Like get everyone on board and everyone will be the better for it.

Sara: That's excellent. Well, for the last question of our time together, Sara, can I offer you some feedback?

Sarah: Well, I suppose, if you must. But I feel like that's the format here. So bring it on.

Sara: It certainly is. And you know I would even if you weren't ready just because we've known each other for so long. I appreciated early in the conversation when you mentioned being out of practice and not feeling like working with adults necessarily is the skill you have yet. And I appreciate the growth mindset yet in that sentence. I respectfully disagree. I feel like, at least in my opportunity in both working in professional settings with you, but also the personal relationship we've had for many years, I feel like you are someone who is so attentive to the other person's perspective, to the environment you're creating with that other person, and really creating the space to have that safe dialogue, that safe feedback.

And you at least push me. I don't know if you push others. You push folks in a way that the critical is supportive, right? Like yes, you're telling me some things sometimes I need to hear, but it's done in a way where I know I feel safe. And so I think that maybe just with many things as we know that practice, that regular repetition, doing it until it becomes muscle memory, I think you definitely have that. And I also know you have such extensive training and background that what you may not think of as things you're pulling from, I know you're pulling from all the time. I know I've been grateful for that and I hope that your clients see that that you work with. And I know you're giving feedback out in the wilderness to folks around their approach and their styles and what they can really kind of see in the environment around them.

Sarah: Well, thank you so much. I'm definitely going to keep all of what you just said in my back pocket and carry it around with me so that I can remember. I appreciate it.

Sara: Absolutely. Well, Sara, 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 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.