Defining Impactful 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, Jenn. She's an HR manager at an HR consulting firm, meaning she does HR for HR folks. Welcome to the conversation today.

Jenn: Thank you so much for having me.

Sara: Awesome. 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?

Jenn: My relationship with feedback has changed over my career and throughout my life. It's evolved. And where I'm at right now is I crave it. I love it. It helps me become better. However, that gut reaction that you get, I'll get that tingling and that kind of anxiety that comes with preparing myself for hearing something that may not be the most positive thing, but in the end, it is positive in that somebody is giving me a gift that I can use to help improve myself for the future.

Sara: I love that you're saying it's kind of like that tingling feeling. It's excited but a little bit scared.

Jenn: Yes.

Sara: Because we don't know what's going to happen in the conversation. When you're thinking about feedback, which do you prefer, to be the giver or the receiver of feedback?

Jenn: Selfishly, I like to be the receiver of feedback. Like I said, it helps me improve who I am. And as far as giving feedback, I'll give positive feedback all day. However, when it comes to negative or constructive feedback, if I don't know the other person and how they receive feedback, if they haven't asked me for feedback before, I'm hesitant to provide it. Just because I'm really in the business of relationships, but also personally, I want to build relationships. And not everybody is open to hearing constructive feedback even if it's something that they could use to improve.

Sara: Absolutely. And that can be tough, especially when you have different degrees of relationships with different folks. When you're thinking about that receiving, how do you ask or reach out or try to get that feedback from other people?

Jenn: In many different ways. So in my career, I'm a human resources professional, and my job is to provide and help people receive what they need to do the best they can in the roles that they serve and to help them so that they feel full and available for the work that they do. And I do this in many different ways. There's surveys and then just one-on-one personal conversations.

And I am always asking about what they thought about something. What are things that went well? So, on onboarding, what do you feel went well? Like, what did you like about it? And what were some frustrations or some holdups? Or what were some things that you wish you had received upfront or wish had come a little later? Just so that I can make the adjustments to help people in the future.

Sara: Yeah, absolutely. I think in that, it sounds like not only preparing and thinking about the different points in which you would get that feedback, I'm curious, as you're crafting it and preparing feedback for others, how do you define meaningful feedback?

Jenn: Well, I'll take a review. Waiting to tell somebody something happened that happened three, six months before, waiting for that review, it's not going to have an impact. Both of you have forgotten the details and it's in the past. What you want to do is make sure that the feedback is as soon as possible.

But not only that, you don't want to give praise and criticism without meaningful feedback, "You did a great job at this." Well, what made it great? Or, "You could have done better." Well, what could I have done better? You want to have specific examples and let them know the impact it had and also give them ideas for how could go better in the future. Or ask them to provide what could happen better in the future so that they're coming up with it on their own.

Sara: Yeah. And I love that you're targeting that specificity and you're right. Hearing it three, six, nine months later is not helpful. Like, "Oh, do you remember in February when you did this thing?" Like, "No, I don't remember in February. I don't remember last week." Could you share about a specific example where either you were the recipient of meaningful feedback, or maybe you saw someone else delivering meaningful feedback?

Jenn: Absolutely. I recently joined a Toastmasters club. And in Toastmasters, if you're trying to work on giving or receiving feedback, it's a great place to do it. At Toastmasters, people are there either to improve upon their speaking skills and or leadership skills. So, during the meeting it's very structured. There's a period where members can provide speeches, or you can practice impromptu speaking with table topics. And at the end, there's an evaluation portion.

We have a distinguished Toastmaster at our group who is the most amazing person at providing feedback during their speech evaluations. So, during a meeting, someone will provide a speech, usually five to seven minutes long, and then somebody provides evaluation. When this person provides evaluations, he's very specific and he pinpoints what the person did well, why, and what impact it had as well as providing opportunities for improvement. And he does it in such a way that it not only helps the person that is directly receiving the feedback, but everyone else. It provides us with ideas for things that we can do to improve our speeches when we talk or provide speeches in the future.

Sara: Yeah. I like that you're sharing in that example, that person does specificity, then talks about the impact, and then talks about examples or recommendations for the future. Sometimes I see that people just do one of those, right? They give the specific example, but they don't share why it matters. Or they give the impact, but they don't have the specificity of when. Or maybe they do both, the specific example and the impact, but the person isn't trying to do a bad job. And sure, it's helpful to know what the impact is, but what do I do about it?

And so it sounds like that's really impactful for that person to kind of connect the three. And as you're saying, you all get the benefit even if you're not the one who's delivered it, but you're able to see kind of the connection between each of those things. I love that. As you're thinking about kind of connecting feedback, and I know as an HR manager, you get to see a lot of people either giving or not giving feedback.

Jenn: Yes.

Sara: What is one thing you wish people could do better regarding feedback? What would it be?

Jenn: One thing. There are so many different things. I think it starts with having a growth mindset and having that openness to receive feedback. I mean, it's hard to ignore your gut, but kind of seeing past that, realizing, okay, this is a feeling, but having that openness to hear so that you can improve yourself. Good, meaningful feedback is a gift.

Sara: Yeah. I think you're in kind of a unique position as an HR manager in an HR company. One of the things that I find that a lot of HR folks struggle with is people come to them with problems. Right? I'm struggling with this employee, I'm having an issue with my boss, I'm having this, this, and this. And I hear other folks, I'm curious for you, part of what they're so desperate for is talk to each other, right? Just like, share the feedback. And I'm curious in your organization, how do you encourage others to actually give each other feedback? Not that you can't assist, surely, but how do you encourage or enable them to share feedback with each other?

Jenn: Well, it's I think most easiest when you create a culture of feedback. Where I am right now, it's built into our values. One of our values is passionate desire to improve, which is having a growth mindset and being open to feedback. But not only that, we talk about our values consistently and we make mention and notice of people that practice our values.

And not only that, leadership asks questions, asks for feedback. And it's not just the asking for feedback. It's the providing of feedback and seeing that feedback being put into action. If you ask for feedback and nothing happens, people aren't going to continue to provide you with feedback. So you need to have it built into your culture for one, and then have it demonstrated at the highest level so everyone feels comfortable providing that feedback.

Sara: Yeah. And you're right. That modeling, that showcasing of that I want to receive it, I want to give it, that is so important. And I see a lot of leaders say, "Well, I asked if anybody had any feedback and no one said anything, so I don't want to ask anymore." Like, you asked one time. You need to ask more than one time to really build that habit and have folks believe you that you actually mean it, which is a different kind of habit-building. Well, Jenn, I'm wondering, for our last question and our time together, can I offer you some feedback?

Jenn: Absolutely.

Sara: Well, Jenn, I of course appreciate you taking the time for this conversation. And I did want to share one of the things that I have always really admired and respected about you is how authentic you come across and how authentically you lead in conversation. And I'll tell you what I mean by that.

As we've talked about before, we both play Dungeons and Dragons, we both play D&D. And I think it was the first year that we knew each other, you were giving a talk at an HR event that we were both attending. And you talked about how you integrate D&D as a part of HR practice and how you integrate that going forward. And it kind of struck a nerve with me that that's something that I've always been a little hesitant to talk about in a work setting. I've been a little nervous about it.

But it's something that is exciting and it's interesting is that I'm involved in. And I see so many business applications but I think it takes a lot of courage and really leading from an authentic space to be like, "Yeah, this is my hobby." And obviously, over the years D&D has become more popular, but it's also still kind of a "nerdy thing". And so I just really appreciate it. I was like, well, I mean, she's saying that she loves it and what a difference that's making for her to be able to show up in different spaces. She's being able to connect with different people.

And it kind of inspired me to think about how could I bring in some more authenticity into my own practice. And so I really admire and was really kind of taken aback and pleasantly surprised when I learned that about you and it's just been something that I always think about with you. I mention to folks when I make introductions and I think it's just such a testament to the comfort that I perceive that you have in your interests and the things that you think can bring value to others and it's nothing to be ashamed of. And I'm not sure why I felt that way about this thing that I'm interested in. But I love that you made me start to think about it and really question how do I bring in the things that I love in the work that I do? So I wanted to say thank you for that.

Jenn: Well, thank you so much. I value our relationship too, and I can't wait to continue for it to grow.

Sara: Fantastic. Well, Jenn, 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.