Expanding Understanding Around 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 from the podcast today, Anna. She's got many things going on, but professionally has a background in public health and currently serves as the program manager at Case Western Reserve University in the Office of Interprofessional and Interdisciplinary Education and Research. Welcome to the conversation today.

Anna: Hi, Sara. Happy to be here.

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?

Anna: Ugh! That's my gut reaction. My gut reaction is, "Oh no, what are we about to talk about now?"

Sara: Yeah, that immediate dread, right?

Anna: Immediate dread, yeah, exactly.

Sara: And when you're thinking about feedback, I mean, maybe this ties into it, would you prefer to be the giver or the receiver of feedback?

Anna: I think that I would prefer to be the giver, I guess. Only because then, in my experience, I feel like it's only been sort of negatively oriented, bad news. So, I would like to not be the one receiving it and the one that's in charge of giving it. But I feel like I've learned a lot more about feedback in my recent position at Case. And I feel like now I'm so much better equipped to be a receiver of feedback with a little bit of knowledge around how it operates or how it should operate.

Sara: Yeah, and I think that sometimes we don't appreciate that the models and the examples and what we've seen before, very much flavors how we can actually use it in practice. So, if all of your experience around feedback, let's say, has been, this is going to be critical, this is going to be negative, this is going to be a tough discussion, then I'd rather give it than receive it having those tools in place. Can I now, with your expanded understanding around feedback, how do you define meaningful feedback?

Anna: Well, I think meaningful feedback now, what I've learned is... in the role that I have now, Sara, we teach a class on feedback. And the class is centered around the model of deconstructive feedback. And so now what I've learned is that meaningful feedback sort of disassembles whatever you're giving feedback about into an observable event. So the way that Dr. Rachel who's my current boss teaches it is that it's something that can be recorded on an iPhone. So, something you've heard, something you've seen, something that has been written is a little bit harder, but definitely observable data is what we call it. So, something that is concrete that you can say. So yeah, definitely that's part of the meaningful bit of feedback.

Sara: Right. And Apple's certainly not sponsoring the podcast yet, but. I mean, and thinking about it gets captured, it has to be objective, that makes sure it's specific, that makes sure that it's... Yes, obviously, we've got different ideas about like what actually happened, right? We have different views on it, but we're actually pointing to something. It's not, you know, I'm layering on or I'm projecting, or I'm including extra details into that. So, that's so helpful. Can you share an experience maybe where you've seen meaningful feedback delivered?

Anna: I can share an experience where I've heard it delivered. I didn't see it. So, again, with the observable elements. I have heard a colleague of mine being given feedback about how she sends emails. So, in a different scenario, it could be seen as extremely micro-managy of the person giving the feedback. But in the context, she was able to understand that she needed to be more direct in her emails and that being more direct in the email is not necessarily being rude, but her job requires her to gather very concrete information in a timely manner. And I think that she was being nebulous in her questions and was given the feedback to be more direct.

And she was able to really come out of that conversation not feeling slighted or offended. And I think the person giving the feedback was able to give her the observable data, not generalize, acknowledge there might be many perspectives in how they were observing her actions, and then sort of work with them to come up with solutions on how to improve on the behavior.

Sara: Yeah, I think that's a fantastic example to talk about maybe the difference between the intent, the perception, and then the impact and having that person... You know, I don't think your colleague who was writing the emails was intending to be nebulous. It just may have been how they were trained, the culture that they came from, the way that communication was kind of taught to them. That's just the way that you go about asking for something and perhaps in a more roundabout way.

But thinking about it, and if no one ever tells you, the impact, right, maybe again, what your intent is, versus how it's being perceived, and then actually what is actually happening from that, if no one shares that, that's not very helpful. So hopefully that was a helpful dialogue for both parties to kind of understand a little bit better.

Anna: Right. And she was causing a lot more work for her. So they were able to streamline, trim down.

Sara: Absolutely. So I'm curious, if I were handing out wishes, what's one maybe one wish you have around if we could just have people change one thing, or do one thing better regarding feedback, what would it be?

Anna: I think that it would be this idea, and I don't exactly know how to phrase it, but it's sort of this idea of taking the emotion out of it, so like, what I'm telling you, please don't be offended by what I'm telling you. And I'm not saying it to be offensive, you know. Because I think that in a personal relationship, so much of that is emotional, and the relationship you have with the person that's giving you the feedback. But we should be able to say, your emails are a little too wordy. But that's not saying that you're not a great person. So somehow you're able to, I lack the better way, like take the emotion out of it. I want to be able to have emotion in things. I love emotion. But just the personal sense that the person might have, you know, making sure it's set up to where they don't.

Sara: Right. Yeah, I mean, there's that phrase, you know, it's just business, it's not personal. But we're also people at work. And so, I still am a person, well, if we're in a business context. But it's sometimes hard to separate me doing that task from the task that I'm doing, right? And that to work better, maybe with others or to collaborate better, we might have to just be aware of, again, that impact versus the intent or the perception and just think about how that kind of feedback comes into play. So I love that example to kind of think through an idea on how maybe separating a little bit from the tasks that we're doing, the people that are doing it in a way. For the last question in our time together, Anna, can I offer you some feedback?

Anna: Sure.

Sara: Hopefully it's not the dreaded that you mentioned earlier. I know when we were talking, and we've had that chance to work together in a couple of different settings with a lot of different groups. One of the things that I really find valuable about your approach is being able to shift the conversation and shift the direction depending on the audience and the group. We've had the opportunity to work, again, through Case Western Reserve University with a mix of folks who are academics, who are researchers, who are clinicians, who are in community, who are trying to support residents in different spaces.

And so I've been able to see you shift and met people right where they're at, and really, at least from my perspective form genuine connections and have people feel like they're being heard. And it's kind of magical to watch, but I think it's stemming from, yes, that public health background, of course, but all the other facets too which you show up at work. And I think that that's really exciting to see. You know, being able to kind of shift into a bunch of different spaces.

And I'm assuming it also shows up in your work with the interprofessional and interdisciplinary. That inter, when you mentioned the role shift, I was like, that's perfect. And it definitely has a strength in that and now is maybe getting to use that in a different way in her new role. And I know it's not quite new anymore but in this new kind of space. So I'm hoping that that's a muscle that you're flexing and getting to use a lot more. I know I've been grateful in our work interactions to be able to kind of see that. So, I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Anna: That's very nice. See, that's completely positive. There was nothing scary about that. That was amazing. Oh, you're so right. So feedback isn't always negative. That's an important thing to remember. To remember, yeah.

Sara: And I can call you once a month and tell you something if you'd like. Just to build the habit. But, Anna 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 and your thoughts on feedback or any other perspective 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.