The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 263 - Our Friend, Feedback

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: So, I'm grappling with our good old friend feedback in the last four weeks. You know our friend?

Jen: Oh, our friend feedback? Yes, I know her well.

Pete: Yes, she pops into my life mostly when I've finished a workshop or a leadership development program and I request feedback. And I think like 98% of the time, I really love her. And then there's a 2% of the time that I'm like, "Come on feedback, what's going on here? What do we do with this?" And so, I need your help with this one particular piece of feedback. And then, the macro sort of moment I've been having of, why is it that we think about the 2% so much more than the 98%? I feel like you can help me with that.

Jen: #relatable. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Ah, feedback, feedback. So, I guess some context. I mean, I spend a lot of my time (all day every day, basically) in delivering leadership development programs for large corporates, with a bunch of leaders and executives from organizations around the world, some big, some small. And one of the things I very intentionally do in pretty much all my workshops is I choose not to use a slide deck. And that is a very intentional choice, because I think that people sit through slide decks all day, every day, and I'm trying to create a pattern interrupt, and I'm trying to create an environment that is conducive to conversations and Socratic learning and like coaching and prompts and provocations and breakouts. And so my assertion is, one way to create that environment is to avoid doing the thing that every single person is used to doing or expecting, and that is have a slide deck. And I usually make a joke about it at the start of the session, like, "Don't worry, I don't have a slide deck. And instead, we're going to have a conversation." And I was saying to you before we recorded, I would have to go back and count but I would say in the last month, for example, I think I've had at least a hundred people give me feedback, both in person and via a feedback form, that has been something to the tune of, "Oh my god, it was so refreshing not having a slide deck. We love these sessions because they're interactive. There's no slides. And it's a great way of learning." And I certainly didn't invent this way of learning. I'm borrowing from many, many people who are far smarter than me, that have taught in the Socratic method for a long time. And last week, for the first time, I got a note, a piece of feedback from someone that was like, "You know, I think this session could have benefited from a slide deck."

Jen: [laughing] Ah-hah.

Pete: My first reaction was like you, I kind of laughed and was like, "Isn't that fascinating that so many people say how refreshing it is, and then someone is like, 'No, I prefer a slide deck. I prefer a slide deck.'" So there's like the fascinating reality of how everyone is having a completely different experience of the thing that's in front of you, I think that's one thread. The other thread, though, is the disproportionate amount of time I've spent thinking about that. And I've actually started thinking, "Maybe I should have a slide deck for some of these sessions," even though there's hundreds of pieces of feedback contrary to that opinion. So it's just like one of those quirky moments where we spend way too much time on the negative, I guess, or the constructive. So, can you help? Can you relate?

Jen: I mean, I can so relate. I can so relate. I think everybody can relate to this, honestly. It reminds me of Brené Brown's concept of creativity scars, that like someone comments on something you've made, and that can just like sit with you and hold you back and make you question yourself for the rest of your life. But what's fascinating in your particular case is, you have mountains of evidence to the contrary, that the thing that you made is actually quite effective. And you know in your logical brain that what you made is not going to be for everybody. So here you've got 1% of your audience population saying, "Yeah, this is not for me," and 99% saying, "Yes, this is for me." And yet, this 1% will continue to nag at you. And I recognize this and I'm laughing about it because I feel it down to my bones. I have so been there, and I see this in my own clients all the time. In fact, just today in class, I had a client who was sharing with me that she went into an audition, she did her performance, and the casting director gave her a piece of feedback that was very specific to the song that she had presented, and it had something to do with simplifying or doing less. And she left that audition and made the connection that she needed to simplify her entire life and needed to do less in every single thing that she did.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: Like, that piece of feedback was so potent to her that it was no longer about the song or the work, it felt like it was about her personally. And I was like, "Oh, I relate to that. I relate to that so much." So I think your question is like, how do we get ahead of that?

Pete: Yeah. I think that is also a very relatable example, is like the over application of one piece of feedback to contexts that weren't the context of where the feedback came from in the first place.

Jen: Right. Right. It's is a tricky thing to sort through because as much as we just want to be logical and unemotional, we feel things.

Pete: Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a few like threads that came from that. One is, I feel like so much of this, for me, I could put down to I'm a recovering people pleaser. And I have like a real innate desire to keep the peace and make everyone happy and make sure everyone's getting something out of the thing that I'm doing, whether it's a podcast or a keynote or workshop. And I can literally see how people are responding and reacting. And sometimes, I'll literally like channel my energy towards certain people, when I'm like, "That person looks distracted. Let me like talk to them and see if I can get them engaged." You know? Like, I feel like my people pleasing is...I mean, it's served me in some ways, but it's often the thing that gets in the way of me. Like you said, rationally, I know. Logically, I know. It's a 1%. That's a sign that actually you're delivering something that is different, because the status quo is the thing that person is seeking. And you're not seeking to do the status quo. So like, logically, I get it. And yet, emotionally, I'm like, "How do I get this person engaged? Maybe I need to make a fun slide deck. I'll have gifs. I'll have videos. It'll be hilarious. It'll be great." And yet, I don't actually think that's the answer. And I kind of know that's not the answer.

Jen: This is making me think of a conversation I had with...actually, it's a mutual client of ours, who I've been working with for many years. And she relayed a story to me about some feedback that she had been given, again, in an audition room. And as she was telling me the story, I realized that nothing was in quotation marks. Like, as she was telling me the story, there was nothing literally being quoted, but it was more of like the gist of what was said. And so, I asked her if she could just put quotation marks in the story, like, "Tell me actually what was said, as opposed to how it made you feel. What did they say?" And once she did that, she was able to see the story from a totally different perspective and go like, "Oh my gosh, I am hearing something other than what was said. I'm hearing my feelings about the words, as opposed to the actual words. And when I think about the actual words, it was quite a helpful note. It just didn't feel good to hear it."

Pete: Wow, that is genius. That is genius. So, I'm going to use this. Next time you get feedback or you're spinning out about a certain piece of feedback, can you put in quotation marks the things that were actually said? Which, is different to the story you're telling yourself about that thing. Like, "This person now hates me and I need to make a slide deck for every single workshop I ever create." No one ever said that.

Jen: That's right.

Pete: That was never said. That's not a quote. That's the story I'm telling myself, based on the emotions that I have about wanting to please everyone.

Jen: And what I think I heard you say is this person said, "This might benefit from a slide deck," not even like, "This will..."

Pete: Exactly. It's so true.

Jen: It might, but it also might not.

Pete: It might not. It was like a bit of a suggestion. You know, like, "Have you thought about it?" Oh, that's funny. I had this conversation...I'll put the podcast in the Box O' Goodies. I was on a friend of mine's podcast. His name is Craig Harper, and he has a podcast called The You Project, which is one of the bigger podcasts in Australia. And he would be one of the most well-renowned speakers in Australia. And so, he speaks to like literally tens of thousnads of people a year. And he was laughing with me about like, this exact thing happens to him as well. He's like in a room with a whiteboard, he can see someone that's disengaged, and he's like, "Oh, I'm going to get that person on my side. I'm going to get him on board. I'm going to...". And it's like this thing that we're all grappling with, but we know is unproductive.

Jen: Oh, humans.

Pete: Humans.

Jen: We're so silly.

Pete: We're so ridiculous. And I feel like you and I have spoken about this probably five times before, but here we are again.

Jen: Well, it's interesting, because it makes me want to point back to an episode we did once upon a who knows when...I think it was called The Gift of Feedback. And it's making me want to remind us both that feedback, whether it is critical or even nasty, somewhere in it, there is a gift. So in this particular instance, the gift was that this person made you challenge yourself and ask yourself, "Do I really believe going slide deck free is the way to go?" And then, you had to come up with the answer that, "Yes, it is." So the gift in the feedback wasn't that you were going to take the feedback, but that you ultimately decided to reject it because of something you believed in.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: That's a gift.

Pete: So I love this idea that the feedback is almost a prompt or a provocation for you to consider, rather than something to be taken as gospel or too literally. And you and I were laughing earlier, I was sharing the story of, I worked in a team full of coaches...I have worked in many teams full of coaches. But I worked in one particular team full of coaches, and I remember training a few new coaches. And, you know, we were talking about, "A lot of executive coaching is about asking questions, and holding space, and trying to get the person to realize they have the solution to the challenge they're struggling with." And there was a few like comical examples of when people took that like too literally. A client might ask a question like, "Oh, I don't know, where's the Zoom link for the next coaching session we have?" Like, there may be a situation that happened where someone said, "Where do you think the Zoom link might be?" Like, trying to coach them through how to find the Zoom link. And I was like, "This is too literal. You're taking the asking questions, holding space too literally. This is a framework that is useful when you're coaching, but it doesn't mean in every single conversation you have with this client, you need to coach them. You could just send them the Zoom link. That's okay."

Jen: That's right. That's right. Well, this points to something that I know we've said on hundreds of episodes at this point, which is, context is everything. That, we have to look at the feedback that we are receiving in context. And if we don't do that, if we neglect the context in which the feedback was offered, we may start to apply it in inappropriate contexts.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: For example, what you're talking about, "Where's the Zoom link? You know, look into your heart to find it." You know? Listeners, I'm going down an acting rabbit hole, but I think you're going to be able to follow along even if that's not what you do for a living. So let's say you have an audition, Pete, for a sitcom like Friends, where the characters find themselves in crazy situations. There's a lot of physical comedy. There's a lot of punchlines. And you get a note to, "Take it farther. Go even more physical. Louder, faster, funnier." And then, you ignore the context. And tomorrow, you have an audition for a courtroom drama. And then, you start applying, "Louder, faster, funnier. Use your body more. Like, go as far as you can possibly go." It's inappropriate, in that context, to take the note that was specific to a sitcom.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And, you know, sometimes we just misplace feedback, because we take it so personally, that we somehow trick ourselves into believing it applies 100% of the time in 100% of the circumstances.

Pete: I so love that example, the visceral example of someone in a courtroom being completely over the top, because of the feedback they received. That feels so...it's comical, but like so relatable in terms of the way that you can see we do this to ourselves. And so, the question (I'm just writing this down for myself) is like, what is the context this feedback came from? Where is the context that this feedback emerged from? I think that's a really helpful question to help us process feedback. You know, the other thing I was thinking about when you were talking about your example earlier of someone who got a note to simplify and then like over-applying that to every aspect of their life, I was thinking about, so much of the work I do with executives and senior leaders is actually try to help them be mindful of when they give feedback. There is a tendency for people to take it really seriously, or really literally, or do exactly what they say even if they're just thinking out loud. This happens all the time, especially at the C-level. When a C-something will be thinking out loud in a meeting, and everyone in the room...well, not everyone...but sometimes, people in the room are like, "Oh, we've got to go and do that, because that's exactly what the CFO just said." And it's like, no, maybe he was just spitballing and thinking out loud. He was just like sharing ideas. And so, I often spend time coaching executives to be like, "How do you frame things and be mindful of the feedback you give? It's almost like coming from the other side of the table, you can help them with that context so that they don't go and apply it to every single aspect of their life."

Jen: Ooh, that is just such a good prompt for those of us who give feedback, to make sure that we are including a framing device and making sure everyone is aware of the context in which it is applicable.

Pete: Framing device, that's a fun way of looking at it. I like that.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Framing device.

Jen: I'm thinking about my daughter who is in eighth grade, and she has a really incredible English teacher. And they're doing a lot of writing this year. They're doing personal essays. They're doing creative writing. And they're also doing analytical writing. And he's very specific with them, so that they know which notes apply in which styles. So suddenly, you're not adding, you know, over-casual language in your analytical essay, but that you can add the flavor of the way you talk in your personal writing.

Pete: I love this. This feels all like examples of like almost practical empathy. It's like, "What's going on for the person that gave me this feedback? And how do I understand that context?" And/or on the other side, "What might be going on for the person receiving this feedback that I need to be aware of? And how can I frame it appropriately?" It's like putting yourself in someone else's shoes in a really practical way, so that you can better serve them as a leader.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I can't remember ever taking so many notes in one of our podcasts. I've taken so many notes for myself of like, "Ask yourself this question. Remember that question. Don't forget this question."

Jen: Well, then it sounds, Pete, like you maybe should turn this episode into a workshop that doesn't have a slide deck.

Pete: Yeah, that's...touché. Touché. And I know someone not to invite, who will not be interested in coming. I mean, it was anonymous. But I could, you know, seek to not include that person because they don't want to be included.

Jen: Well, this has been a really good reminder that, 1., feedback is a gift. So, look for the gift in it. 2., Take the context of the feedback into account when deciding where and when to apply it. And 3., as much as possible, remember that the actual feedback and your feelings about the feedback are two different things.

Pete: Yes, ma'am. And I think if those three things were a Venn diagram, the thing in the middle of that is that you actually have agency to choose what to do with the feedback that you receive.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.