We are not built the same when it comes to receiving feedback in the workplace. What might seem as open and direct to one person can seem completely harsh and really sharp to another.
Feedback can sometimes break or make someone. How you deliver it matters greatly. When done in the right way it can be the most effective means of communication and performance for you and your organization.
Join me today as we redefine what feedback is with M. Tamra Chandler and Laura Dowling Grealish, the authors of the book Feedback and Other Dirty Words – Why We Fear It, How to Fix It.
In this episode, Tamra and Laura explain how feedback got such a negative connotation. They share how we can minimize the bad emotional and physical reactions that destroy trust and halt communication. They also offered helpful solutions, suggestions, as well as new definitions to create a better framework for feedback.
We can’t totally get rid of feedback but we can always redefine it!
In this episode, you will learn about:
- Why feedback is such a huge component to the growth of a business, its people, and organizations
- The problem with the way feedback is being portrayed right now
- Re-imagining feedback as a fluid ongoing conversation, free of angst and judgment
- The 5:1 ratio
- Actionable suggestions to improve feedback
- Tamra and Laura’s take on Carol Sandford’s ‘No More Feedback’ book
- The fine art of noticing
- Short feedback and long reflections
- The ‘S&!@ Sandwich’ method of giving feedback and why it’s not advisable to resort to it
- How to get better at feedback?
Listen to the full episode:
Read the Full Transcript:
Brandon Laws: Hey, welcome to Transform Your Workplace. I am Brandon Laws and thank you for joining us for today’s episode. If you’re giving this a try, really appreciate it. I think you’re going to love this episode. And for those of you who have stuck with us, thank you for all the support and sharing on social media, the reviews, all that good stuff. We wouldn’t have the show without you and the community, really appreciate that.
Today’s episode, I have a conversation with two people. We got Tamra Chandler and Laura Dowling Grealish. They wrote a book called Feedback (and Other Dirty Words): Why We Fear It, How to Fix It.
What’s interesting about this, you may have noticed this if you’ve been listening but we had a podcast on No More Feedback: Cultivate Consciousness at Work featuring Carol Sanford and that was such an interesting discussion. I really hadn’t thought of feedback the way she articulated. Feedback should come from within because most people are biased or they look at providing feedback through their own lens or quite frankly, they just don’t know how to give feedback.
So I think this book is a really good part 2 to that which is really about, OK, how do we give feedback? Because feedback is very important whether it’s coming from within or people just sharing what they noticed is happening in a non-pointed or harsh way. There are a lot of great ways to provide feedback. And Tamra and Laura really share that so I think you’re going to get a lot from this. I really enjoyed the conversation. It’s always fun when you can bring a couple of people on to the podcast and have a discussion. So I think you will love it.
Please go to Apple podcast. Give us a review or share it on social media. We would appreciate the love, the support, and all that. And of course, I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, all those places, so follow me there. Thank you so much. Enjoy the episode.
Hey, Tamra, Laura, it’s great to have you on the podcast. Welcome.
Tamra Chandler: Hey!
Laura Dowling Grealish: Thank you. We are excited to be here.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. I’m excited to talk about your book, Feedback (and Other Dirty Words): Why We Fear It, How to Fix It. Feedback, it’s something we talk about quite a bit. You had mentioned early on in the book, there’s a quote that I pulled from it, “Your business will only rise to the level of your people.” And I love that quote because you mentioned that feedback is really a big component of rising to the level of the people in the organization. Why is it such a huge component to the growth of not only the people but the business and the organization?
Laura Dowling Grealish: When you think about feedback, most people often tend to go negative. But the truth is, if you lean into positive feedback, if we start with that perspective, positive feedback, it inspires us, it helps understand our strengths and our super powers, it lifts us up. And you know what? When we are in that state, we are highly engaged. We are happy. We work harder. We stretch more. We push ourselves more. And that’s really what gets us to the heart of improvement, right? How do we improve? How do we kind of go to that next step?
But at the core of it, if we want to get better in the future, we need to understand sort of where we are and how we do that. And feedback is really the essence of how you do that.
Brandon Laws: What’s interesting about feedback, you allude to this in the book but I’ve just noticed from my work in general, I think when people hear feedback, they either think as a receiver, it gives them some anxiety but also, as a giver, it might give them anxiety as well just knowing that they have to either provide it, whether it’s negative feedback or positive feedback, it’s a little easier. But what’s the problem with the way feedback is right now with most people?
Tamra Chandler: I think what we have learned is that feedback is just wrong. And so when Laura and I first started doing this work, we got really clear that we needed to redefine feedback in general because to your point, if I walk up to somebody, if I walk up to you, Brandon, and say, “Hey, I’ve got some feedback for you.” If you are like most people, your blood pressure just went up, your anxiety just went up.
Brandon Laws: Here it comes.
Tamra Chandler: Here it comes, right. You sort of like get in a hunkered position and wait for it, and that’s because we have grown up. We have experienced feedback most of our lives with this idea that it’s negative. And a lot of us still believe that the best way you help somebody get better is tell them what they’re doing wrong, which actually science doesn’t support at all. But we have mostly grown up in this world of, “I’m going to tell you what’s wrong with you and that’s going to make you a better person.” So we have defined feedback in that sense.
And for a long time because Laura and I do a bunch of work in performance management, we are working with clients and we are saying, “Hey, we need to improve the way that your organization is sharing and providing feedback collectively,” and people would just be like, “Well, we are horrible at that. We can’t do it.” But they were again looking at it in this very negative sense and we realized if we are going to move these organizations forward, if we are really going to help them, we have to start with a clean slate. We have to redefine feedback. We can’t get rid of it. We have to sort of reset. We have to hit the reset button and say, “Let’s redefine what feedback means to all of us in a way that’s very healthy and can help us grow and improve and thrive as humans and as teams.
Brandon Laws: You just mentioned performance management that you do a lot of work there, there’s a quote that I love and I think it ties in nicely. The quote says, “It’s time to reimagine feedback as a fluid and on-going conversation, free of ratings, angst, and judgment.”
And I love that because I think it sets the stage that this annual performance review, that’s not really performance management because you get a rating of that one a year and that’s like that’s your feedback versus you shift to this on-going fluid conversation where both sides are comfortable giving and receiving feedback. Is that really what you mean by that?
Tamra Chandler: It is really what we meant by that.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Absolutely. And lots of our clients are shifting to that culture, that culture of doing away with the annual review, again performance isn’t enhanced or optimized by waiting around until the end of the year and finding out that I’m a 3.6 instead of the 4 I imagined myself to be. It sends me into a spiral of despair. I’m not getting much out of that conversation that ensues that helps me do better. All I can think about is kind of licking my wounds and why you dirty, rotten manager, did you call me a 3.6 instead of the 4 that I imagined myself to be?
Tamra Chandler: Right. And there’s nothing in that 3.6 that helps anybody learn anything, right?
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Tamra Chandler: The construct against some rating scale that most of us don’t even understand and of course as we understand these rating scales, they are a fallacy because everyone judges differently against that rating scale. And so, it’s a lot more about the judger than it is about the individual who is receiving that rating. There’s just so much badness that comes out of that versus leaning into, “Hey, in the moment, I’m going to help you understand the strengths and the positive things that help move you forward.”
Brandon Laws: You know what’s interesting about that is I believe and you mentioned this in the book too but people have a negativity bias so they see that one low rating first before they would see all those other high ratings or even the positive feedback then I think that’s what’s wrong with performance reviews in general or in receiving feedback. I think people just naturally go to the negative first. Why is that?
Laura Dowling Grealish: Well, that’s the biology. That’s the biology in all of us. Again, the little bit of neuroscience that we looked at and we looked at a ton and it’s just a tip of the iceberg. It’s exactly what the human body was meant to do is just protect and we go with that negative piece because we are drawn to it because we try to protect ourselves against it, right? And so, let’s say you get three positive statements in a performance review or a discussion and one thing that you could work on your body, your mind, you’re just protective mechanism goes to that one. It feels injured and maybe angered by it sometimes and it can’t really process the other thoughts.
So one of the tips that we give to extenders and receivers in this kind of new feedback world is focus on one thing. Don’t mix the message. It’s unfair to be unclear so be very, very clear. If there is something that is a better approach or something that does need to be corrected, let’s focus on it. There are ways to talk about it that can sit down on that fight or flight kind of tendency.
But if it’s appreciation and the good stuff I did, keep that separate and distinct and keep it flowing plentiful. Give up that stuff more than you typically do because it takes much more of that good stuff to stick in the brain because we grab on to the negative but we don’t grab on to the positive so we’ve got to keep the positive going.
Tamra Chandler: I was going to add that we say in the book, good can only win over bad by the numbers.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Tamra Chandler: Because we process negative information so quickly because we hold on it way longer than we do positive information, that’s a big reason why we really advocate leaning into that positive more frequently, more often to really build trust and to help people understand all the goodness and the value you see in them and that really sets the foundation for if you’ve got something harder later to on you’ve built that trust, you’ve built this connection that someone can truly take in that one piece of constructive or redirective feedback you might have.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Is that a 5:1 ratio that you talk about in the book where it’s like you need five positive things for everyone one like constructive critical thing, right?
Laura Dowling Grealish: In the connections, what we are really saying is that’s not even necessarily feedback. That’s just saying that individually we are connecting human to human five times positively to one negative, right? And so, it can be simple things of having a cup of coffee together, grabbing lunch, working on a hard project. What are the things that we are doing that are connecting us? So it’s like building the threads of our relationship and each of those positive connections builds stronger thread. We are building a fabric that can support both of us. But it doesn’t necessarily have to feedback. It just is about that connection.
Tamra Chandler: Yeah. I think this was the piece. And again, gosh, if you get to interview Dr. Gottman, that’s John Gottman’s work and he is out of Seattle and he and his wife do a ton of research. And it’s really that underpinnings why we think feedback can be positive and it can work. All the underpinnings are about trust. People who write books that feedback doesn’t work if it’s not coming from a trusted spot or a trusted relationship, you may as well honestly like they say, save your breath.
But if you can build up this foundation of trust, the conversational model that we give out in the book as well as the tips on the 5:1, it’s about emotional connection. It’s truly not five pieces of disingenuous praise to every one piece of tough feedback, that’s what we call you-know-what. That sandwich that you’re going to talk about later, that emotional connection of some kind is foundational for a feedback to work.
Brandon Laws: What’s really interesting about what you just said there is it’s the connection, it’s the trust, all of those, and I think in my mind that’s what people fear about giving feedback. There’s a quote that I loved and I think it illustrates the point I’m trying to make, the quote says, “Most of us don’t want to hurt those we care about, so we tend to delay or even completely avoid sharing a thought or an idea that we suspect might upset the recipient and potentially damage our relationship.”
What do you say about that?
Tamra Chandler: Well, you know earlier, you were talking about the fear of the extender. What almost any data will tell is that all of us complained we don’t get enough feedback but I would say, well, that’s because most of us don’t give enough feedback. And I think at the root of that is the fear of the extender. We are like someone is going to get this ballgame started and it has to be seeking feedback but giving the extender an opportunity to lower their own fear. And so, that’s why say start with seeking because if we start there then if I go to Laura and ask for some specific feedback, I have just given her the permission and I have given her specificity about what I’m looking for.
So I think a lot of this is about we have to lower the fear in the extender. And I do think that the sad thing is many of us have ideas or thoughts that could help those around us but we are so fearful of extending that because we haven’t really done that work to build that relationship or we haven’t had the conversation about how we will give each other feedback. We haven’t really established sort of that relationship and that norm.
And so I think what we are offering in the book is here are the tips and tricks to establish that relationship. Here is how as a seeker of feedback to let the extenders know how to give you feedback, when is a good time, what type of things are you looking for, what triggers you that they should avoid, right? And so I think the more that we just have those open conversations we can lower the stress that we see in the extenders and hopefully, that’s going to unleash a lot of this and we will start to seek feedback wiling a lot more both in that we are seeking it and those that are witnessing the goodness that we are providing as well as the things that are getting in our way feel like they have that platform for helping us move forward.
Brandon Laws: Actually, that’s interesting the way you frame that up because in my mind, I was like, “OK, well, how does somebody naturally just become a seeker?” if you want to start there because not everybody is built that way. But I think like if I were to say, I hire a new employee and I think if early on I had a conversation with them to say, “Hey, how do you like to receive feedback? Is it written? Is it verbal? Should we do it in a moment?” Like just have kind of the understanding of here’s how I’m going to deliver feedback. I think if you do it too late, there’s not really that agreement upfront and it would be hard for somebody else to become a seeker or just want feedback all the time or be open to it.
So is that really how you kind of think of it is this open and upfront dialog about it?
Tamra Chandler: Absolutely.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Absolutely. And I love that perspective. With a new employee – with any employee, even some of our managers say, “Gosh! I haven’t been this way before so how do I do this without showing up like I’ve been doing it wrong all the time?” And we say, “You know what? Just get vulnerable. Say, ‘I’m trying something new. I learn something new. And yes, seeking input from them but also then given a little tidbit of hey, here’s something that I’m working on in my own career.’ Sometimes it’s easier branding to frame it around my development rather than my behavior.” It’s something I’m working on.
For example, gosh, I’m trying to be more skilled at the Excel worksheets that all consultants have to fill out when they are leading a project. And I might want to get some feedback on that. And so sharing that with one of my employees to say, “Hey, here’s something I’m really working on. I’m working on getting these worksheets done. Would you give me some feedback on mine?” So actually asking the employee. So become a seeker of your employee rather than it can be a little more intimidating to say, “Hey, give me some feedback on how I am as your manager. Yes, kind of behavior and my being.”
And so, absolutely, stepping out there and being vulnerable and like Tamra penned in the book and has always penned for all of us that follow here, “Go first.” Just go out there and go first.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, I love that. You also talk about, which I’m a huge fan of Carol Dweck’s work with the growth mindset. I think when you talk about and coach people into that growth mindset because a lot of us especially as we are growing up, we have sort of that fixed mindsets, “Oh, it’s going to be this way.” But as we become adults and we have these interactions, we know that it’s just – we are constantly learning and we can continue to grow.
Why is the growth mindset really such a huge component to fixing the whole feedback issue we have?
Tamra Chandler: Growth mindset I think is pivotal to everything. It’s pivotal to the way we extend feedback and certainly to us as receivers. And here’s why, because everything we are saying is in context with the work environment and my growth and my development. And if you are not growing, learning, changing at work, you’re simply stuck and you’re probably not contributing to your potential. So a growth mindset, I can learn something new, I can try something different, I can listen to your point of view is essential for the feedback movement because then and only then would I even consider listening to feedback from someone else other than myself, right?
I think as extenders, the typical managers, sometimes we get stuck thinking about a person in a fixed mindset way, “Brandon will never be this. Laura is not a spreadsheet girl. So I put her in a box and I then fail to nurture and grow her if she wants to grow in that way.” So I think it’s important for everybody to kind of think about mindset.
And the neuroscience too behind it is fascinating because everything we are saying about feedback, getting over the fear of feedback, is kind of the same pattern that Dweck and her team talk about. The brain is a plastic and you can switch your mindset. You can switch your thoughts. You can switch the way you think about feedback too. So that is a huge component and it ties to growth mindset.
Laura Dowling Grealish: I think the corollary to that too is we talk about this idea of flipping the switch from prove to improve and I think whether you’re seeking feedback or extending feedback, if you are coming at it because you are trying to prove something, I’m trying to prove I’m good at those spreadsheets, I’m trying to prove I’m a smart manager, we really don’t enter it with the best intent or the best approach and usually are not having a good experience, where if we move to this idea of improve, I’m trying to improve a certain attribute of my capabilities or my personality or whatever it is I’m working on or I’m trying to help that person improve versus prove that they’ve been doing it wrong. We certainly move into a far better space to be providing valuable feedback.
Brandon Laws: Several months ago, I had interviewed Carol Sanford on her book, No More Feedback: Cultivate Consciousness at Work, which is really the opposite of your book. Her thing – I get her point where she is really describing how feedback is coming from somebody’s vantage point so it’s biased naturally because it’s from their lens.
So, I want to get your perspective and your opinion, do you agree with that in some form or are you more on the line of, “Hey, we can coach people into giving better and meaningful feedback,” or is it something else altogether?
Tamra Chandler: You know it’s funny because I talked about back when I was writing the performance management book, I actually went through and tried to edit the word “feedback” out because I thought it was such a loaded word and people always – we talked about – go to the negative and it wasn’t helping my cause if you will.
And then after doing work in the space for so long, I finally got really – it really became so evident to me that we can’t eradicate feedback. It is inherent in the way we talk to each other, the words we use, the way we think about how we improve a project or improve a product or how we grow. And so that’s why we got to that idea of we can’t get rid of it or say no feedback. What we have to do is redefine it.
I would say in some sense as we are probably in agreement with her and the fact that the way we have been doing feedback is wrong. It’s mostly hurtful and not helpful. And so, we agree with that but we don’t think we can just leave it there. We think we have to redefine feedback. How are you going to do it differently? And as much as possible and this is again where we would be agreeing with her is take out the bias the judgment and really move in to what we call the fine art of noticing. Here is what I’m noticing and I am not necessarily going to add my why I think you’re doing it that way or my perspective or my assumptions about it. I’m just simply going to share what I’ve noticed and what the effect I’ve noticed of that action is and then have a conversation with you about it, because we are humans.
If you look in the Wikipedia on bias, there’s what, a 101 biases we come with. I mean we are just loaded. So there’s no way we are going to escape that humanness of who we are. So I think we just need to adjust for it and that adjust for it is try to remove those assumptions and bias and judgment and just share what we are noticing.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Absolutely.
Brandon Laws: I love the way you framed that up with noticing because you even wrote in the book that like what might seem as open and direct to one person can seem completely harsh and really sharp to another. It’s like we are not all built the same way to receive feedback. But I think if you sort of look at it from an objective standpoint like, “Hey, here’s what I’m noticing.” I don’t think anybody would receive that as really harsh because you’re starting from that point of view. It’s like, “Hey, this is my observation.” That’s right.
Tamra Chandler: Right.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Absolutely. And then the conversation model, there are behaviors and noticing and mindful noticing and all of those practices that we can get better at and then you can move into, yes, there are actually ways to move in to conversation after you have provided a bit of notice, et cetera. And I think again, we probably shared Carol Sanford’s point of view because we say then don’t tell the answer. Don’t say, “Here’s what you did wrong and here’s what you need to do differently.” It’s much more of the, “Here’s what I notice. Here’s the impact it had.”
But then move into what we call a catalyzing conversation, right? Conversations that lead you somewhere together, don’t assume you know the answer or don’t tell me what to do differently because the biological human in you will resist being told what to do differently.
But if we can get to a maybe it’s a 1 or 2-minute conversation that says, “Here’s what I notice, Tamra,” rather than – here’s an example we used in our workshops the other day, “You were completely unprofessional in that meeting yesterday, Tamra.” That wasn’t feedback that someone was going to give her.
And we break it down. What did you notice? What was going on in the meeting truly? “She was looking out the window. OK. That’s the fact. Here’s what I noticed. You were looking out the window.”
Everything else in the statement was ego or bias or the story you were telling yourself. “She was looking out the window. That’s totally unprofessional. She is pissed off at all of us. Blah, blah, blah.” When we go through this and kind of mark through everything, that’s just ego or bias.
Brandon Laws: Yes.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Yeah. What you come up with was, “Tamra was looking out the window.” Now sometimes we coach people to say, “If you have to, use this language. The story I was telling myself was that you were very unprofessional. But what you want to do is open it up with a question and say, ‘What was going on for you?’ And then you can get to that discussion.”
Brandon Laws: I love this idea that you had in the book and I want you to use that example you used to illustrate this. You said, “Give short feedback and long reflection.” So what you probably meant by that was really just the facts, observations, and then give somebody a chance to reflect on that feedback. So use that example to what I just described there with that concept from the book.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Yeah. Feedback short, reflection long is again, Tamra’s brainchild and by the way, the drawing of feedback short, reflection long is by her beautiful and talented daughter, Ivy Mosier. That’s a little something for our podcast listeners. Did you know that our children are the illustrators of this book?
Brandon Laws: I did not know that. Wow!
Laura Dowling Grealish: How cool is that? Yeah. So her Ivy did all the hand sketch work.
Brandon Laws: Wow!
Laura Dowling Grealish: And my Logan did the illustrative arts and the chapter heads and the cover. So just a little shout-out for our protégé.
Brandon Laws: That’s amazing. I love it.
Laura Dowling Grealish: OK. So you were saying feedback short, reflection long on what we just talked about, yeah, because you know what? Again, psychological safety, “Don’t blow me up, beat me up. Give me some facts.” And then encourage the feedback giver. We encourage them to something to reflect or a question to reflect on and maybe even as a receiver, some go-away time and think about it because you cannot process some deep heavy stuff in the minute. You got to reflect on it. You’re going to turn on it.
You’re going to – some feedbacks that I got 10 years ago, I’m still chewing on it. And you know what? It was eventually right for me. So that’s what we are saying is do not drop a bomb and expect an immediate flip of mindset or anything. Give people space. Ask for space to go, reflect, think about it, chew on it, then come back and decide what you’re going to do about it.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Tamra Chandler: Yeah. And I think with that long reflection, if you’ve been given something that just sort of surprised you or you had never thought about before, it does take some time to pull it apart and go first, “Hey, is this true? Is this something I’m willing to accept? What’s the implication? Why is it true?” And then taking that time to even put your seeking hat back on and go validate it with other people, “Hey, have you noticed that in most meetings I seem to be staring out the window? Are you witnessing the same thing? And how is that affecting you?” And maybe it’s just I’m in deep thought that I didn’t realize everyone thinks I’m not paying attention.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Tamra Chandler: And so, just taking that time to reflect on it but then also as a seeker, you can start to validate it or seek other perspectives on the same idea that will give you even a richer information to sort of noodle on.
Brandon Laws: I like that idea of validating it because like any scientist would do, they cover some facts, they build a hypothesis and then they go out and test that over and over and over again to prove it right.
That’s what’s different with feedback. It’s like “OK, well, there’s an observation that somebody made.” Well, do I need to make a shift? Is it just one-off and then you go and validate it, it’s like “Wow! It’s actually true!” Then to make some changes.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Well then I think that’s true about our strength too, right? That sometimes we are most blind to what others perceived as our strengths or our super power. And maybe it’s because they are just something we’ve always been good at, we’ve never really realized the value that they provide or maybe it’s something that we didn’t use to be good at. Now, we are and we have not recognized how we’ve progressed but sometimes it’s those things that we just – we really need to take in and learn like, “Oh, I really am good at this. And I really can’t help people by bringing more of it and I can lean into this more, and that can be just as powerful, if not more.
Brandon Laws: Let’s talk about a method of giving feedback that a lot of people use. It’s called the “Shit Sandwich.” I don’t know if you coin that. I’ve heard that before but describe that and why it’s not such a good idea.
Tamra Chandler: Well, you know, it’s funny because we did call the “Shit Sandwich” in the book. I don’t know that we can claim that we coined that. I think others have used it as well.
Laura Dowling Grealish: It has many names. We’ve heard it called many things.
Tamra Chandler: Yeah. In fact, it’s even in Wikipedia. You can look it up. It’s in there with the definition. When we first put it in in the book, we had our publishers come back and say, “Oh, we don’t think we should be using that word. We really think we should be calling it the “Prove Sandwich.” And Laura and I were like no.
Brandon Laws: No.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Sorry. We can’t go there. We just got to stick with the “Shit Sandwich,” which is what we did. That’s one of my favorite drawings is the sandwich book and the book that talks about the “Shit Sandwich.” But it’s a – it really is this idea and unfortunately we’ve trained people for many years to do this, this idea of, “Hey, say something nice, load in that hard feedback and then wrap it up with something nice again.” And so, it ends up feeling like these disingenuous compliments that you are giving people and smashing in …
Brandon Laws: It’s manipulative.
Laura Dowling Grealish: It’s manipulative and smashing in the thing that you really want them to take away. And the sad thing is even if you really meant those nice things, even if they were truly heartfelt and you wanted that person to hear them, they’re not going to hear them because it’s going to get lost in this slicey, big, fat sandwich you just loaded on them.
Tamra Chandler: Right. Either that or it’s easing in to the tougher thing and the tougher thing that you really did need to have a conversation with because again, you are trying to save face, you are trying to be kind of the nice guy and then you don’t really …
Laura Dowling Grealish: Not hurt them.
Tamra Chandler: … deal with the issue at hand and easing in again we say, “You know what? Unclear is also unkind.” You really didn’t get to the bottom of the issue. So yeah, we use the connect conversation model as a direct antidote to the “Shit Sandwich.” And why? Again, because when you said it’s confusing the brain, the brain is whipsaw it back and forth and doesn’t know whether to trust this or not trust this. And so just being very clear and creating that base of trust and really calling out the issue is important.
Brandon Laws: And what’s really clear to me is that just getting to the point and probably separating feedback whether it’s positive, separate that, and then if it’s negative, get right to the point, make it about the observation, and I think people will be more like going to listen and take away that piece versus you mix all the “Shit Sandwich” together. It’s going to get lost.
Tamra Chandler: The C in our connect model is about context, and that’s the context of where have you witnessed this but also, why are you sharing this information? Because I think it’s really important. If it’s something that is tough, really helping that person understand your intent and that your intent is with their best interest in mind and hopefully you’ve built that relationship we’ve talked about so you are coming at this saying, “I know this is the person you want to be or this is the type of capability you want to be demonstrating or this is the future direction you are wanting to head, and in that context, this is why I’m sharing this with you because this is getting in your way. Here’s the one thing I’ve noticed and let’s talk about.” As we said, go through the process from there.
But just getting really clear on why you’re sharing information, and when you do the “Shit Sandwich,” it’s totally muddy like what is the intent of this conversation? What are you trying to do here?
Brandon Laws: Let me pose a question for you. So, what if we are in a situation where we are starting to give feedback. We think it was the right approach. But about halfway through, either the message is just getting lost, the person is obviously not loving the feedback, or even receptive to it and they just tend to be – there’s tuning out or their body language is telling you that they don’t agree, what do you do in that situation? Because I feel like that is probably a regular occurrence.
Tamra Chandler: Yeah, I think that probably is regular occurrence. I’ll be interested in Laura’s perspective but I think one thing we would say for sure is, you need to be highly tuned into the conversation you are having. And if you are seeing the receiver backing away, getting angry, maybe getting stressed out, or just starting to shut down, I think just being able to call it and say, “Look, it feels like you are not in a place where this is the right time or the right moment for this. Let me step away. You let me know when you want to continue this conversation because I’m here for you. Again, because I’m trying to help, not hurt. So if you are at a point when you want to talk about this further, come back to me or can we set a time when we are going to talk about this.”
And just – I think the more that we can just be sort of transparent and authentic in these situations is so much better rather than trying to pretend and just kind of power through, that’s where we get into dangerous territory.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Absolutely.
Brandon Laws: Well, I’m such a huge proponent of feedback. I appreciate your work that you are doing on it. I really believe that feedback is the way that we can all improve and get better. I just don’t think that everybody is built the same as far as either receiving it or even giving it. So for an action item for our listeners, either for their people or for themselves, how did they get better at feedback? And like where do you want to drive people to as far as getting better at this?
Tamra Chandler: I think we would say start with seeking, right? And as a speaker feedback, the first thing you have to do is even get clear on what is the type of the feedback you want.
It’s interesting, we had a leadership team meeting yesterday at PeopleFirm and we were taking – we actually did a sort of 30-minute, hey, what are we working on? How are we helping each other? How are we taking the lessons from the feedback book and applying them?
And several of my peers said, “You know, the thing that I realized since I’ve gone far enough into my career, I’m not even sure what I’m working on anymore. And they said the first thing I had to do was take a step back and think about what kind of feedback do I even want like what’s important to me at this stage in my career?
And so I think once you get clear with, “Well, what is it that I need? What would help me?” Then starting to do some seeking on that one thing and going to those people who you trust, who you have a relationship with, and tell them what you are doing and starting to seek that feedback and ask them for some noticing, “Hey, I’m working on this thing. Just kind of watch me. If you see me doing great or veering off tracks, let me know, would you?” And that’s where I think we start.
Brandon Laws: Where can people learn more about your book, about you guys and what you are up to? Tamra and Laura, you both co-wrote this book and you do I imagine a lot of consulting and speaking. Where can people find more about what you’re up to?
Laura Dowling Grealish: Yes. Feedback in particular, the book is on Amazon and we are on www.PeopleFirm.com and we do tons of people related, consulting and workshops and lots of cool interactive feedback workshops starting in the fall so we would love for people to grab the book and come talk to us.
Tamra Chandler: Yeah. So people can join our mailing list. We send content. We don’t spam people. And we are also both on LinkedIn and we’ve been getting a lot of conversations happening on LinkedIn as well. So please join us there.
Brandon Laws: Awesome. Laura, Tamra, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It has been a real pleasure talking with you.
Laura Dowling Grealish: Thanks, Brandon.
Tamra Chandler: Oh, thank you. It has been great, Brandon. We appreciate it.