Prepared Leader: Feedback Made Simple

1. Feedback Made Simple: Intro: Hello all, I'm really going to Seoul. And today we're gonna be talking about feedback. Just a little bit about me. I've spent the last 17 years as an executive at Zappos and the last nine years more recently at Netflix. They are very unique companies with unique transparent cultures. It is how we kept our competitive edge by being very transparent, by providing feedback and candor to each other so we could stay high-performing at both places. I lead teams of one, which usually started to myself, two teams of a 170 people. So building a strong culture of feedback and candor is really important to make sure you're creating high-performing engaged teams. So today we're going to talk about why feedback is important. Requirements for giving and receiving great feedback. A simple framework that you can use to help facilitate feedback. Then we'll also get into a fun project for you all to do. It'll be a little bit of self-reflection and then we'll wrap it up. And I'm going to look forward to hear the court hearing from you all. And if you like this class, please follow me. I'm looking to post classes on leadership frequently. 2. Feedback Made Simple: Importance of Feedback: So why is feedback important? There's five things that I identified as why feedback is important. There's more when I narrowed it down to these five things. The first one is, this is how we get better. It's how we improve ourselves and improve our ideas within the team. By giving and receiving feedback, you're constantly learning, right? We contend to fall into these habits and do these things whether we recognize it or not. And when someone gives us feedback about things that we're doing or not doing, it gives us an opportunity to actually improve ourselves, right? And as long as the feedback is coming from a place of how can we get better together, it really helps improve all ideas and continues to improve your team and yourself. Number two, it keeps team members engaged. It fosters an environment where team members feel like they're listened to, they're empowered. They feel heard. People are taking action against feedback that they've either given or received. A really fosters an environment of openness and honesty, knowing that leaders and peers are open to giving and receiving feedback. And number 3, it helps get conflict out in the open and resolved. We all know that conflict that does that goes unresolved. You try to avoid the person in the hallway or you don't want to send an e-mail or you don't answer your calls and things like that. You don't want to create an environment like that. When you have an open and honest feedback, rich environment, those issues, those mistakes, those concerns was complex, bubble up much quicker. And oftentimes folks will handle it on their own. You know, the leader isn't necessarily need to get involved when you create this environment. It really helps because a team can kind of self-manage, right? Especially when feedback as part of their culture. And number 4, it builds character. It takes a lot of courage to give and receive feedback more. So receive feedback. But it's a muscle that not a lot of us work on. So it's something that we do need to build up. We need to build up that muscle memory to give and receive feedback because it takes courage, it is a gift. So by creating this beat, this environment, it really builds the character of your team. There'll be stronger at it. And then this is a good segue into number five for me, which is great because it builds a strong debate type culture where people can challenge each other's ideas and feel safe about it. They won't feel like they're being attacked or they won't take things personally. But it really helps make ideas better when you have a debate filled environment. Because if somebody has an idea, whether it's creative or not, and nobody challenges it, how do we know it's the best idea? And it's not to challenge it for the sake of being challenged, but it's often you, when you create a debate, debate, healthy environment, people will think of the other perspective and we like, we hear the term devil's advocate. It's always great to have a culture that can do that and think of other perspectives because it'll just make the original ideas and thoughts that much stronger. So those are the five reasons why feedback is super important. 3. Feedback Made Simple: Requirements for Feedback: Next, the requirements for great feedback. Recent boulders through requirements for great feedback for me. The first one and most important, if there's anything you take away from this video, but this make it, this is make your feedback actionable. It has to be something that someone can go, whether it's a behavior to start or to continue or whatever, it should be, something that's actionable. There should be an obvious path to improvement when you give this feedback. Next, it must be clear and candid. What I mean by that is, you know, some people make feedback squishy because they're afraid to give it. So it becomes unclear, becomes muddled there, try to soften it. And so you're actually, you feel like you're giving feedback, but the person receiving is unclear if it's feedback or not. If you feel that it is, you are softening it and it is a bit squishy. Restate the feedback. And after you restate the feedback, ask the person, do you have any questions or thoughts? Is it clear or, you know, kinda recap what you just talked about just to make sure that the feedback was heard with the intention and clarity that it needed to be delivered. And lastly, creating a regular space for feedback. So whether it's in your one-on-one saintly ones once a month, we're going to dedicate our one-on-one to feedback or quarterly however you wanna do it, but just making sure it's irregular canids and you can even be in the moment real-time feedback just as long as it's consistent. For example, if somebody just did a presentation, you could say like, Hey, I'd like to debrief with you about that. So you're at least giving that person a heads up, putting it in the right state of mind, the worst thing you can do is just drop feedback on someone or ask them with like two minutes left in your one-on-one. That's not fair because it doesn't allow the person to be thoughtful and to really be prepared to give and receive that feedback. So make sure you're sitting side. It's a lot of time. Or even if you're not doing it regularly, you can say, Hey, in our next session, I'd really like to go over any feedback you have for me and I'll bring any feedback I have for you. Just so that gives people that time and space and thoughtfulness to bring actionable feedback. 4. Feedback Made Simple: Framework: So now we're onto this really simple framework. I use this simple framework for my teams. I've learned this from other places, but it's been super effective. And I think it's even good if you are in a startup and you don't have a formal review process, this can be a way you do quarterly reviews, but it's a really simple framework. It's Start, Stop, Continue. And let me get into what that means. And I'm going to use meetings as an example. So you can kind of get an idea of the start, stop, and continue framework work. So I'm going to give feedback regarding meetings so we have a consistent example and this can be anything. So just so you can see it in action. So it start, start is to talk about what are the things that I'd like to see you start to do? So using that meeting example, start to send out pre-reading or send out agendas for your meetings. This is signaling to that person that you want to see a new behavior, right? Then you know that that new behavior will improve the way they do things. So start is the way to think about that. What are the things you'd want someone to start doing? Stop. Just like start. What are the things that you would want someone to stop doing? So, for example, using the meetings again, stop send stop scheduling meetings when they could be e-mails or stop leading meetings when you're not prepared. Or stop having meetings without providing the proper context for why this meeting is even happening. So see, you can see where you can use this framework to really like. These are the things that you shouldn't be doing or we wouldn't want you to do anymore. So start we start to do, stop. You, stop to do or stop doing, and then continue. This is, these are the things where you can kinda reinforce the things that they're doing well. So again, I'm going to use that meeting framework or the meaning example. So continue to send out agendas, continued to provide context for meetings, continue to, et cetera. So you're actually encouraging that pot, you're reinforcing that positive behavior. And you're telling them the things that you would like to like they're doing well and you would like to see them do continuously. So really simple framework, Start, Stop, Continue. And then also when you're doing these things, you want to make sure that after you have this conversation and after you've given the feedback and you've received the feedback, you follow up and encourage. So now, whether it's quarterly or monthly, You all follow up with each other. Feedback that they've given you. Feedback you've given them. See how they're doing. Provide any feedback. Again to say like, oh, I've noticed that you've started to send out agendas. I noticed that you're sending out prairies, a Love it. The meetings are more productive. There's more debate, things like that. So make sure that you follow up and encourage. 5. Feedback Made Simple: Project: And a fun project for you all. And it's, this is something that I do at least twice a year. And I asked my team to do to get them in the right mindset is take this framework of Start, Stop, Continue, and actually write a review or write a feedback email to yourself. With those, those same things. And for me, I am my own worst critic. And many liters are, people are your own worst critic. So really just kinda let it go. What are the things that you want to start to do? What are the things you should stop doing? What are the things you should continue doing? Femoral and perspective, if you're giving yourself a review or giving yourself this feedback. So I love that because it gives me a time to self-reflect. But then it also, the second benefit is it puts me in that headspace of like giving meaningful actionable feedback. So for this project, I would love for you to write one for yourself if you feel like sharing, absolutely share. But if not, at least go through this exercise so you can see what the framework is likes he would have feels like and see if it works for you. 6. Feedback Made Simple: Recap: And lastly, just to recap, remember, a feedback is super important. If you want to build a strong, high-functioning team, you want to make sure you want to foster this environment of feedback as opposed to the teams that are more timid, quiet, just doing enough to get by. You wanna make sure that you are creating high-functioning, open, debate focused environments. So again, to recap, we want to make sure that feedback is actionable and clear. You want to make sure that you're doing it consistently. And that's just dropping it on people. You wanna make sure you use this simple framework or you can use your own, but I really like this start, stop, continue framework. And then lastly, make sure you're following up and encouraging. So again, if you'd like the content in this course, follow me. I hope you found it valuable and yeah, I would love to see if you want to share any of your projects with us. So you can drop that in the course as well. All right, Take care. Bye.