The Power of Feedback: Igniting Growth & Excellence

Leah Roe

All right. Can everyone see my screen? Yes. Fantastic. All right, I'm just moving you all over to this screen. So if I look in this direction, I'm looking at all of you. I'm not distracted, I promise. Okay, welcome to the best day of the month, Culture Community Day. So raise your hand if this is your first time here. Let's get going. Welcome, welcome. We are so excited to have you all here. Raise your hand if it's not your first time here. We're equally as excited that you're here too. How are people feeling today? Maybe put an emoji or put it in the chat, shout it out. What's one word to describe how you're feeling right now? I probably have my chat up. You could call it out too. I see thumbs up. I see hearts, rested. Diana celebrating. Thumbs up. I'm very nervous. Amazing. Okay, so a little bit about who we are here at Culture Community. We are a group of people who are passionate about being great leaders, intentionally building great cultures, and we're passionate about not doing it alone or in silos. We are passionate about coming together as a community in order to be better leaders and build better cultures.We've intentionally created this to be a space to learn, grow, and develop, to connect with each other, and ultimately to be inspired and activated to make positive change in the world. We don't want you to come and just learn a bunch of stuff and then keep it to yourself. Take your learning, put it into action so you can really create positive change in your life, in your workplace, and also in your community. We meet monthly online right here. Everyone is always welcome. There's no application process or anything like that. We welcome everyone to culture community. Every month we cover topics that help us to become better leaders and also to help us build better cultures. That being said, we are always looking for new topics, new speakers. If you have something you'd like to speak on, or a topic you would like to hear somebody else speak on, or if you know of a great speaker, please reach out to us here at The Perk. We would love to get in touch with them. Next month, we are so excited to be welcoming back Beth Ridgeley. She is an incredible leadership and workplace culture expert, and she is going to be talking to us about creating safe and brave spaces at work.We are very excited for next month's culture community. You will not want to miss it. Today's culture community, hopefully you like the sound of my voice and you'll like Steph's voice as well, because today Steph and I are leading a conversation on the power of feedback. Both Steph and I work at The Perk. What is The Perk? At The Perk, we are a premier leadership and culture development studio, and our mission is to build the world's best leaders. Now, there are a lot of other companies out there who do what we do, who do leadership development, culture development, coaching, training, all that good stuff. There might be a lot of companies out there that do it for the same reason why to build the world's best leaders. But ultimately, what makes us different at the Perk is how we do what we do, the approach that we take. How do we do leadership and culture development here at the Perk? We make it fun. We make it human. We make it safe, we make it different, and ultimately, we make it last. And fun fact for you all, one week ago today, the Perk team was in Disney World.

Leah Roe

So just for fun reasons, I wanted to share some of these pictures. So last week, we shut down the Perk office for a week. We took the whole team to Disney World. We did no work. It was a no-work week. We just spent the whole time resting, relaxing, celebrating, having fun, and connecting with each other. And while Disney World was absolutely incredible, nothing compares to being with you all here today at Culture Community and talking about one of our very favorite topics, which is feedback. To start off, I want to hear from all of you. Why is feedback important to you? We're going to annotate. Steph, if you want to jump in here and explain to everyone how to annotate with text, that would be awesome.

Steph Llano

Absolutely. On Zoom, if you hover over your screen in the bottom left corner, you'll see a little green pencil, and that's the Annotate pencil. You can click on it. It will pull up a toolbar to the left side of your screen, and then you'll just want to hit text. Then you'll be able to type right into the big text box that Leah has on her screen. When you're done typing, just click away and then it'll show up.

Leah Roe

Also, if Annotate doesn't work for you, feel free to just put it in the chat too. That works just fine. I love feedback because it helps me see my blind spots, part of continuous growth, confirms I'm on the right track. Helps me grow, helps me evolve into a better version. Love it. Helps me have clarity, learn from mistakes. Provides clear expectations. Oh, okay, I can't keep up. This is amazing. Helps me confirm if the story I tell myself is the same thing that others are observing. Yep, helps address issues. Amazing. Nice job team. Look at that interaction. All right, I'm going to go to the next slide here. Steph, can you do.

Steph Llano

That for me? Yeah, with this new toolbar, I need to figure out how I do that. Sorry. You're okay.

Leah Roe

You're doing great. Look at that. Great.

Steph Llano

Whoever did that, thank you. That definitely wasn't me, so appreciate it.

Leah Roe

Thanks, team. It's a team effort. All right. So absolutely all those reasons and more feedback is important because it is how you help your teammates become better. It's also how your teammates help you become better. Feedback is how you are able to align your team towards a common goal, help move work and the organization forward and in the right direction. And ultimately, feedback is a way that you deepen connection and strengthen trust on your team. We're going to do another annotate. I want you to self-reflect and self-assess your confidence in giving feedback. A one, I have zero confidence in giving feedback, and a 10, I am fully confident in giving any and all feedback at all times. We're going to annotate again with stamps. Look at that. You all know stamps. This is amazing. People are confident and I like it. Or you could also type it in the chat if your stamp is not working. Amazing. Okay. The trending towards the confidence side, amazing. That's fantastic. Basically now I'm going to put my slides away and we're just going to hear from all of you of what you're doing and teach me your ways.Just kidding, I'll keep the slides up. But this is fantastic. Hopefully through this workshop you get even closer to that 10. I'm not going to guarantee that anyone's going to be at a 10 out of 10, but we're going to shift your confidence a little bit closer to that 10. Amazing. The way that we're going to do that, we're going to give you five different tips today for giving feedback, receiving feedback, and ultimately creating a feedback culture. We're going to talk about shifting your mindset, stating your intention, focusing on the behavior, aligning to the big picture, and seeking feedback. I have one more question before I dive into the good stuff. I'm curious, and this is something we don't have to annotate for this, so just call it out or put it in the chat. What holds you back from giving feedback? We just talked about why we give feedback, the importance of it. You all typed in these amazing reasons why. What keeps us from doing it from your perspective?

Participant

Sense of uncertainty? If we're in the Midwest.

Leah Roe

Sense of uncertainty, possibly hurting feelings, not having the right words. Person receiving having a personal ventetta, somebody gets a defensive, fear the other person will take it personally, fear of how someone will receive it. You know this word fear? Fear. We have this internal fear around it. Absolutely. The biggest offender, the biggest thing that holds us back from actually giving feedback is our mindset, is our fear. Are these stories that we tell ourselves of what might possibly happen if we give this feedback? Things we say are like, they'll think I'm mean. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. If I tell them that they could be doing this better, it might hurt their feelings. Giving feedback is uncomfortable. I don't like to feel uncomfortable. What if I say the wrong thing and I make things even worse? So all of these stories we tell ourselves, all these thoughts that we have keep us from ultimately giving feedback. So it's important, the first thing we need to doto shift our feedback, shift our mindset around feedback. We need to shift our mindset from, if I give feedback, they're going to be mad and won't want to work with me anymore to, I give feedback because I care about you.I believe in you. I believe in your capabilities, and I want you to succeed. Shifting your mindset and really seeing giving feedback is an act of compassion. You give feedback because you care about the other person. You want them to grow, develop, and succeed. We always talk about with our clients and as a team, you should never fear negative feedback. You should fear silence. When someone takes the time to give you feedback, that is a demonstration that they care about you. They want you to be successful. When we do employee engagement surveys with clients and then we start getting some critical feedback or things that could be better, and we see the leaders on those teams just starting to get, Oh, gosh. This is good. This is good. Receiving this feedback, it's showing that they care. They want things to get better, and they believe that it's possible for the organization to make changes to get better. When your team goes silent, that is when they've stopped caring. That is when they don't believe that it's possible for the team or the organization to learn and grow, change and develop. One of our favorite mindsets that we like to take around giving feedback is a radical candor mindset.

Leah Roe

Does anyone here read radical candor or done work with radical? Yeah, a lot. Diety, you read it three times? Amazing. I love, love Radical Candor. Kim Scott, who is the author of Radical Candor and the founder of this framework, she talks about how radical candor is the ability to challenge directly and show that you care at the same time. This is a mindset of providing feedback directly, but with the intention to serve. I don't know about you, but I definitely grew up in a house where we watched Bambie, and also where we were taught, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Did anyone else have this learning in their youth? Yeah. When I got to the working world, this is still very much a part of how I operated. I thought, you know what? Giving feedback is not a nice thing to say. Telling someone they could be doing something better, that's not nice. I'm just not going to say anything at all. It was an either or. I'm either going to challenge directly and give them feedback, or I'm not going to because I care about them. And what I love about Radical Cander is it's not an either or, it's a yes and.

Leah Roe

I challenge you directly and I care about you. I challenge you directly and give you this feedback because I care about you, because I believe in you, because I believe you can do this. I want you to be successful, and my feedback is with the intention to serve you and help you get to where you want to go. That's our first tip of shifting your mindset around feedback, seeing it as a source of support, seeing it as a sign of compassion and care. I'm curious, what's coming up for all of you in terms of shifting your mindset around feedback? Don't all talk at once. You'll all have an opportunity, I promise. For me, the big thing is helping leaders shift their mindset. I think I, on that ranking scale, rank myself pretty comfortable with this, but in my role, I'm trying to help our leaders shift their mindset. I struggle with helping them see some quick wins and giving those feedback so that they're able to understand that this can be a challenge and building a relationship.

Leah Roe

One question we like to ask in groups is, and we ask this of each other too, what's a piece of feedback you've received that was hard to hear at the time, but you're grateful for now? So giving you that perspective of it can be really hard to get feedback in the moment, but then looking back and seeing, wow, it sucked to hear that about myself, but I was able to take that and grow and develop, and I'm so thankful for that feedback now. That might be a helpful thing to do with those leaders too. What else is coming up for you, Bob? I was going to say hearing this, it feels very obvious. You're like, Oh, of course, that makes sense. I think if you have direct reports, you absolutely have to.

Participant

Give feedback because you. Have that responsibility to help people grow and develop. So how else would you do that?

Dan Roe

Yeah, I look at it as like there's a question of what is something you wish you started a year ago? And feedback is like that because if you don't address it, then it just festers. You'd be like, Hey. Jim, can you believe that Bill is still doing this or whatever? And it's like, Yeah, I can. You know he's doing and you're not saying anything. It's going to keep festering. So many times I've given feedback, and I'm so glad that the situation changed. And even though it's hard. The only other option is you. Just look straight in the face every day and like, This is my life now. This person is going to keep doing this I know. They don't know. That's also a scary reality.

Participant

Yeah. We're really trying to build a culture where it's not just supervisors giving feedback to their direct reports, but we're trying to build a culture where everybody is becoming more comfortable giving each other feedback at that team level so that they can really self-organize and self-manage their work.

Leah Roe

Absolutely. It is hard. And worth it. Okay, our second tip, once you've shifted that mindset around feedback, is to state your intention in giving feedback. I'm talking about your intention in giving feedback in general, not the specific piece in general. So the reason why this is really important is because clarity is a major trust builder. We trust people who are clear with their words, their intentions, and their actions. So ambiguity and confusion in all forms leads to distrust between people and on teams. So if people are not clear on your intention with providing feedback, trust will diminish. We as humans, we love knowing why. We love knowing the purpose behind something. And so when we understand the intention and purpose behind someone giving us feedback, we are more open to receiving it. We know 99 % of the time, we know where it's coming from, and it's coming from a good, caring place. And so when we know somebody's intention behind providing us feedback, we feel respected and trust is built as a result. And if we are not clear, if we don't know your intention on what's being told us, the feedback you're giving, we're not just going to sit back and be like, Oh, I have no idea the intention.

Leah Roe

I'm fine. We make up all these stories in our head. We make up all these assumptions, and we don't make up stories like, Oh, this person is definitely giving me feedback because they love me and care about me. The stories and assumptions that we make up are more negative, and that's because that's how our brains are wired. Our brains are wired to focus more on the negative, and it's called negativity bias. If left to our own devices, our brains will tend to focus on negative aspects as opposed to positive aspects. This is an adaptive trait. This has been really good for us as an evolution of a species, and it served us really well when we were living outside, living in caves, being chased by sabertooth tigers. Our brains have not evolved as quickly as we as a species really have. While this was really good, this negativity bias was great for keeping us alive and helping us with surviving while we were living outside, it's not as good for when we're receiving feedback from a coworker. We have the same stress hormones take place in our body as we did running from a tiger and receiving feedback from a coworker.

Leah Roe

The stories we tend to tell ourselves, if we are not clear on someone's intentions and giving us feedback, we think things like, She thinks I'm terrible at my job. He must hate me. Am I going to get fired? These negative assumptions, these negative stories that we tell ourselves, they can hold your team back, and ultimately they affect your team's mental and emotional wellbeing. Don't let it happen. Don't allow room for assumptions or wild guesses. Clarify and clearly state your intention with giving feedback. And so the first thing you need to do before you state your intention is you need to clarify your intention. What is your intention in giving feedback? What is your belief around giving feedback? Why is giving feedback important to you? And so you can go back to what we were just talking about shifting your mindset. Maybe your belief is that giving feedback is an act of compassion. Maybe you give feedback because you care about the other person. You can say, I want to help you develop, grow, and succeed, and feedback is one of the ways in which I do that. So the first thing you need to do is get super clear on what is your belief around giving feedback.

Leah Roe

Then once you have a clear intention, let everyone know about it. Communicate it. This right here, this is my intention in giving feedback. This is something that I've communicated to my team many times. We have written down, and I talk about it often. I'll just go through this. We are a feedback-driven team here at The Perk. I am going to give you feedback because I believe in you. I believe in your capabilities, and I want you to be successful. My intention is always to serve you and help you become better and to achieve our goals together. My intention is not to hurt your feelings, be a jerk, or ever make you feel less than. Then I go into more detail of how I give feedback. I usually provide feedback in the moment and also during our one-on-ones. Then I ask them, in what ways do you prefer to receive feedback? It's a really important thing to make this a collaborative process and understand how they most like to receive feedback. Then you can compromise. You can collaborate together to do it in a way that works for both of you. Then I say, if I ever provide feedback in a way that isn't helpful for you, please let me know and I end with my ultimate goal.

Leah Roe

My ultimate goal is for you to be successful and I want to have a great working relationship with you. I will need your help to make sure I'm supporting you in a way that serves you and also serves the rest of the team. If you want, you can take a screenshot of this or we can send it out afterwards, but this is the template. This is a feedback intention template that you can complete to then share with your team or the people that you work with. You start with, I am going to give you feedback because I believe, so your belief on feedback, then you state your intention. My intention is... Then say what your intention is not. My intention is not. It can be really good to have both of those because it's a way that you eliminate that confusion, that ambiguity that can lead to distrust. Then make sure you ask them in what ways do you prefer to receive feedback. Let them know that if you ever provide feedback in a way that isn't helpful for them, to let you know, communicate that with you so that you can fix that and then end with your ultimate goal.

Leah Roe

My ultimate goal is blank. Any questions coming up on creating your intention around feedback? No? I'll keep going then. Okay, so some Perk Pro tips slash best practices. State your intention prior to having to give feedback. Don't create your intention around feedback and then let it sit until you have to give someone constructive feedback and then come and be like, Here's my intention, and now I'm really going to dive into feedback with you. This is something you should be doing before feedback even has to be given. We do this during onboarding of new employees. I'll do this in one on one at team meetings, but just make sure that your team understands your belief, your intention with giving feedback even before you have to give it. I did it a few weeks ago with you, Isabelle. Isabelle is on the call. Hey, Isabelle. She's a member of the Perk team. I just randomly said to her, I was like, Hey, I know we've talked about feedback in the past. I don't have any feedback for you right now. I just want you to know my intention in giving feedback. I believe in you. I believe in your capabilities.

Leah Roe

I'm going to give you feedback. Anytime you send something my way, I'm going to give you what I like about it and also some things you could do differently because I believe in you and I want to help you learn, grow and achieve success. Isabelle, what was that like? I know I'm calling you out, but what was that like for you to…I could hear that before me even giving you feedback?

Leah Roe

It was so helpful because before I even jumped into what your feedback was, I knew where you were coming from, and I knew that whatever you were telling me was to increase my understanding and to you wanted to support me and help me create the best product that I could. I fully.Appreciated and loved your feedback.

Leah Roe

Great. I did pay, Isabel, $50 in order to say that. The other another approach that I have is you allow for an unlearning period. Feedback is one of those things that all of us have some baggage around. You might have some members on your team who worked for a boss, worked at a previous company where their feedback culture was very different, and maybe feedback was not given with the intention to serve or did not come from a caring place. Maybe it came from a demeaning, competitive, or malicious place. You don't know. And so getting clear on what your intention is, communicating it to your team, don't expect right away there's going to be this 180 flip and everyone's going to just love getting feedback or be totally open to it. Allow for an unlearning period. Allow for a healing period. It truly does take time to shift your mindset around feedback and be open to receiving it in a positive way. Another pro tip I have for you around this is having your own intention around providing feedback, but also coming together as a team and creating a team alliance around feedback.

Leah Roe

Aligning around a shared belief, a shared perspective, and a shared approach to feedback. This is an example of one of ours here at the Perk. This is one of our core behaviors. This is something we collaborated on and we came together as a team so that we all are aligned and this is how we approach feedback here at the Perk. I'll just read it to you really quick. The core behavior is actively seek feedback and do something about it. We start off with know that when you receive feedback, it's because the other person believes in and wants the best for you. That right there, right away a part of our culture is know that when you receive feedback, it's because the other person cares about you and wants the best for you. And so when you're giving it, it's because you care about the other person, you want the best for them. You give feedback when you care. If you don't care, why take the time to give it? Don't fear negative feedback, fear silence. Shift your perspective on feedback actively seek it out, both positive and constructive from your team, and receive it with gratitude and grace.

Leah Roe

Feedback is like being gifted an exercise bike. It's there to help you get better. You have to take the gift and put in the work to get the results. This is a core behavior. We talk about our core behaviors on a weekly basis, so it's something that we're always communicating about. It also gives us something to go back to when we're maybe in our mindset of, Oh, I don't know if I should be giving this feedback. It's like, No, this is a part of our culture. This is our alliance. We are all approaching feedback from the same place, and we're doing it because we care about the other person and want the best for them. What's coming up for people in terms of stating your intention around giving feedback? Does anyone do this already? You've done this with your team, you've stated your intention around feedback? I mean, I have - That's what I was just typing. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say I have I do the.

Participant

Weekly one on ones, but then we also have a group. Meeting as well. When I started in my position in April, I let them know that, hey, we're a growing department, a growing business. Obviously, we're a startup. There's a lot of work that goes.Into that. Obviously, Dan and Leah know that. So what I.Say is just to move that business forward, but then also to make sure that.They present themselves well to clients, employees, stuff like that.

Leah Roe

What do you feel like has been the impact of that? Of them knowing where you're coming from in terms of the feedback? We have definitely made progress. I've noticed that they present better. Their emails are.

Participant

Should I say, more business professional, stuff like that.

Leah Roe

Amazing. And, Cara, what were you going to say?

Participant

When you said, What is this bringing you up? I was thinking, shoot, I should have done this six months ago when I started in this role. I'm just hoping I can still do it. Yes, absolutely. I think that's a really good point. Jason, that's amazing.

Leah Roe

You did it from the to the let go. Also, if you haven't done this, you can do it today. It's not something that you have to do right when you start a position or right upon a promotion. Something you could do at any time. You could just add and be like, I went to this awesome webinar this morning, so I'm doing this now. Just kidding. You don't have to say that. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Steph so you don't have to listen to my voice anymore, at least for a little bit. She's going to talk about focusing on the behavior.

Steph Llano

That is our third tip, is to focus on the behavior. Let's talk a little bit about why we want to do that. When we focus on the behavior, we are objective, we're clear, and we're action-oriented. But why are those important? We want to be objective because when we describe specific behaviors, that allows for our feedback just to be more objective and less prone to misinterpretation. By focusing on observable actions and making judgments and not making judgments or assumptions, you can make your feedback more credible and less likely to be seen as personal criticism. Trying to get rid of some of those fears that we shared in the chat earlier. It also, when we focus on the behavior, we're more clear. Behavioral feedback ensures that clarity because it's specific. It makes it easier for the recipient to understand exactly what they did or said that is being discussed or that's giving feedback on. Because that vague feedback can really just lead to all forms of confusion and not sure what they need to change. When we're giving that feedback, we're focusing on the behavior, we're ensuring that clarity for the recipient. Lastly, action-oriented, when we are focusing on that behavior, we are really focusing on an action.

Steph Llano

We're focusing on behavior, on verbs, on things that they can do differently. And so it's easier for that recipient to identify what actions they can take to improve upon, to change, and on your end, behaviors are easier to train and coach on. We're able to focus in on a behavior, on an action that's easier to give feedback on. It's easier to do that training and coaching. That's why we want to focus on the behavior. We, of course, have a wonderful model that we're going to share with you that helps you focus on the behavior, and that is called the FBI Model of Feedback. Has anybody here used that model before the FBI model? Couple of people. Amazing. We'll walk you through it, but this model really helps you give feedback that specific, non-judgmental, and again, focused on the impact of the behavior, really focusing in on behavior things here. With this FBI model of feedback, you have behaviors, you have feelings, and you have impacts. Let's talk a little bit about what those are. When we're talking about behaviors, you are describing the specific behavior that caused you to feel a certain way. It's called the FBI model of feedback, but we like to do it as BFI.

Steph Llano

It's just a little bit different than what the letters say. But we're going to start with behaviors. You describe the specific behavior that caused the feeling.

Leah Roe

Yeah, and FBI is just easier to remember, but BFI.

Steph Llano

Your feelings, this is when you're going to express how that behavior, again, focusing on the behavior, how that behavior made you feel. Not how the person made you feel, how their behavior made you feel. You start with behavior, then you go to feelings. Last, you have the impact. Explain how the behavior affected you or the situation. The impact is really important here. You're trying to figure out if this would continue, what would happen? What's the impact of the behavior that they're doing? You're going to go BFI, behaviors, feelings, impact. Let's walk through an example. Let's say that our circumstance is that you have to review certain reports before they are sent to clients and your employee consistently gets them to you late within 24 hours of them needing to be sent to the client, so you need them to be earlier. You want them to focus on being more proactive and providing the client reports to you sooner. This is what we're currently dealing with that we're going to be giving feedback on. This is how you might, after you've stated your intention, you've done all of your pre-work, you've shifted your mindset, this is what you could possibly say.

Steph Llano

When you're talking to that individual, you start with the behavior. You say, One thing I've noticed is that you send me the client reports to review with less than 24-hour notice. Then your feelings. When this happens, I feel rushed and nervous that I might not be able to catch errors or opportunities to make our reports better.

Steph Llano

Lastly, the impact. Our clients depend on us for the accuracy of these reports, and I worry that when we rush the review phase, we may send inaccurate information to our clients. If we send inaccurate reports, we will lose our clients and we will not be able to achieve our mission and vision. A really simple framework for being able to focus on that behavior to make sure that we are specific, we're clear, and we have that action-oriented to really help us alleviate some of those fears of misinterpretation, hurting someone's feelings when we're focusing on the behavior. That's a really great way to do that. Any thoughts or questions coming up for people as we walk through the FBI model of feedback? I just think it's really helpful. I had.

Participant

Someone who's technically not over me but is in a position above me. Ask for feedback recently through our Workday channels. I've just stared at the prompt. For a Week like, Yeah, I don't know what to do with this. I know what the impact is, but I'm. Not sure where to bring it. This is a super help.

Steph Llano

Good. Amazing. You get to go practice it right away. I'm so excited for you, Jake.

Participant

Yeah, we find this to be a powerful tool and we've developed a template to help people think about the feedback they want to provide, organize it, and then deliver it.

Participant

As a software nerd, it reminds me of the given, when, then model that we use for behavior-driven development. The behavior is that sets the given, and then the when is the feelings and then is the impact. What's happening? We like this one a lot.

Steph Llano

Tom, I'm curious for you, what's the impact of your group being able to use this model? How do you see it being used with your group or with your team?

Participant

Well, I think it's enabled us to get better feedback that didn't slip into jerky feedback. I think it's made people more comfortable having the structure that's normalized in our cultures.

Steph Llano

Yeah.

Steph Llano

That's amazing. Helping us get a little more feedback going.n Yeah. Awesome. Building that culture of feedback, that's huge. Go ahead, Alia.

Leah Roe

This is helpful too. I love this model. I use this in coaching that I do with clients as well. This whole situation just bothers me. We'll break it down to the behavior. What is the behavior the person is doing that bothers you? It helps you get really clear too, on what's happening and then being able to provide that coaching and feedback on the behavior.

Participant

I personally... Oh, sorry. I just want to add. I was just thinking to myself how important that impact statement piece is, because I think sometimes people, when you're giving them feedback, can feel like maybe you're just picking on them. And if you can show them the bigger picture of why it's important, not just like, It's this little thing, but this is how it impacts such a broader thing. It can help diffuse any feelings they might have that you're personally picking on them. Amazing. What a great segue into my fourth tip. It's like, you know exactly what I'm going to talk about.

Steph Llano

Thank you. I love it. Let's dive into number four, which is just what Amanda was talking about, aligning things to the big picture. All the behavior that we're talking about, the feedback that we're giving, having it be that focus on that behavior, all the behaviors that we're really trying to give feedback on should be in alignment with your bigger picture: your mission, your vision, your goals, your core values, your core behaviors, your culture. And so your feedback should be helping your team either to continue doing those behaviors that align with those things or to help them see how they can change or shift that behavior so that they can be more in alignment.

Steph Llano

Like Lea shared earlier, how we love knowing why, as humans, we love knowing the why. So when we understand the purpose or the bigger picture, then we're more engaged and motivated to complete the task or to change our behavior or make that tweak. We're better equipped to problem-solve on our own. Honestly, we just feel more respected. We have that trust that we're building because someone else is helping us align to that bigger picture or shift the way that we're doing it so that we can all come together to achieve those goals or that mission. Again, it doesn't feel great to just be told what to do and not why. So when we're able to hone in on that why, align it to the bigger picture, that's where the impact is really going to be felt and you're going to see the change. We like to combine the Golden Circle, which comes from Simon Sinnick. If anybody is a Simon Sinyak fan in here. We like to combine that with what I just taught you of the FBI model of feedback. We want to share what we want them to change or what the feedback is that we have for them.We also want to make sure that we're pulling it back to the why. You might want to think about why do you want to give this feedback? Why is it ultimately important that this individual changes their behavior or changes or makes a tweak to their behavior? How does it all align to that bigger picture that we're trying to achieve? Let's start with the what. You're sharing what behavior change you'd like to see, so hint, hint, that's just the behaviors that you're sharing in that FBI model of feedback. The what equals the behaviors. Then you have your why. How does it help them or you all as a team achieve success? The mission, vision, goals, core behaviors, all of those things. With your why, that is the impact. In the last example that I gave, the second bullet, if we send inaccurate reports, we will lose our clients and not be able to achieve our mission and vision. We're not just saying, Hey, we like getting these reports early because I've got so much on my plate and I need to figure out how I'm going to get this done. That's not the ultimate why. Your why is because we want to be able to serve our clients in the best way.If we lose those clients, we can't have all of the big goals that we have. We can't achieve our mission and our vision. Think about the impact from that bigger picture that's really going to help the individual tweak and change their behavior. That's our why. Then the how, that's where you get to collaborate. You get to collaborate, you get to coach. You've said what, you've said why by giving them that impact statement and focusing on that bigger picture. But this is really where you get to coach. So when we're talking about the how... Do you want to go to the next one, Leah? Thank you. So when we're talking about the we're going to coach them to change that behavior. So you might have a suggestion as to what could make it better so you could clearly communicate what your vision looks like of, let's make this a priority to work on this next quarter. I would like to get these reports at least 72 hours in advance to review. You can also get curious and collaborate. Maybe you have your vision of what you want it to look like, but you can still ask, what ideas do you have to make that happen, or what is currently standing in your way? If they're not getting them to you on time, there might be something going on that you don't know about. Maybe there's a prioritization issue. Not just saying it needs to be done 72 hours and then leaving the conversation, we want to be curious and collaborate so that we can make sure that they walk out of there feeling equipped and ready, you feel good about where you're at. So really, again, being able to collaborate with them, coach with them to make sure that you're doing what's best for both of you while always aligning it to that bigger picture. And so then there's always the question of, Well, I don't know maybe how I can align this feedback to the big picture. So if you're not sure or if you can't figure out how the feedback that you're wanting to give helps you achieve the mission, vision, values, goals, just explore why that is. Take a minute, do some reflecting and maybe jot down, What's important to you about giving this feedback? Think about it from the flip side of, What will happen if I don't? What's the impact if I don't give the feedback right now? What will the team, the company, our clients, what will they miss out on if I don't give this feedback? Sometimes just taking a minute and taking a beat to reflect can really help us get out of the weeds and see that bigger picture and help you align things to the bigger picture, you'll be able to communicate it more clearly as well. And if at the end of the day this is still something that you're stuck with, ask for help. Ask for help from a trusted teammate. You all know what your big picture is, so if there's something that you're struggling with and giving feedback, they, I'm sure, would be able to help you sift through it and see how you might be able to connect those dots. But there's always a way that you can hopefully be able to align the feedback that you're wanting to give on that behavior to the bigger picture. Those are three and four. Focus on the behavior, align to the big picture that you can put them together to really supercharge your feedback in the way that you're able to give feedback. Any questions or thoughts on aligning to the big picture?

Steph Llano

Bill, I like what you put in the chat. If you can't align your task to the organizational mission or vision, that may be a red flag to step back and reassess. Absolutely.

Leah Roe

We are going to go to our fifth tip, which is seek it. The ultimate goal is not to be the most amazing feedback giver ever. Your goal is to create an amazing feedback culture. To do that, you must develop your team to be great at giving and at receiving feedback, and it all starts with you. How you receive feedback shows a lot about you and your professional character. It's important to take time to practice, learn, and develop your skills in receiving feedback. The best way to receive feedback and practice your feedback receiving skills is to seek it. Ask for it. Ask questions to get feedback from others. Make sure that the questions you ask in order to receive feedback make it easy for somebody to respond to. When you ask vague questions like, Do you have feedback for me? Or, If you have feedback, let me know. A lot of times that's not going to lead to quality feedback. I'm curious, is Jake still on the call? See here?

Dan Roe

Yeah.

Leah Roe

I'm curious about feedback. Did the person ask for specific feedback or was it like, Do you have feedback for me? It was like a general through Workday request of I need feedback. Great. That's a great example. It's hard. You're like, What do I do with this? It's been days now that you've been thinking, I don't know how to respond to this, so they're not getting the feedback. You're probably spinning your wheels and you could probably be using that time to focus on other things. That's a great example of what big statements and requests for feedback, what that can do. Here are some questions to... Here are some better questions to help you get clear feedback from the people that you work with. You can ask, What's one thing I'm doing well right now on this project and should keep doing? What is one thing I could start doing to be one % better? What is one thing I should stop doing or alter to be even more effective on the team? What is one area you'd like to see me take more ownership of or grow in? These questions, they're what questions? They are open ended.

Leah Roe

They're expansive questions, but they're also focused. It's asking for what's one thing? What's one thing I could be doing differently here? What's one thing I am doing well? So you're getting that positive reinforcement, but it's just making it more focused and it helps the other person to actually be able to give you quality feedback. Some tips for receiving feedback. First, I'm always going to talk about mindset shifting. First is shifting your mindset. We've all heard feedback is a gift, right? Who's heard that? Yeah, feedback is a gift. Everyone talks about it. Feedback is a gift. It's a gift. Receive the gift. However, feedback is not like being gifted a warm, cozy blanket. It's not something that you just feel so good and so snugly about all the time. I said this earlier in our core behavior, but receiving feedback, it's like being gifted an exercise bike. I don't think exercises bikes are very snugly. I could try, but I haven't. Anyways, when you're being gifted an exercise bike, you receive it, but you have to put in the work to become better. You receive the gift, awesome, but now I need to ride the bike.

Leah Roe

I actually need to take action. I need to do things in order to make change in order to achieve my results. It doesn't always feel good. It doesn't always feel good to get on that bike, but ultimately it's what's going to help you grow and become better. Another tip for receiving feedback is assume positive intent always. When you assume that the other person cares about you and wants you to be successful, you are going to be such a better recipient of feedback. So shift your mindset from, I'm being attacked with this feedback, to, They want to help me. They are giving me feedback because they care about me and they want me to be successful. Our final feedback tip for receiving feedback is look for the 10 %. So this comes from the principle of yes, and. Basically, a lot of times when we receive feedback, our brains go into survival mode and we try to reject all this negative, what we're perceiving as negative feedback coming at us. Instead of doing that, become a person that always looks for the 10 %. No matter what feedback is given to you, you're going to find the 10 %.

Leah Roe

You're going to find the 10 % truth, the 10 % goal of the 10 % that is useful for you, and you're going to take that and you are going to learn from it, you are going to grow because of it. So become someone that always looks for the 10 % and all the feedback that you receive. I do want to say to receiving... So when you go out and you seek feedback and you ask for it, if you don't receive it well, that person is not going to give you feedback anymore. And if you're not a gracious recipient of feedback, people are not going to be as open to receiving feedback from you. So it all goes together, the giving of the feedback and the receiving of the feedback. And we talk about this a lot as a Perk team, which is why our core behavior around feedback is to proactively seek it. It is so much easier to give feedback when you have a culture where people are proactively seeking it and are receiving it in a kind and professional manner. It makes it so much easier. So all of this really goes together to create a great feedback culture.

Leah Roe

You have to proactively seek it. You have to be kind and professional in receiving it, and you have to be gracious in giving it as well. Or what's coming up for people there in terms of proactively seeking feedback and receiving feedback? Does anyone ever thought about how you receive feedback? Oh, yeah. Go for it. Go, Diana.

Participant

Okay, so I guess my thought process and all this is. Like, yes, you can ask for feedback. You can be there for it. But most people don't have this level of awareness on how to give feedback. So what if you get really crappy feedback when you request it?What do you do then? Like to start a feedback? We would be like, actually, your feedback is out here. Let me give you some feedback on how to get feedback. I think we've all been in situations where we've asked for feedback and then been like, what?You know, or.That didn't make sense.

Leah Roe

So my first thought right off the bat is look for the 10 %. So even if they gave it to you in a garbage fashion, like there's 10 % gold in there. It's like sift through, find the 10 %. So that's my first thought. Steph, what's coming up for you there?

Steph Llano

I think it is like, Lea talked about how you like to receive feedback. And so I think that there is like an opportunity for a little bit of coaching or even just being curious and asking questions. I'm thinking if they're giving you feedback, that's not behavior-focused or action-oriented, asking them that question of, so what's the behavior that I should be changing here? Or just, I don't know, trying to coach them through here's how you give better feedback and how I can actually do something with it. I would ask the curious question of what's the behavior or what's the action that I need to take.

Leah Roe

This is very meta. Then I would use the FBI model feedback on them and focus on... Get clear, what was the behavior? What was the behavior and how they gave you that feedback that didn't jive well with you? Because then it helps you get clear too. Do I just not like hearing negative, critical feedback? Or is it a behavior, something that they did that can be coached and trained on so that they can be better at giving feedback? I would get clear on the behavior, how it made you feel, and then the impact statement. The impact would be if we continue to give feedback in this way, it might shut down everyone. Like, people won't be open to receiving feedback. This is why feedback is important to this company. I would use the FBI model feedback on them, on their giving feedback.

Participant

I love it. I have a question. I do one-on-ones every week with my team, and there's a lot of time where they just don't provide any feedback. I really like the questions that you provided, but even If I were to do some of those questions, we're in the finance and accounting, so it may not be as relative in our department, but I think it's still good to do. I just don't get enough feedback and I'd love to be able to get better as a leader. I get positive feedback here and there, but it's not as in-depth as I'd like it so that I can improve. But do you have any other tools besides asking questions? Because obviously providing feedback is… I love this meeting, so I think it's perfect. Go ahead. Sorry, Lea.

Leah Roe

No, you're good. Kim, one suggestion I have is it can be helpful to talk with your team, give examples of when you've received feedback in the past. So you can talk about as a team, one of the best pieces of feedback I ever received from a mentor, from a teammate was this, and here's how I applied that to make my work better. So you start telling stories of showing that you have received feedback, what you did with it. You're almost showing that like, I enjoy receiving feedback. Here's what I've done with it. And so they're seeing that you are somebody who appreciates feedback. You're not just asking for it. You're telling stories, real stories from your life of how you've applied feedback. That's a good thing. Thanks.

Steph Llano

The other thing that was coming up for me too, Kim, is rewarding that behavior of them giving you feedback. So creating that positive loop of it when people do give you that feedback of really, I'm being grateful for it, shouting them out for it or whatever, or like, Hey, I made this change because of the feedback that you gave me and it was so helpful. Thank you so much. So that they know that you're doing something with it and then they'll continue on that cycle too, so rewarding that behavior can be helpful.

Participant

I think that part can be helpful too at a larger level where maybe you're making organizational improvement efforts because of feedback that you received from people. That organizational improvement might be going on a little bit in the background for a while to try to figure out what it is that you might do. But when you present it to the larger group, I think it's important when it's based on feedback received to recognize that we heard from you all that you wanted better benefits. And so we did some work on that and here's what we can help you.

Leah Roe

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something that... So when I was VP of People and Culture at Healthfinch, at first we were getting feedback from people. We weren't saying like, Oh, we made this change because of the feedback we received. But then we were like, Oh, this is a great way to get people to see we are listening to you and we're taking action and other people could see they're like, Oh, they made these changes because they gave feedback. Okay, so they actually do listen to us. So we were in the office at that point. And so we started having these little ribbons on certain things physically in the office because there were some things that people made suggestions they physically wanted a better coffee maker or things like that. So they could see these ribbons around the office of physical improvements we had made because of their feedback. Then we also had digital badges on certain things that we would post of like, We did this because of the feedback you received. People could see, could actually see the improvements that have been made because of feedback. It created that positive feedback loop. People wanted to keep giving more feedback.

Leah Roe

All right. Those are our five tips. Now we're going to annotate again. I'm curious from your perspective, which of these five is most challenging for you? Is personally the most challenging? Shifting mindset, stating intention, seeking it. Align to the bigger picture. Yep. Great. Nobody has problem focusing on the behavior, so that's good.

Steph Llano

Love it. Great.

Leah Roe

Love it. Amazing. Okay, Steph, can you clear that? I have one more question for everyone. Which one do you want to work on? Not which one should you work on. Which one after today are you like, You know what? I'm going to take time and I'm going to work on this. Seeking it, stating your intention, shifting the mindset. Love it. Lying to the bigger picture. Great. You did it. You all made it. You made it through your feedback masterclass. This is you now. You're going to leave today. You're going to be the Oprah of feedback. You get feedback. You get feedback. Everyone gets feedback. Give yourselves a round of applause. Nice work. Yes. Steph and I would be terrible coaches if we let you just go out into the world after having this nice, high-level conversation and not put any of it into action. Coaching is all about taking your learning and putting it into action. I want you all to make a commitment. I want you to write down on a piece of paper or type it in the chat, write down one thing you're going to take from today, one thing you are going to commit to doing in the next 30 days.

Leah Roe

It could be, I'm going to use the FBI model of feedback twice next week. I'm going to create my intention around feedback and I'm going to share it with my team. Write it down. I'm going to post the FBI model somewhere I can see my office. Yes. Actually respond to the Cochrane request today. Love it. Seek feedback from team. Amazing. Jake, when you seek feedback, don't just say, What feedback you got for me? Seek feedback from my clients to improve my offer. Love it. So you have to have confidence and thick skin when delivering feedback. Yep. Amazing. And who wants to say there's out loud to the group? You're 100% more likely to do it if you say it out loud. It's not real science, but it sounds awesome. So who wants to say it out loud? To ask specific questions to seek feedback in my next one on one with all my managers. Amazing. I love that. How about one more? One more person wants to say it out loud. I'm really good at calling on people. Kate Carr. What have I know you're going to call.

Participant

On me. I have this like... Didn't post mine in the chat, but mine is I want to work on my mindset. That's the area that I know. That I need to improve in. And I feel like that's also because. As you talked about the order, it was.The first one. So I. Feel like that's once I feel better on that, I feel like I'm going to. Be much better on the rest of them. But I need to work on both.The mindset around giving, but also the mindset around.Receiving as well.

Leah Roe

Love that. I knew you were the right person to call on. Just knew. All right. We have a way for you to turn it up on that. Steph, you want to talk about this?

Steph Llano

Yes, we do. Okay, so we are offering a free disk assessment and video with personalized feedback tips for your specific disk style. So if you're not sure what disk is, it helps you or it gives you a style based on how you interact, deal with people, problems, pace, and procedures. So everyone is so different in the way that they like to receive feedback, give feedback. And so we know that this isn't just like a one-size-fits-all approach for everybody. So getting that disk assessment will really help you be ableto understand how do I naturally like to give feedback? How do I naturally like to receive feedback? What are the tweaks that I could possibly make that we will give you with a couple of tips with a video? We would love for you to be able to scan that QR code or go to the website there. I'm going to clear these just in case that makes anybody not be able to scan it. But if you scan that, then it should bring you to where you want to go, and then we'll be able to do that disk assessment. Your disk assessment will be sent to you automatically.

Steph Llano

The video that will send to you will send to you via email, but just know that you do get that automatically. If you get the report right away, don't get freaked out by how long it is or anything. We'll give you that video after we dive through it as well.

Leah Roe

You are all amazing. Thank you for making space and making time today to focus on your own learning and growth and development. Again, part of the intention of culture community is not to just learn a bunch of things and keep it to ourselves. Get activated. Go out. Share what you've learned with other people. Put your commitments into action to make a positive change in your life, in your leadership, and on your team, and your organization, and in your community. Thank you all for coming. We can also leave space for questions. Is there's any other thoughts or questions or anything you want to share? The floor is yours.

Participant

I was going to say I have a lot of positive feedback to give out, and so I'm really excited to do that and then hopefully start improving the culture of feedback at my workplace.

Leah Roe

Yeah. And one thing we didn't talk about directly here, you can use the FBI model of feedback for recognition as well. So it's the FBI model of recognition. You can focus on what is the positive behavior they're doing, how does that make you feel, and what's the impact? So you can use the same model for giving positive feedback and positive recognition as well. What else? I'm thinking about how do you use this, I shouldn't say on your boss, maybe with your boss, if you have a boss that does not receive feedback well, I.

Participant

Think the. Same FBI model would work.

Leah Roe

What do people think about that? What if you want to give feedback to somebody who you know doesn't receive feedback well?

Participant

I think they're framing the intention. It's really important. Yeah, I was going to say that, too. You need to overcome their negativity.

Participant

Or the making sure you're really authentic with the intention.

Participant

A really good chance, I don't know what positions everyone on this call holds, but it's a really good chance to partner with your HR partner or whoever you might work with to be able to have a good conversation. Maybe that's something your manager is already working through their own development plan, but if you have a safe HR partner that you could work with, I think that's a good opportunity to have that conversation too. Nice. What else?

Participant

I'm excited about your tips on how to ask with a focus because we've gone through some feedback exercises in groups and everybody states that they're willing to receive positive and constructive feedback, but people really struggle to give constructive feedback. I think providing that focus may be helpful there.

Leah Roe

Knowing the FBI model feedback too, is you can reverse engineer when you're asking someone, like what's one behavior? What's one thing I'm doing right now that's really working? Okay, so when I do that, how does that make you feel? And from your perspective, what's the impact on our team if I continue doing this? You can almost force somebody to do the FBI model feedback to you.

Participant

It's really interesting because I had a moment, Leah, as you were asking those questions in like, how can we frame asking for feedback without using the word feedback? I wonder if it in some ways, paralyzes people because it's like, Oh, my gosh, it's this thing, right? Where it's like you just ask about a behavior without really even saying the word, does it create that mind shift, mindset shift without really doing anything different? Just reframing the question.

Leah Roe

I think that that's a really good point because the word feedback, just like, freeze people up. So I know in my one on one with Steph and other teammates, I'll ask what's one thing that I'm doing right now that's really working for you? Or what's one thing I could be doing differently that would make your life 1 % better? So it is just like shifting how you ask those questions. I'm not going in and being like, feedback time, give it to me.

Steph Llano

Another question that you ask, Lea, that I think is helpful. I don't know if it's you asking for feedback, but that is how I view it, is like, Where is my time best spent right now? Or where should I be spending more time right now? That's just a really open space for me to be thinking about that and then thinking about, Okay, where is something maybe lacking? Or where should we be turning something up a notch or something? That's a little bit different of a question, but I think it does elicit a feedback conversation so that we can talk about what maybe is needed.

Leah Roe

What I like about that question, too, is it helps me. It shines a light on my blind spots of things that I'm not seeing because I'm not seeing everything that's happening at the company. And also it's a way to strengthen Steph and other employees, their owner's mindset to put them in the position of the CEO or the owner and be like, Honestly, I think your time is best spent here. And where you're not spending enough time, I think you need to focus over here. So it's helpful for shining light on my blind spots and also strengthening the team's owner's mindset. Well, thanks for hanging out with us. You all are better than Disney World. I'm serious. Next time we'll just take you all.To Disney. Yeah, we'll just do feedback in Disney. That's just what we'll do. As long as Dan's planning it.

Steph Llano

Yeah, yes, that's the prerequisite for sure.

Leah Roe

I think my heart just lit up when I thought about Disney World and feedback. It's like two of my favorite things. All right, thanks team. Have a great day. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.

Participant

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.

Leah Roe

Let us know. We'll see you next month. Bye. Bye.