Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership. On today's discussion about employee engagement. I want to talk about the idea of feedback and how no matter what most organizations do to incorporate a culture of feedback or you know, to make their leaders better at delivering feedback, to make their employees better at receiving feedback, to make people feel more comfortable giving it to their peers, to their bosses, to the people reporting to them, no matter what efforts
they take. The word feedback has a tremendous problem with branding because of a long history and quite honestly a presence of it being done poorly in a lot of organizations where they try to say they're doing it well, but they don't actually do it well, and so it's like the words are trying to be aspirational, but they're not being lived in the moment, and so feedback, you know, tends to keep this this brand of negativity associated with it.
And even in the best organizations, I think, when when they do this really well, there are still individual leaders where where when feedback is given there's this element of dread or or you know kind of you know, uh, this sense of foreboding when it's coming because the culture is has not done a good enough job setting up what feedback actually is. And I think a part of this is in this concept of using recognition as a
part of feedback. And I I know that in organizations who do this well, recognition is not just thought of as a way to give kudos to your fellow employee. It's a way to to give feedback to people who happen to be watching when it's your job as a leader to show what a vision of good is to when when when people are are hoisted up on pedestals or given recognition for doing something well, that is a way to show other people in the room, Hey, if you're not doing it this way, it probably isn't well.
And if you are doing it this way, then you probably would be getting recognition for this right now. And I think a lot of leaders don't index on this highly enough, but it can be a very effective way of rebranding feedback as a whole into into the positive realm as opposed to the negative.
Yeah, I think it's it's funny because I also we talk about this a lot with recognition as well, Like we say recognition is not just recognizing like the good like you tend to like lean that way. It's just recognizing in general, recognizing good behavior, recognizing maybe bad behavior, recognizing good work, recognizing you know, underperforming work. But you're
recognizing things. So I like kind of this take on it in this dialogue because I think that you're spot on is like the the at the essence of it, like at the true essence of feedback and wanting to have a culture of that is that you're saying, I want to have an environment where the relationships are trusted and that there is an intention of us helping each
other to get better at what we are doing. And so the value of feedback is that is that it's something that is there to really help us all get better. And initially it may feel weird, you may be defensive,
like these are all the types of things. But I think to your point, a way to kind of get through or move beyond that quickly is showing feedback in the very positive light, showing feedback as a means of recognition and showcasing that this is actually what we're looking for, what we're asking you to go do, and we're recognizing this and this is kind of the successful way of doing it and kind of retaking the narrative of the word so that people then feel good about it to
begin with. And then as you start to give feedback that is both positive or maybe it's negative specific, you know, in a way, it is less about you know, how you feel about it, and more about the value of getting feedback in general.
Right, So, if you think about it, feedback isn't an inherently negative word. It's you know, it's it's stimulus in response, right, Like, that's that's that's all it is. But it has a negative connotation. Recognition isn't an inherently positive thing. It's just recognizing something. But yet it has a positive connotation because of the way it has been used in many organizations.
And so this, this idea is cool because it takes something that shouldn't be negative but has become that way, and in order to fight back with from it, it takes something that shouldn't be inherently positive but has become
that way. And I like this because you know, I've been in the room where where the modification of my behavior that was desired was gotten by my leader, not by telling me that I did something wrong, but by that leader calling out in knowing certain terms that someone did something right while kind of side eyeing the room a little bit as kind of a way of kind of, you know, tongue in cheeks saying, yeah, not all of
you did it this way. You know, not all of you did it the right way, So we're going to call out the people who did it right, which I think is a is a better way when when at least when you're first starting out, you know, if something is really problematic or is a systemic issue or ongoing issue, or something that really needs to be addressed, you need to be very clear with employees sometimes and that's fine, but when you're trying to address broader issues or things
that maybe you're looking for change to occur, but that wasn't the expectation before, and now something is changing these ways of doing things by by you know, spurring change within people by showing them how it is being done right with other people. I think it's a very effective
way of doing it, and that is giving feedback. It's just not feedback in the in the traditional sense, but it can it can help and rebrand the concept of feedback as a whole because it is feedback and it is you know, you are hearing something from somebody else on how you could be doing something better. And so I want to go over some of the ways that leaders can do this correctly. But first I'm want to
give up to one of our sponsors. All Right, if you're a leader of people or just any employee who's trying to you know, better your interpersonal relationships, and you're and you're trying to get better at the branding or the reputation that feedback in general or the feedback from you has, there are two things you have to keep
in mind. One is that in order for feedback to be effective, it has to be valid feedback that has to be actually valid on the thing that you're talking about, and the person you're giving it to has to believe that you have the right to give it to them. And the way you accomplish the second one is by having the relationship with them that says that you're looking out for them, not looking out for yourself. So you're not giving feedback from the standpoint of how this person
can make your life easier. You're giving feedback to them on how they can make themselves better independently of you. So this isn't you taking it personally and trying to coach them up. This is you letting them know that what they're doing might not be self serving in terms of their own advancement within an organization or their ability to get their job done. And the feedback is coming from a genuine standpoint of wanting them to get better.
The more often you do that and if you can really kind of gut check with yourself on where this feedback is coming from, the more likely you are to accomplish that second thing. And then the first thing of the is the feedback actually valid? This is where recognition comes into play, because the more positive your feedback is, the more you will brand feedback as positive in general.
And so if every time you have a conversation with an employee it's about what they can do better, even if you're doing it in a very positive way, Hey, you're doing great, let let's work on this thing. That's still considered you know, you know, kind of critical feedback because you're doing great. Part is not very specific on any one thing. You're not telling them what they've done well.
You're just telling them trying to reassure them they're doing well in general or trying to sandwich that feedback in between positive things. That is not a positive feedback experience for an individual. The positive feedback experiences are the ones where the employee is being given recognition, either individually or tangentially by recognizing somebody else while they're in the vicinity
of that person. Those are the ways that you increase the number of times that feedback has a positive connotation to it, and then when you do give, you know, critical feedback of somebody, those tend to get kind of lost in the mix of all the positive and they're left with a much more positive feeling from the from the individual because it is not just oh, here we go again another time where my boss is telling you what I've done wrong.
Yeah, I appreciate the intention here, Like I think that it's like there's just the way that we I think mimic feedback and mimic recognition based upon our own experience and what we've seen, and then what we either what we enjoy or what we appreciate in those types of things, versus a true understanding of how you, as a leader want to manage the language and want to manage the narrative of the words that you're using day in and day out and in a word like feedback, you know,
can go both ways. It can easily be something that is to your point just now, like oh my gosh, here here's you know, here's some feedback. Here we go again, what else did I do wrong? Or it can be very much a celebrated and like I really appreciate the feedback that I get from my team, from my leader
because it helps me to get better. And I think that if you if you want to create that type of a you know, uh, an environment or culture around kind of bettering each other a word like feedback, it's so important to role model how you want to define that and to utilize it in ways that people don't associate it with the negative connotation that it has, but really understand and appreciate the value that it brings, you know, every single day. But I think that to your point, like,
you have to have some intention here. You have to consider it and think about how you're going to use the word and when you use it, and how you tie what you highlight, what you share or what you promote to the team along with it, Like, these are really important concepts when you're looking to build a culture and and and build some positivity around people wanting to get feedback to want to get better at what they're focused.
Right. And I love that that last part there, because when you say people wanting to get feedback, you know that that sounds like, you know, aspirational. It's like, oh, we want to create an environment where people want to get feedback. You know, I can't imagine an environment where I want to get feedback other than one where I am positive that the feedback I'm getting is feedback that helps me do something better, like that betters myself, not that makes my boss's life easier, or not that makes
my coworker's life easier. I'm not saying those things are important, you know, those are all very important. But the feedback that really sticks is the feedback where I can interpret it as something that will help me be a better person in general, help me create better interpersonal relationships, help me carry the influence that I want to carry with people in order to be able to get work done, in order to kind of influence teams and you know,
kind of work together amongst people. All of these skills are things that are are needed to get the best work done. And and feedback that that I can genuinely tie back to my ability to do those things. Is feedback that I, you know, I can take and run with because I feel like, Okay, I'm adding more tools
to my tool belt. You know. Any feedback that is just about how to not step on this person's toes or how to not rub this person the wrong way, or how to like all that all that is is you know, uh, it creates a culture where I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around whoever that person is, and I haven't. I don't feel like I'm getting any better at anything. I just feel like I am, you know, having to kind of hinder the things that I do in order to get my work done without you know,
being a bother to this person. And that's not the same things as feedback, and it's definitely not what recognition is or using recognition to do that. Thank you all for this discussion on employee engagement. We'll see you Thursday for the next one. Have a great day.