on LNM family Jesse here with another solo cast . I'm kind of digging this frequency of having an interview and then a solo cast and then an interview . Hopefully you are too . What I want to kick around with you is the confusion we have around giving feedback and giving direction .
I was speaking with the group of graduate students and I was talking about the value of feedback , which my good friend , james Gable , the uncommon communicator , has recently put some content out about . You need to go check it out . There's a couple of important things when it comes to feedback . One is how do you gracefully receive feedback ?
That's by saying thank you and that's it , rebudding it , giving any more response or explanation as to why the thing happened the way it did . Even though you mean it in a sincere and honest way , it feels like you're arguing and rejecting the feedback . So guess what ? I'm not going to give you feedback next time .
When people say thank you and take action on it , that's awesome . Guess what ? I'm going to give them more feedback when they ask for it . Now , on the other end of that , as being the receiver of feedback , I can say thank you , because I know I am not going to take action on every single bit of feedback that I receive .
I get to select what I'm going to take action on , and when I'm on my A game , I'll let people know hey , that feedback you gave me , I used it and this was the outcome , thank you . Or hey , that feedback you gave me , I didn't use it .
I appreciate you taking the time , but I'm going to continue going my way and hopefully the lessons I learned won't be too difficult .
So I get to accept or reject the feedback I get after the fact , and so I was sharing that with this group of graduate students and their I don't know if it was their instructor or their boss kind of like I ruffled some feathers , right , they're like well , what do you mean ? They rejecting feedback ?
I'm like you don't have to take feedback that you don't think is pertinent or valuable .
And so we got into this conversation about well , you know , I'm trying to coach and develop these people , I'm trying to coach and develop my team and if they're rejecting feedback , that's going to generate , like that's going to impact their being a part of the team , and I'm like , oh , how interesting .
Because I don't see feedback as like a critical performance conversation . I see feedback as a neutral , maybe professional interaction between folks for continuous improvement . Right , we want to get better , we want to grow and learn .
The best way to do that is to get feedback and in the moment I really couldn't address her concern , but the more I thought about it is like ah , so it sounds to me like what she's talking about is giving direction , and my assumption I don't know if it's true or not , but my assumption is we're powdering it up , puffing it up , making it softer and more
digestible , by calling it feedback . So I don't know if I'm right or wrong , but I do know that in Jesse land , feedback is a neutral , maybe friendly , exchange , in that I'm seeking feedback , and it could be from my boss and it could be from a peer , it could be from anybody , and I get to choose what I want to do with it .
As a manager or supervisor , when I'm giving people feedback or observations or , more precisely , when I'm having a performance conversation with somebody , I am extra clear that this is not feedback , this is not neutral observation . This is a performance conversation .
There is a gap in the performance and these are some adjustments to focus on or some actions to take to close the gap , as well as these are the things that you're killing in the sense of really doing great , and these are the inputs or the contributing factors that I see you do that make it great with consistency .
Now , I'm pretty abrupt and pretty direct about things , and so maybe that's why there's a difference for me . So , on one hand , I kind of want to pitch the idea , or plant the seed in your head , that there is a difference between feedback and a performance conversation .
There's a difference between feedback and giving somebody direction , and if we cloud that line , we're setting ourselves up for disappointment and we're setting up our team members for failure . And so I'm wondering what do you think ? Is it confusing to to soften up a performance conversation by calling it feedback ?
Are we setting people up for failure , or am I just being getting too far into the weeds , into the whole thing ? Let me know , let me know in the comments and share this with your people . Right , like , maybe they have some better insight than I do .
I'm sure their insight can add clarity to this issue and hopefully , in the long run , help us all become better leaders , better managers , better performers , better followers , better , better , better , better everything . And , if you get a chance , I'd appreciate if you took a little extra time to hit like a five-star review .
Leave a comment , shoot me a text , slide into my DMs and let me know how these conversations are landing with you and what value that I'm bringing to your day . Be cool and we'll talk at you next time , peace .