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Sticky Learning Lunches #58: How to Give Feedback Part #1
Need to have ‘That’ conversation but don’t know how, worried how it’ll be received, or just believe that if you ignore it for long enough it’ll go away? This 4-day training will dispel every belief you have about feedback, that you’ve been previously taught or learned by yourself along your leadership journey. Here’s How to Give Feedback Part 1.
You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon, sticky lunches. Bear with me slideshow from the beginning. Vicki, it is great to see you. Thanks very much for being here, right? We are good. We are live. We’re just gonna give it a couple of minutes while I wait for the last couple of people to arrive in the room. Victoria wasn’t due to be here. It’s great to see her. Good to see you, Tim, as always. Thanks for Martin. I owe you an apology. I’m looking over here at the list, which is why I’m looking down. I put two and two together and came up with seven. Um, Darren reminded me ’cause I didn’t recognize the surname and I don’t think, just didn’t add up.
Nathan Simmonds:
So Martin, thanks very much for being here. Me Masu. Uh, Gareth, thank you very much for being here. Fabian, good to see you. Colin. Good to see you. Last couple of people just arriving maybe ’cause it’s glorious sunshine. Everyone’s gone out for lunch. Where are we today? Pens at the red aim. He says, on a scale of one to 10, how was your weekend? One being for rubbish, 10 being phenomenal. Where are we and how are we facing into the week? Got some 10. Got some. Nice, nice, good weekends in everyone. Claire, great to see you. Thanks for being here. Just gonna give it 30 more seconds. Eight. Ready for the week. Nice. 10 for the weekend. Eight for today. Ah, that’s still good.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just letting everyone get warmed up, getting in their seats, getting comfortable, making sure I’ve got the right pens. I’ve forgotten which pens run out. So we might find out that in a minute. He says, let’s make sure we get everyone set up for success before we dive into this. First of all, mobile phones. Hold ’em higher. Let’s turn ’em on. Let’s turn the little airplane on. Let’s zero out the distraction a hundred percent, but a hundred percent attention on what we’re doing here today.
Nathan Simmonds:
Also, making sure you’ve got a drink available. We wanna keep, make sure that you are hydrated and keep your brain lubricated to help this learning stick. And finally, as always, you want a fresh page for fresh thinking so that you can take note of those things that you want to remember and remind yourself about so you can reignite that thinking and help keep expanding the ideas and the concepts we’re sharing.
Nathan Simmonds:
Still a couple more people just arriving as we’re facing into this on their way slowly. What are we covering today? Feedback and giving feedback. And you know, in part also receiving feedback. ’cause you know, if you can’t, it’s like breathing when we’re giving feedback. If you can’t breathe in fully, you can’t breathe out fully. Hope this makes sense. If you’re not able to receive feedback, you’re never gonna be able to give the feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
So we’re, we’re gonna be covering that over the next four days. We’re gonna be looking at the mindset behind feedback and what makes it work. We’re gonna be looking at the structures that we can peg our conversations on, and we’re gonna be looking at some foundational and advanced ways of delivering that feedback, using that structure and maintaining that mindset. Hope this is gonna be useful.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s do this. Chelsea, good to see you Lana. Thanks for being here. Amazing. So welcome to today’s sticky learning with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for M B M Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning. And the idea of these sessions is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Whether that’s from home or whether that’s returning back to the office, it doesn’t matter.
Nathan Simmonds:
We are M B M, making business matter and the providers of leadership development and soft skills to the grocery and manufacturing industry. Question for all you, love you people right now. Then, if we are gonna be talking about feedback for the next four days, including today, what is it you want to get out of, to out, out of these sessions?
Nathan Simmonds:
What is it you want to achieve at the end of these four days? Let me know in the question box right now as just as I have another mouthful of tea. What is it you want to get from learning about feedback? Thinking about how you deliver it, getting others to be honest. Nice. That’s good. Definitely gonna cover some of that this week for sure. Any more for anymore. Be more concise and constructive.
Nathan Simmonds:
Nice. How to take the emotion of it, how to take the emotion of it out or keep the emotion in it. Constructive. And how to deliver and measure results. Absolutely faab. And we can definitely do this. Um, is there a structure that can be used when giving feedback? Yes, there absolutely is. We’re gonna cover that. Amazing. We’ve got some good stuff in here.
Nathan Simmonds:
And we’re gonna find, I’m gonna answer actually a lot of these as we go through the next four days. Some of it today, um, some of it more over as we go into the rest of the week. So we’re definitely looking at this. What is feedback? So we’ve got some ideas of what you would like to get from these sessions. Phenomenal. Personal. Yeah, personal, personalized, but not emotional. Absolutely. The phrase that I use, is it with this when I’m talking to leaders, is to personalize your work and not take it personally.
Nathan Simmonds:
Uh, some people out there like to look at Picassos, not my thing. Some people like a Rembrandt, you know, or some people, uh, Salvador Dali. When we look at pieces of work, different things resonate for different reasons. And when we come as a leader, um, as a HR professional or l and d professional, whatever, it’s when we are delivering feedback or coaching, we’re not always designed to work with all those individuals.
Nathan Simmonds:
At the same time, we have to put all our heart and soul into what we do. If someone doesn’t like it, and as long as heart and soul and we’ve done everything that we possibly could hand on heart that you know is, is, is down to them and we still come for the best possible reasons to show up, be present, and deliver the best possible results for those individuals, this is what leading is about. So yes, but not emotional, you know, actually coming back into that, it’s important as human beings that we are emotional, but we don’t get lost in the emotions. So I use that to kind of underpin that. Personalize your work. Don’t take it personally.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope this is helping so far. Where are we going? What is feedback? Let me throw this question into all of you right now. What do you think feedback is? I’m gonna tell you what we refer to as what is, what does feedback mean to you? Speedy silence. There’s a lot of thinking going on. What’s happening out there. Helps me get better. Avoid making mistakes. Absolutely. A formal way to, to say what we think about someone. Yeah. Can be as well. Good. Got some good stuff in there. And again, it comes back to this kind of mindset of how we think about things. You know, is it a way that helps me get better?
Nathan Simmonds:
So when I’m giving feedback to someone else, do they see it as a way that helps them get better? Sharing your perception of an event focused on them or me improving? Absolutely. And it might be an individual event, it might be a certain action or, or choice of behavior. Um, that has had several moments a time where we’ve got evidence of that situation. So how we refer to it. Allison, um, Kathy, one of the trainers from the team at M B M shared this meeting.
Nathan Simmonds:
What do you think it is? Feedback is helping others maximize their potential. Raise awareness of strengths, areas for improvements and identify actions to be taken. Okay? So the key thing in here is also understanding when we say this is feedback is helping others identify actions to be taken. So it’s not me coming over and giving you a list of things to do based on something I may have observed that may not be the truth or the reality.
Nathan Simmonds:
And expecting that person to take action, yes or no. Who here likes being told what to do? Yes or no? I know I’ve asked this question before to some of you previously got a couple of got a no and a yes and a no one does. In truth, when we’re in a working environment, no one likes being told what to do unless we are working in very specific jobs and mostly those are the military. But when we’re in, um, production or organizations and it’s constantly tell, tell, tell.
Nathan Simmonds:
Eventually, our creativity and our innovative thinking starts to depreciate. ’cause we’re always waiting for someone else to give us that piece of information. And when we run out of work, we’ll stand there waiting until that person turns up to give us more work rather than taking the, the initiative to do that thing. Now the interesting thing when it comes to being told what to do is we don’t like being told what to do unless it’s us telling us hope.
Nathan Simmonds:
Makes sense? How many people here when they were 14, um, and their dad told them to do something, their mom or dad told them to do something, uh, and that they, you knew they were right, but you didn’t want to let them know they were right. How many people yes or no have done this? No. You are a young teenager. Mom or dad tells you to do something like, nope, not gonna do it. I’m not gonna do it because you are 40 and I’m 14 and I know better than you everyone.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes. Oh, you’ve got lots of, yeah and we do this and then what we do is we go and do it our way and we make it, you make an absolute mess and I’m trying not to swear in this one. We make an absolute mess of it like that. So now I go back and do it the way that my dad told me to do it. And then I spend, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes trying to come up with a story that makes me feel better about the situation and doesn’t let my dad know that he was right in the first place. Yes or no?
Nathan Simmonds:
Anyone done this? It’s the most childish thing I think we probably do when we’re teenagers. So it’s understanding one of those principles is we don’t like being told what to do. We want to have, um, a certain amount of autonomy. We wanna have a certain amount of freedom to be creative in the work that we are doing. And we still have boundaries. Yes, we get that we work inside these spaces, but what we do is we, we want to encourage people to actually step up and do that themselves.
Nathan Simmonds:
And this is how we use feedback to do that. So what is it? It’s a way for others. To take action. It’s a way for them to come up with their own ideas to make improvements. But he says, what are, and this is the problem that we have, is when we start to frame and pigeonhole the feedback that we’re given, we’re already starting to create the conversation we’re gonna have with people.
Nathan Simmonds:
So question for you. What different types of feedback are there? Give me all the different labels and titles you can give me of all the different types of feedback that you’ve heard that you need, you’ve been trained on or to give people constructive, destructive. Good. What else? What have we got? Constructive. Good, destructive. What else? Got a coaching conversation. Informal in the moment. Formal, nice, constructive, critical. You can merge the two.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah, absolutely. Mentoring, good. Getting a lot coming in. Too many I can put up here. The real kind of headlines that we have in here is simply good or bad. That’s it. They just say that, oh, you know, good feedback. Or there’s bad feedback. And how many people, we’ll get into that in a minute actually is is how many people then dress up, say, oh we’re gonna give you some coaching
Nathan Simmonds:
But what is it they’re really trying to give to that person or what do they end up giving rather than actually having a coaching conversation? That person ends up being reprimanded or being told off for something. And I know this happens, I’ve seen it in lots of different environments from contact centers into production as well. We know, we just go, oh yeah, I need to give you some coaching. And you just see the show. Oh, and you see the person deflate because they know what’s coming.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s gonna be, you made a mistake, you need to change this or else X, Y, and Z. Now that’s not feedback, it’s a kind of feedback. It’s not the feedback that we need to be delivering. Yes or no. Anyone’s seen this experiencing this, which it changed, yes or no? Yes. Yeah. How we label this stuff is absolutely critical. So the first thing we wanna do is we want to change this is we wanna eliminate the good or bad.
Nathan Simmonds:
If someone is giving you information that is helping you to do a better job, is it good or bad? Yeah, tell me in the question box, is it good or bad? I know this is a trick question, but I wanna make sure you’re thinking and you’re using your fingertips to keep that, keep the, the momentum of the idea going. If someone gives you it, is valuable there. Yes. If someone gives you information that helps you to do a better job, it is, it’s good, it’s valuable. The important thing to understand, you know, it can, it can neither be, it can’t be sorry neither good or bad. There isn’t a divide here. All feedback is a gift. But you can see that on there. The only difference that we have is how it’s delivered.
Nathan Simmonds:
That all feedback is a gift that’s helping you to do a better job. When you understand that, you can then start to differentiate the pieces of information that you want to take on board and you wanna take action on. And you can then choose what your response is going to be based on whatever it is you’re being delivered. And also with a fair judgment of understanding. Has this person being trained in how to deliver feedback, do they know?
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s comprehend that a little bit and then still be able to extract what I want out of it because I understand it’s a gift. Hope this makes sense. I hope this is resonating. The only thing that differentiates when we, um, the, the, the content of that, the context of that feedback is the way that it’s gonna be delivered. Whether it’s constructive and I, Mr. The Sierra, I can see that now or destructive, constructive, as it says is about building people up.
Nathan Simmonds:
Destructive is about taking people out of the knees because you are too busy, you are too rushed. You believe that you could do it better or you are applying a label to someone else to deem that, um, potentially you can do it better than them. So it’s understanding that all feedback is a gift. And then when we start to think about, okay, how much training has this person that maybe has only been in the company three months, uh, is their first leadership role and they don’t dunno how to give feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
So they’re feeling nervous, they’re feeling under pressured, they’re not sure how to deliver it. So we start to think about this a little bit differently. Question for you all now. Who here has received feedback that they didn’t enjoy getting because of the way it was delivered? Yes or no? Yes. Yes, yes. Good. Was there still some element of truth in there that actually was valuable to you to do a better job?
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes. And all I wanted to do was get out of there. Absolutely. There was always a nugget in there. But our mindset as a receiver of feedback, because how we receive feedback when we go back into our teams is how they will choose to receive feedback. They will learn by our example. So when an individual in your team comes in, they dunno how to deliver feedback and they come at you angry and really aggressive. How you choose to receive that feedback is exactly how they will when you need to go and give them them feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
One of my favorite questions when I’m delivering feedback training is, is how do children learn patience? Lemme know in the questions box, how do children learn? Patience? They get old . They don’t. being taught good. Now again, there patience. You teach children patience by how you choose to react in the face of them screaming at you.
Nathan Simmonds:
They learn that through how you then reci or respond or react to their emotional outbursts when they don’t understand how to control them themselves. Hope this is making sense. So it’s the same for when we’re delivering feedback. How we receive it, regardless of how it’s being given to us, is how they will learn to receive it as well. And it’s our responsibilities as parents and as leaders that help them develop a skillset. Actually they deliver the feedback in a different way where they learn how to breathe in fully so they can breathe out fully so that when they become a leader they can get even better results than you did. What makes this happen? The Pygmalion effect.
Nathan Simmonds:
Who’s heard of the Pygmalion effect? Yes or no? I’ll share a link tomorrow. Um, for this video. I forgot to put it out. No, no, we’ve got a couple of nos. Got a couple of yeses. Good. Okay. In short, it breaks down like this. What you think of people is how you treat them. That’s the super condensed version. It was a scientific experiment done with a group of soldiers where they broke down a group, I think it was 150 soldiers.
Nathan Simmonds:
They split them out into their, their, their senior leaders. And they said, these guys are the exceptional ones. These are the average ones, these are the lowest ones. Remember their names, remember the performance and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And as a result of that, um, it in, and you saw the results at the end of the experiment, it showed how certain people’s, um, results had changed based on the way that they were spoken to by the senior individuals.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’ll share the link for the video, the animation, uh, animated video, video of this short, um, tomorrow. But in short, it’s what you think of people is how you treat ’em. So before you even go into a conversation, if I think this is going to be a difficult conversation, now what’s that conversation gonna become? How am I already caveating that in my head and, and pigeon hole in the conversation?
Nathan Simmonds:
But it also applies to the way that we label what it is we’re doing. So one is what you think of people is how you treat them. And the moment that you judge someone, you cannot influence them. Lemme say that again. The moment that you judge someone, you cannot influence them. So the moment I say this person is difficult, I’m already saying they’re gonna be difficult. The words that come out my mouth will change because of the content in my head.
Nathan Simmonds:
But at the same time, if I am also applying a label to the conversation that I’m about to have, that this is a difficult conversation, that this is going to be negative feedback, that this is going to be destructive. I’m already applying, um, a filter through which I’m actually passing my thoughts that are coming out of my mouth. Hope everyone’s doing this really clearly. So the first thing to understand is, you know, one, what is feedback’s? A way of helping others understand how to make improvements.
Nathan Simmonds:
Two, there is no such thing as bad feedback. All feedback is a gift, okay? In one way, shape, or form, the only differentiator we have is whether it’s constructive or destructive. And that’s just on the way that we deliver it. And then understanding that partly of what’s going to actually help us make it constructive is what we think of the individual before we even go into the conversation. ’cause you know, the, the words that we choose dictate the actions they’ll use.
Nathan Simmonds:
And also thinking about the situation. If I think it’s gonna be difficult, it’ll become difficult. How, you know, if I think someone’s an idiot, how will I treat them? Now, point blank question here. If I think I’m gonna go and give feedback to someone in my team and I think they’re an idiot, how do I, what do you think? How am I gonna treat them? Just making sure you’re paying attention right now for that question. If I think someone is an idiot, how will I treat them like an idiot. Exactly.
Nathan Simmonds:
And what you think of someone, I’ve even got a card up here from now. What you, what you think of, uh, of someone isn’t actually the truth. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time. Perception is reality. And that reality isn’t necessarily the truth. It is that person’s version of reality. It’s what they saw in that moment. It’s their comprehension. Based on their level of experience at that point in time. Doesn’t mean that person is an idiot. Whether you they’re receiving it or giving feedback to you.
Nathan Simmonds:
I hope this is useful. Hope this is useful as a starter for 10 for getting to feedback and starting to adjust some of the ways that we look at this. So conscious time. Crikey, it is 24 minutes past one already. What has been useful from this first session about delivering feedback? What have you taken away from today’s session? Steely silence. Everyone pondering while that’s just coming up, just to let you know, if you have not registered for tomorrow’s session, now is the time to do that.
Nathan Simmonds:
Um, in the chat box, it’s gonna be a link for tomorrow’s set, sticky learning lunch. Click on there, make sure that you’re registered for tomorrow’s session. I’m also starting to put these events on LinkedIn as well. So if you get an invite from me on there, please do click through, stick a thumbs up, share that link with other people in LinkedIn if you think they will benefit from this.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s about, you know, sharing this content with as many people as possible. The other thing is if you are not connected with me on LinkedIn, connect with me so you can keep up to date with these sorts of things. What have we got? Um, my delivery will change how it’s received. Yes. Back to basic. Be honest on your stuff. Nice. And you know what, you know, it is not even basics. I, I wish this stuff was basic. I wish coaching skills, skills was taught at school how to ask better questions. It’s not basic, you know, it is, it’s they’re fundamental, absolute necessity. Um, all the gifts sometimes hasn’t felt like it, but easier to understand why now was deliver. Absolutely. You know, there might have been something for them that they thought you needed to hear.
Nathan Simmonds:
They didn’t know how to deliver it, they make a complete mess of it. You feel terrible and maybe you don’t learn from that thing for another 5, 6, 7 years. Um, but again, it is just, it’s our people only see from the level of consciousness they’re at. But we also only hear from the level of consciousness we’re at. Think treat how, tell, tell, tell Stifles creativity and initiative. Absolutely. Really nice. Ask more questions. How feedback is delivered will impact the, the acceptance. Agreed. As, um, Jeff Birch taught in one of the class, one of these earlier sessions. We, we did, you know, a change inflicted is a change resisted.
Nathan Simmonds:
So actually if you get people to buy in and incorporate an add, it will make it much more smooth. Uh, how feedback is delivered with impact acceptance. Yeah. Understanding how do you learn patients supporting others with, with giving feedback? Absolutely. You know, leadership isn’t an overnight thing. It takes time. It’s building these skills in yourself and others, if we haven’t been exposed takes time. And it’s really about implementing some different stuff, some different concepts. So you’ve got the things that on there in valuable. Another question before we dive into any questions from me. Question for you is, how are you gonna make sure you do this moving forward?
Nathan Simmonds:
So these things that you said are valuable from this session, how are you gonna, excuse me, how are you gonna make sure that you actually act on these and keep the momentum going forward? Tell me the ones, what’s the one smallest action you’re gonna take right now to help improve the feedback you are giving based on what I’ve shared today and off the back of that, what questions have you got for me right now? Change. A good example is how well we went into lockdown. We understood the why and the intent, the goal, absolutely give people that clarity when they’re going into it, why that change is happening.
Nathan Simmonds:
So what’s the one smallest, smallest action you can take right now that’s gonna help you embed this understanding already? I, this is only day one. So we’ve got four days of feedback and we’re gonna start looking at structures a bit more tomorrow. Double check my agenda structure tomorrow. The key elements that we want to put in place for phenomenally powerful, um, progressive, intensive feedback that can give you, give you a framework to hang your conversation on that really makes feedback come to life. Not just for you, for the recipient, okay? But the first part is always upside upstairs in the cerebral, how we think and what the, the thought that we’re putting into something, how we help that individual to move. No questions. Are there no questions? If you have no questions for me, just put no in the chat box and let me know.
Nathan Simmonds:
No, no. None from me. Good. Tomorrow we’re looking at the structure. So Tim asked that earlier on, uh, have we got structure for it? Yes. We’re gonna do that tomorrow. Then we’re gonna start looking over the, the Wednesday and Thursday, how to build it, how to deliver it. So I know that you all have someone that you need to give feedback to. Yes or no? I’m, and I’m pretty sure there is always someone that we need to give feedback to and I want you to think about that person, whoever that is.
Nathan Simmonds:
It could be one of your kids, it could be one of the team, it could be whoever. So I want you to come tomorrow with that example already in your head. Who do I need to give feedback to? What feedback do I need to give them? And then start building that conversation as we go through the next three days.
Nathan Simmonds:
Everyone good with this as an idea? Yes or no? Ready for the rest of the week? Ready to build up this conversation? Yes, yes, good. Now they’re coming in thick and fast. Good, good, good, good, good. Making sure you’re all awake. Haha everyone, look, you’ve got the link there for tomorrow’s session. If you’re not registered, now is the time to register for it. Also, last week we looked at, um, we looked at HBDI, we looked at the leadership model as well. Leadership coaching cards. And this is also gonna help you to deliver some phenomenal feedback sessions with the leaders in your team. Okay? If you have not already got any of your coaching cards yet, the link is gonna be in the chat box in minute. They’re still five pound. This is the leadership that comes very proud of this deck.
Nathan Simmonds:
There’s some core questions in, in here to help you become a phenomenal leader in less than 90 questions. Okay? So grab your copy Now the other part is as well is virtual classrooms. If your business, if your team would benefit from having a conversation with me to take you through some of these skill sets, whether it’s feedback, whether it’s leadership development, coaching, whatever, there is the link for the virtual classrooms, now is the time to click on that. So as your business is starting, coming back into operation, how can I help you improve your teams to get better results? Click on that link. Start a conversation. Let’s make this, oh, I used the cards this week for the, for a session with someone. Very thoughtful, provoking, Chelsea, thank you.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know this, this means a lot. It’s great to hear that these cards are being used so people have already got ’em, people have got ’em on their desk, they are being used. Now is the time to get your set. If you haven’t, if you wanna take this up a level virtual classroom, let’s train some of the people in your teams, in your business, how to coach, how to develop leaders at an exceptional level. And I would love to do that for you, with you to deliver those results. Everyone have a lovely rest of your day. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at one o’clock. See you soon.
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