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Sticky Learning Lunches #59: How to Give Feedback Part #2
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 2.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Good afternoon, sticky lunches. Just making sure my screen is straight. How are we all today? I’ve actually joined in early just to make sure we’re getting people in the room. On a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, how are we feeling today? 10. Straight in there with the tens. Good. Lots of positivity. Just a few more minutes while people are arriving. Colin, good to see you. Just doing a quick check in center. Check how everyone’s feeling. One to 10, one at one at the bottom, 10 at the top. Where are you? Yeah. How are you feeling today?
Nathan Simmonds:
Good. I think I’m on the downward curve though, of one of the emotional slides of COVID-19 right now. I feel like we’re getting to the end of all this. I feel like we’re going back to normal. It is challenging. Martin, good to see you. Bonjour. We are in a little bit early. We’ve got 30 seconds. We’re just waiting for people to arrive. Now he’s going with the Portuguese. Now he’s coming at me, right? Where are we? One minute past people still arriving. Just waiting for those to get into the room. Darren, good to see you.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s just give it a moment while we’re getting everyone in the room. Let’s make sure we’re all set up for success. Mobile phones, hold ’em higher. Let’s get the little airplane lit up. My one is good to go already. Just checking that. Making sure that you’ve got a drink available. You want to keep yourself hydrated. Keep the brain lubricated and keep this learning sticking. Okay, and then finally, as always, fresh sheet, fresh thinking.
Nathan Simmonds:
Get yourself a nice clean page in that book in your notepad to make sure that you can get those things down that you want to remember and reread so you can reignite that thinking when you go back to it. You wanna keep that learning, expanding and moving and growing. So these, these are the three key elements just to set these sessions up, to keep that, that learning live. Last mouth of tea.
Nathan Simmonds:
Gareth, good to see you, Claire. Great to see you again. Thanks for being there. Last handful of people, right? Grab my pens. Let’s fly with this. So, one thing we talked about yesterday, and I said I would share the link with you, which I’ve got down here, gonna get this now, is about the pigmalian effect. I hope I spelled that right.
Nathan Simmonds:
We talked about this briefly yesterday. I’ve just dropped a v No, I didn’t. I just put it in there to everyone else but you. So you can’t see it. Over audience. Let’s try that. There we go. So I talked about this briefly yesterday, which was the Pygmalion effect. So it’s the, the core idea or the, the science behind the statement of what you think of people is how you treat them. So that video’s there, it’s about six minutes long, not for watching now.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s definitely for watching later. Okay. And then I’m gonna copy this in just while I’m thinking about, and it’s fresh in my thinking. If you have not registered for tomorrow’s session or any of the other future sessions, the link is now in the chat box for you. Make sure that you are signing up for tomorrow’s session immediately. ’cause That’s gonna be part three of this feedback training.
Nathan Simmonds:
And these trainings are gonna stack up, yes, they’ll help you individually, but they’re gonna stack up in over the four parts in their entirety to support you delivering feedback in a much clearer, holistic and thoughtful way to support you getting the best results for your people. So you’ve got the link in there for the video for the Pigmalian effect, and you’ve also got the link in there for tomorrow’s training sessions in the future sessions. All right,
Nathan Simmonds:
So let’s go. Welcome to today’s Sticky Learning lunch with me, Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. And the idea of these sessions, it’s to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now from home, or preparing you to return back to work as well. This is day two of feedback. So where are we going today?
Nathan Simmonds:
Quick recap on yesterday. So the first thing that we covered on day one, we looked at what it is, which is about helping other people to understand what they do to take action. We also looked at the difference between good and bad. And also the fact there is no such thing as good or bad. All feedback is a gift. And it’s only based on purely whether it’s constructive or destructive, which is all about the delivery. And the last part, which I just talked about, which was the Pygmalion effect. In short, what you think of people is how you treat them,
Nathan Simmonds:
But also what you think of a situation is what it becomes. So if I think that this sit conversation’s gonna be difficult, I’m gonna make it difficult. If I think this feedback is gonna be negative or bad, I will start to make it negative or bad. Why? Because you are judging the thing, the person, the situation, and the moment you judge someone, you cannot influence it. I said this yesterday and I’m saying it again now because it’s super important. The moment that you judge someone or something, you cannot influence them or it, okay? Really important. We understand this.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope this is useful. Hope you picked up some gems from yesterday that are gonna help change the dynamic of the conversation that you are already having. Where are we going to today? Day two, open. Question to you all, what needs to be included in feedback to make it work? What do you think as a group attending this session right now? What do you need to include when you are delivering feedback in order to make it work?
Nathan Simmonds:
There’s some core bits that definitely need to absolutely good. There’s one, I’m not gonna share these as they’re coming through. I wanna see what comes through, first of all, from everyone rather than biasing and, and stunting other people’s thinking by sharing their ideas too early. What else have we got? I’ve got one response in what else needs to be included? Care, honesty, vision for that. Good. Nice. Good seeing that one coming through. Yeah. Good. What else?
Nathan Simmonds:
Good. Good, good, good. So good. We’ve got some key things in here. Let’s go into these. We’ve got facts. Absolutely. So when we are giving feedback, we need to have facts available. It needs to be irrefutable. So for example, if someone’s being late, no, you, you, if you’ve got documentation to show when they were being late, then you can have a conversation about that. If you’re saying, oh, you were late three times last month, and that person says, well, when, and you’re saying, well, I’m not sure, but I know it was three times.
Nathan Simmonds:
You haven’t got enough evidence, you can’t have the conversation. We’ve got care, honesty and vision. Colin’s hit the nail at like three nails on the head there. Honesty, we picked up as well. Reminder the vision. Again, what good looks like, the goal, the outcome. So it needs to be done with care. And we’re gonna look a little bit at that in in session four when we look at the feedback. And we’re gonna give you a framework to structure or a checklist, more like a checklist that you can work with to support when you’re giving feedback. Some of the key things that we need to be including is it needs to be specific.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when we look at those facts, we need to be talking about specific events. We need to be talking about specific moments that we can have a conversation about. I’ve said to many people that I’ve worked with in organizations, you know, I could stand at the front door at five 30 or whatever time the shift finishes and everyone could walk out the door, you know, 1200, 1400 people and I could shake everyone’s hand. Thank you very much for the day. Thank you very much for the day.
Nathan Simmonds:
Thank you very much for the day. And by the time they’ve got to the car, they won’t even remember who I was or what I’d even said because I’d already checked three different WhatsApp messages and you know, responded to Twitter because I’m not actually telling them what I saw in them and wasn’t specific enough about what I’m celebrating with them.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it has to be specific. Now the idea is that you catch people getting it right As Ken b Blanchard, author of the One Minute Manager suggests in there, phenomenal read, super short, super easy, listen, catch them getting it right. Look for reasons to celebrate them getting no, getting it it right and doing good things so that you can talk about that thing you did there, which was really helpful, which was really useful. Please keep doing that tomorrow so you’ve got one less thing almost to remind them about the next day.
Nathan Simmonds:
Because after a period of time you’re doing that, it becomes habit. It becomes the norm if you don’t take time to catch them getting it right. You know, what do children do if they don’t get enough attention? Open question to everyone. Everyone who’s got children, and I know a lot of you have, what do children do when they don’t get enough attention? Steely silence. They play up. Go feral. Seek it.
Nathan Simmonds:
And yeah, absolutely. Has anyone seen that picture of the two small children with a tub of E 45 cream and they’ve painted a half inch layer thick of E 45 cream cream over their daddy’s precious, you know, 65 inch plasma screen? Yes or no? Has anyone seen that? Now the reason I bring this analogy to life Yeah. Is ’cause the moment it goes quiet, you know, there’s trouble with small children. And as I’ve said before, most of us, you know, are children kind of caught in the, in the bodies of adults, and especially in work environments.
Nathan Simmonds:
When you don’t get praise or you’re getting that support in that environment, things go quiet, things happen. So when we do that, we want to take time to, to see people, which is what all people wanna be, want to receive, is they want to be seen and acknowledged for the good things that they’re doing. So they can be reminded what to do on a daily basis. But feedback has got to be specific, okay? This is number one. Number two.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s gotta be time bound. It’s got to be timely. Because what happens to our feedback if we don’t deal with it in the moment, if we don’t do something about that situation immediately, what happens to our feedback? What happens to the way that we can deliver that feedback? And that’s open question to all of you, making sure you’re awake, you’re with me, loses it value. Good.
Nathan Simmonds:
What happens is, for example, someone comes in late and you think, oh, it’s only five minutes and you don’t talk about it on Monday. And then you come in on, they come in on Tuesday and they’re five minutes late on Tuesday. They’re like, oh, why? Because they got away with it on Monday and you don’t say anything. Oh, it’s just another five minutes. And then when you get to Wednesday, you know what happens on Wednesday? They turn up another five minutes late and you’re still not saying anything.
Nathan Simmonds:
You, now you can start to see that the people in your team are starting to get agitated because they keep turning up late. Well, if they turn up late, well maybe I can do that. And then you still don’t say anything on Wednesday. And what happens on Thursday? They turn up late again. And then on Friday, because now you haven’t said anything, this, this behavior is starting to build up.
Nathan Simmonds:
You lose the plot on Friday, you go absolutely crazy screaming and shouting, this isn’t okay, you are not, duh duh, this is blah, blah, blah, blah. So the person goes, oh, okay. I’m, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize, you know, nothing was said. I’m like, no, it’s fine. Okay, look, don’t do it again. Okay, great. What happens on Monday?
Nathan Simmonds:
They turn up late again. And then you go, well look, we just had this conversation on Friday. What’s going on here? Just talked about being late. Yeah, but you didn’t say anything on Monday. So it’s only about being late on Friday that I had a problem. Because what’s happened is we’ve allowed it to happen. It starts to become a behavior and it starts to become a habit. And it starts to become the expectation and the standard very, very quickly.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope this is making sense with everyone. Hope this is resonating. Because then what happens is the moment that you are, you know, you are not having this conversation with this individual and you are setting that standard. Well, I turn up and I go, do you know what I’m gonna be, I’ll be five minutes late. Why? ’cause Bob’s always five minutes late and then you as the leader have a go at so and so and it’s their first day for being late. What’s their response?
Nathan Simmonds:
But it’s all right for Bob. He gets four days of being late before you have a word with him. And I only, I don’t even get one. How does that, that’s not fair. So we’re starting to we’re starting to make our standards and our expectations made. So people don’t know actually what their parameters are. They dunno what their boundaries are. And everybody needs a boundary and the expectation to work in.
Nathan Simmonds:
So it’s super important. We start making sure that we’re specific when we’re talking about these things with people so they know what they’re working to. Good. And so-called bad, it’s time bound. And we deal with these things immediately. There’s one caveat for this, we’ll talk about this. You know, if it’s dangerous or urgent,
Nathan Simmonds:
Is maybe that something’s happening in the business and it’s not. You’re not quite able to, to have that conversation. The fastest thing you can do. And the best thing to do is just say, look, I need to have a conversation with you about this thing. I’m not able to do that right now because of certain business requirements or demands or an urgency. And as a result of that, what we’re gonna do, we’ll talk about this at one o’clock.
Nathan Simmonds:
Is it okay, we have a conversation with you or we have a conversation about this at one o’clock. That way the person knows, you’ve seen what’s going on, whether it’s, you know a positive or negative thing. They also know that you’re gonna have a conversation at one o’clock. Why? ’cause you want to support them making sure they get it right rather than at nine o’clock, they turn up at 10 past nine, you don’t say anything. And they’re like. Yeah, I got away with it. 10 past nine.
Nathan Simmonds:
That one noticed. And then at one o’clock you turn up and go, woo, surprise. And then the person freaks out ’cause they didn’t expect it. And no one actually likes surprises. Hope this is, you know, this is common in every type of business around the world all the time. If we need to give feedback, let the person know. We’re gonna give them feedback and support in an environment where you can create that and have that conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope this is useful. Conscious of time, Mr. Fly. So far what’s been useful from what I’ve shared about feedback and some of the stuff that’s absolutely required. What’s been useful so far before I fly into the next section? Timely timeliness, implications for managers. Absolutely. Get specific. Always, always give feedback in a timely manner. Good. Even if it feels uncomfortable.
Nathan Simmonds:
And remember, go back to that mindset piece of, you know, there is no such thing as good or bad, it’s just the way that we frame it in our head. Always give feedback in a time. Yeah. So it also is, and remember, it’s about making sure that we are catching people, getting it right. Catch them getting it right.
Nathan Simmonds:
The writing’s getting worse as Covid is continuing. Do this, this is gonna help you massively. So for the last part, what I’m gonna do is I’m just gonna help structure the conversation. I’m gonna give you a framework which we’re gonna work on for the next two sessions. Okay? How are we gonna do this? He says, the framework that we use, I just need to shut my door. Bear with me. How many arrive home, right?
Nathan Simmonds:
The framework that we use for this is called said SAID. So pens, paper, get this stuff down. This is gonna be useful. So how do we do this? The framework we’re using, the s in said stands for two things, the situation and also the standard and what that looks like. So
Nathan Simmonds:
Whenever we are giving feedback, we have to work to a standard. Most people know what the majority of standards are. If it’s a matter of, you know, the office is open at nine, we’re expected to start at nine, that’s a standard dress code behavior with certain customers. Now these are standards, some of them will be written in, in, you know, in contracts in stone as it were. And some of them will just be kind of you are aware of. But what is imperative that individuals know what these standards are and what they’re working to.
Nathan Simmonds:
And also if it is a business obligation that these things are set in contracts and on paper and signed to, okay? The other part is then the situation. So the thing that we’re talking about, what is the situation? We’re gonna be having a conversation. Is it about the lateness? Is it about the choice of language? Is it the choice of behavior? Whatever it is. And we’re having that conversation and we’re doing that.
Nathan Simmonds:
So we talk about the situation and the standard and in there it could well be, well the reason that you are having that conversation is there is some sort of gap there is with either a, a shortfall or an overshoot of that, you know, and an an an an exceeding of expectation, which is why you’re giving the feedback. The second part then is the action.
Nathan Simmonds:
So what was it that caused the thing to happen? What was the logic? What was the thinking? What was the, the steps that led up to this? What else don’t I wanna know? What else occurred that caused this thing to happen? Step number three is impact. So when we talk about this, what we’re doing is we’re asking questions again of, well, what’s the impact of the lateness on the team? So we’re asking lots of questions here, beginning with what now? What’s the impact of the situation on the team, on the customer, on the production line on whatever.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then the last part we want to get to is desired outcome. So these are the four stages of the conversation. The desired outcome is then asking that person we’ve just talked about, and we’ll explain this more tomorrow and the day after. We go through initial overview of the structure here. Well, based on everything that you’ve just told me, what would you like to do to help improve this? So we’re asking as many questions as we can up here and pro and getting the individual then to give us a response back of how they would like to improve the situation
Nathan Simmonds:
As a starter for 10. Does that make sense? Yes or no? Classic end of year review. We’ve all had, remember in February did that thing, it was not good. Yes, absolutely. A no one likes surprises, but, you know, get into your end of year review and say, by the way, you were late. And the person says when, and they say, November, 2016. And you’re like, whatever. A, you don’t remember it because it wasn’t time bound. And b it’s not specific enough. It hasn’t got the facts in it. You know, Fabian discussed, it doesn’t work.
Nathan Simmonds:
The key elements to this before we get into any other pieces is notice the choices of language I’m using around some of this. What was the situation? Now we’re talking about the lateness, we’re talking about the quality. We’re talking about the service that is provided. At no point am I saying you are late. Why are you late? Your work shadi, whatever. No, I’m eliminating as much of the you out of it as possible and, and diffusing the accusation.
Nathan Simmonds:
What I’m doing is I’m creating a third object because the person who’s late, are they actually the problem? Yes or no? The person who’s late, are they the problem? What do we think? Wait for some of those responses. If that person’s late, are they the problem? Steely silent. Everyone’s I an r here. The fact is that no, they’re not the problem.
Nathan Simmonds:
The fact is they were late and you have no idea what’s caused that lateness to happen. So if you run in there and go, you are late, you are out of all the da da and I’ve done this, I’ve learned from this lesson, they’re not the problem. So what you need to do is separate the individual and by objectifying the situation, you and I need to have a conversation about the lateness.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s no different to talking about this pen. We take the emotion out of it and it becomes objective rather than a subjective and prime example. I did this colleague of mine kept in late in my team, five minutes, 10 minutes late, we having some conversations and then got to Friday, he comes in red eyes looking tired. He’s been up all night, it looks like he’s been to the pub or been out, da da da da.
Nathan Simmonds:
I go in on him for 20 minutes saying, why are you late? You are out of order. This isn’t acceptable. And about 20 minutes in, he suddenly says, I’m really sorry Nathan. My dog died last night. I now feel like a bad human being because I haven’t bothered to start asking questions to find out what the situation or to talk about the situation. And to ask questions about what caused the lateness, what’s led up to this moment, regardless of what’s happened before this situation’s a new situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
This, this situation is the now. It’s not the buildup of what you perceive or what you think of an individual based on certain experiences that then causes or triggers an internal reaction based on, you know, the external world not meeting your internal expectation. I hope this makes sense.
Nathan Simmonds:
So we objectify the thing that we want to talk about. We talk about the lateness, the choice of language, the current quality levels. And then we wanna ask questions here or what’s caused this to happen. I’m just gonna click on my screen here and bring up some of these. What was the thinking that caused this? What was the actions that led up to this happening? What was the logic that created this decision? And at no point am I saying, why did you do that?
Nathan Simmonds:
Why didn’t you do that? Or why didn’t you think of this? No, I’m removing that out and just making it as objective as possible. ’cause I want to as Steven co coy says, seek first to understand before making yourself understood. Because if I don’t have all the facts, I’m not able to support with additional solutions or ideas or help that person come up with their own in order to take the action that they need to impro to improve themselves.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then in the impact section is what’s the impact of the lateness on the team? I’m over emphasizing that obviously, please don’t, you know, repeat that or do it and deliver it in this way. That would be ridiculous. Just saying just in case. Now with lots of the, the the, so, and we’re asking questions to help that person completely raise their awareness and indicate that they understand what’s going on so that they can come up with new solutions. Coaching is about supporting individuals to help them raise their own awareness so that they can take responsibilities for the actions that are required in order to progress.
Nathan Simmonds:
This is the feedback model that starts to do that for people. Now one of the movements that was, that started in MBM is no is is talk don’t shout. I believe that’s right talk. You know, it is about making sure that we’re actually having a conversation. We’re not standing inside production factories screaming at each other because our quality result isn’t no right or actually trying to have a conversation, but we’re still screaming at each other and people think that’s how we communicate in the real world. It’s not conscious of time.
Nathan Simmonds:
Crikey, it is 28, 20, yes, 27 according to that clock. What has been useful from what we’ve covered here before we even get into the juicy stuff tomorrow of delivery even, you know, like foundational delivery and advanced delivery over the next two days, what has been useful from what we’ve covered today?
Nathan Simmonds:
The said process, the said structure. Good as you’re doing that, just so I give you max landsberg, I believe I remember delivering, I learned aid. So if you look at the dao, the DAO of coaching and the DAO of motivation, this model comes out of this. Now I’m not sure who made said, but then when you look at the SBI feedback model that talks about the situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
So the comment and the, when they made said it included the standard, but I think it’s really important that we’re including both the situation we’re talking about and the gap to the standard or the the overshoot on that standard so that then we can ask the questions in here, what that action is, what the impact is, and then help that person start creating a desired outcome.
Nathan Simmonds:
Talking about the, and not them absolutely using that to separate the person from the problem and get them to own the desired change in behavior. Absolutely. Structure good structure’s vital as you’re going. What questions have you got for me right now? Are this, and I wanna lead on from that single word that Gareth shared there around structure. Use it for preparation if you know you are gonna have a feedback conversation with someone in the top left hand side.
Nathan Simmonds:
Write, said and write a question that you wish to ask that person before you go in. So that add you when you get embroiled in the conversation or the dynamic of whatever. And you know, these things can be a movement feast and lots of stuff can come up, whether it’s excuses or justification or whether it’s just, you know, unrealized new stuff about the individual.
Nathan Simmonds:
We want to keep some of those questions there just to help keep our conversation on track as we all know. What if it is the six P’s know, whatever it is, poor preparation leads to whatever poor performance and you can fill in the blanks on that one.
Nathan Simmonds:
Good. I’m glad that this is, you know, helping. Glad this is resonating with some of you. This is super useful. It is phenomenally powerful and I’m gonna show you the two ways to deliver it in the next two sessions. In the next two sessions. Could you speak also a positive feedback today was might be too much on negatives, the positives as much possible. Absolutely. This is why I talk about catch and getting it right. We can still use this structure and we’ll talk about this when we’re delivering it.
Nathan Simmonds:
’cause Actually some people don’t necessarily feel comfortable receiving feedback and compliments. Sometimes people don’t feel like they wanna receive compliments in front of their colleagues ’cause it makes ’em feel different or makes ’em feel like they might lose some sort of respect or significance in their relationships. So this is the same framework we can use for that with the, so-called positive feedback.
Nathan Simmonds:
You know, when we’re talking about catching doing the right things, it’s easier to have that conversation. It’s also easier and I see for a lot of leaders is they don’t have the conversation ’cause they think they don’t have to. Oh, they’re doing it right. That’s okay. Let him go on with it. And like I say, you know, is if you’re working in maybe food production and you are packing burgers or sausages or doing whatever and someone’s there and they’re like, oh yeah, he is doing a good job and he is still there and he is doing his thing, all of a sudden he says, what?
Nathan Simmonds:
No one’s telling me, you know what? I’m gonna put these ones in upside down and see what happens. Or I’m gonna stick my pen in there just for fun. I, I wanna see what it looks like when I shrink wrap my or heat shrink my shoe. In 25,000 pounds worth, you know, 150,000 pounds worth machinery.
Nathan Simmonds:
We all do it ’cause we’re human beings. I hope this makes sense. So the positive start catching people getting it right, yes, you can use this structure, it needs to happen more regularly. And even if you took two minutes, five minutes of your day every single day to celebrate something that one of your team was doing every single day, that would improve morale by a huge percent.
Nathan Simmonds:
It would mean that they were less mistakes ’cause you were reminding them what to do, right? Rather than focusing on the negative. Wherever your focus goes, energy flows. So if you’re always looking for mistakes, you’ll find more of them. But if you’re always looking for why people getting it right, they’ll get it right more of the time and as a result you’ll get less mistakes, not naivety. It’s just the way it works. 32 minutes past, we are two minutes over time.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes Martin, we’re gonna look at that tomorrow. Glad that was useful. Ah, what am I aware of? I’m aware of two things. One, I’m putting the coaching cards. There is a link in there for the coaching cards so you can go straight to our website and pick up a copy of your cards as well. Okay?
Nathan Simmonds:
Also, I’m gonna share in there the link for the virtual classrooms. Who do you know that would benefit from being in a full blown session like this with me to help them improve their results? Whether it be through feedback, leadership, coaching, skills, communications. Who do you know that would benefit from a training session with me inside your organization at a much deeper level than this?
Nathan Simmonds:
Now I know you are already seeing people. I know you’ve already got a face in your head. Okay? There’s a link there for virtual classrooms. Sign them, you know, get the business signed up, get or share the link for these sessions with ’em so they can join. Tomorrows, get your copy of the coaching cards to help you deliver even stronger results with them. Okay?
Nathan Simmonds:
Hope these sessions are useful. Massive thank you for being here again. As always, I’m looking forward to sharing with you how to deliver this. ’cause Now we’ve got the structure. Now you can do the delivery. We’ll pick that up tomorrow. Thanks very much everyone, I look forward to seeing you then. Cheers. Bye.
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