Can I Offer You Some Feedback? - Episode #67

Show Notes:

This week Sara talks with Kerry, head of HR at a Social Services Agency. They discuss the importance of providing and responding to feedback that moves the conversation forward. Rooting feedback in curiosity and understanding, while also being specific. Having the necessary conversations with vulnerability and bravery. Want more feedback conversations? Subscribe to this podcast today and so you never miss an episode! 

Episode #67: Curiosity and Understanding Feedback

Sara: Welcome to Can I Offer You Some Feedback? My name is Sara, and this is the podcast for those who have a complicated relationship with feedback and are looking to hear from real people across levels and industries with their ideas, perspectives, and best practices on feedback. Before we dive in, I'd like to introduce our guest on the podcast today, Kerry. She's the head of HR at a social services agency. Welcome to the conversation today.

Kerry: Hi, Sara. It's great to be here today.

Sara: Excellent. Well, let's kick things off with the main question of the podcast. When I say the phrase, can I offer you some feedback? What's your gut reaction when you hear that?

Kerry: Yeah. I think it depends, right? It depends on who is giving the feedback. Do we have a relationship? What's the level of trust involved? There's definitely those people that I will say, "Great, bring it on," and other times where I might internally roll my eyes a little bit and think, "Oh boy. What's this about?"

Sara: Yeah. I think that there is, and true with many people that the context of the relationship matters quite a bit and you know how they've delivered feedback before and how that may prime you to respond a kind of certain way depending on how they're delivering the request to provide you with some feedback.

Kerry: Yeah, it makes such a difference. I think too what we do next with that feedback, it makes such a huge difference sort of where it's coming from.

Sara: When you think about feedback, do you prefer to be the giver or the receiver of feedback?

Kerry: I think I fall somewhere in between. I'm pretty comfortable providing people with feedback. I think it's a real sign of respect when you're able to provide people with feedback. But I also like to receive feedback too. It really helps me to understand how I'm being perceived and what I might do differently in order to put a better self forward in a given situation or to improve something that I'm not doing great on.

Sara: When you're in that giving space then, how do you think about opening the conversation with someone to give them that feedback?

Kerry: I have to say, I don't know that this is an area where I am really great. I've certainly been very thoughtful and asked people, "Well, can I offer you some feedback," or "I have some feedback for you. Is now a good time?"

There are certainly other times where I will just plow right in and offer some feedback. It's so important, really, to keep in mind, are you giving advice or are you giving feedback? I've certainly been in a position where I think I'm giving some feedback, and it really is advice. And it's something that I try to be very mindful of, very careful of.

Sara: That distinction you're making, I think is so important. I agree. I think a lot of people think they're giving feedback, but they're really either giving advice or giving their preference or giving their perception of what is "best" rather than something actually about the other person, not about them.

Kerry: Yeah, that's so true. And certainly, I've been on the receiving end of that too. And it puts people in such a no-win situation when you're either expressing a preference or trying to give advice. It really doesn't set people up to grow. So, yeah, I think that's so important to really think about that.

Sara: Yeah. I think connected and you've kind of touched on it, how do you define or think about meaningful feedback?

Kerry: I think meaningful feedback is often rooted in curiosity. If you start from that place of being curious, of asking some questions first, and I think sometimes that's why I don't necessarily go into the can I offer you some feedback? You know, really focusing more on, what was going on in this situation? What were you thinking about? Let's talk through that. Let's hear more about that. And of course, this assumes that it's the kind of feedback where we're trying to help someone grow.

But there's feedback too that's about praise and recognition. I think that... Okay, I totally lost my train of thought. I think that... Sorry, ask me your question again.

Sara: Sure. When you're thinking about feedback, how would you define meaningful feedback?

Kerry: I think that meaningful feedback really does depend on the situation. And I think staying curious in that situation is important, especially when the feedback is feedback where you're looking for someone to grow from that feedback, where you're looking for them to maybe make some changes. Understanding where a person is coming from, what set off the chain of events that led to you needing to present some feedback in the first place?

And I think too, being specific, this applies whether that's that sort of growth type of feedback or the feedback that you're looking to give because someone's really knocked something out of the park or maybe they've grown and you want to just recognize and acknowledge the growth or experimentation or taking a risk that someone has made. So I think being specific and staying curious.

Sara: Yeah. I think you're touching on curiosity in a couple of different ways here, but really wanting to understand where the other person was coming from in their action and sharing your perspective on that action, but curiosity is I want to know more. Not I have a judgment on it or I have an opinion on it. It's how do I learn more about how you're thinking about this?

Kerry: Absolutely. I try to take that strengths-based approach and a positive approach too. It doesn't do any of us any good if I'm just going to tell you what you did wrong and to do better the next time. I need to understand where you're coming from. I need to understand what are the strengths that you're building off of? How can I as a leader, how can I as a team member add to, complement, work together with you to get us to the result that we need? I'm not going to change who you are, and I don't want to change who you are. But I do want us to get the results that we need to get. I just don't think that making a person either feel bad or bringing them down is ever going to get us to that place.

Sara: Could you share an example or about an experience when you either saw meaningful feedback delivered or you experienced meaningful feedback being delivered to you?

Kerry: Yeah. So I had an opportunity today to give some feedback and to receive some feedback. My recruiting team asked to meet with me today so that they could share with me what's working and what's not working. It also gave me an opportunity to share with them some of the outcomes that I'd really like for us to achieve and some of the opportunities that I think exist.

And we were able to marry those bits of feedback together to come out with some next steps. So some things that aren't working for them. Some things that aren't working for me, how do we make them work together? How do we get to the outcomes of filling our open positions or making sure that we're better known out there to potential candidates?

It's a hard job. It's especially a difficult job right now. It's a lot of pressure. And oftentimes a lot of advice for recruiters out there that it's not super helpful. They're the experts. They know what we need to be doing and it's important to listen to their feedback.

Sara: Yeah. I like how you're kind of sharing. I think that some folks forget. If they're preparing feedback or entering the feedback, they somehow just completely forget that people are... Most people I meet are trying their best. They're showing up every day, just really trying. Whether they're being held back by systems or technology or other people, but most people are trying.

And so if we came to that space, the conversation, for example, that you're saying you had today with, I know they're trying, and I hope they know I'm trying. How can we try in the same direction? Which again, I know it sounds obvious, but I often talk to people who seem to just forget or assume the ill intent of the other, that they're not actually trying. And I'm like, "Really? You think that they're actually waking up every day and trying to do a bad job? Really?"

That takes some effort to just be bad or to really try to sabotage or do the worst. I don't know, 99% of the time folks I meet really seem to care and are really trying the best that they can that day.

Kerry: I completely agree, Sara. It is amazing how often I also run into that sentiment. I think just using that example today, there was an incredible amount of vulnerability and bravery that my recruiting team had brought to this conversation. They had to be willing to let me know that this isn't working for us. This doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right.

And I could have reacted any number of ways to that. Hopefully, I've built that trust, I built that relationship with them that they know that they should and they do need to come to me about that. That's the only way we're going to make things different, improve. Like you said, the processes that are behind this, maybe even some of the thinking that's out there amongst our customers about how we do things. And it's not going to change unless we have those open honest conversations.

Sara: Yeah. In your example, you were talking about feedback where a team came to you in a position of authority. I'm wondering, as an HR leader, what are some of the ways that you enable either others on your team or others in teams you're in to share feedback with each other?

Kerry: That's a great question. When it comes to sharing feedback with each other, I hope that I'm modeling that type of feedback relationship in our group meetings. And I'm encouraging other members of my team when they have feedback like that, appreciating that feedback, thanking people for the feedback, responding to the feedback in ways that are moving the conversation forward rather than that response of dismissing or downplaying that feedback.

And then certainly encouraging people to respond in that moment. Like, what do you think? How does this feel? What's your reaction? Any of those questions to continue that conversation so it doesn't just stop there. Because that can happen in meetings where you have that person who puts something out on the table and then nobody else really wants to pick it back up. But it's important to pick it up and to keep working through whatever that challenge is.

Sara: Right. Absolutely. I think we've been in a few meetings where someone has put some feedback out there and everyone sees it, everyone heard it, no one wants it. One example I'm thinking of, that individual pushed again and said, "We need some action items after this meeting. We can't just say we met and then meet again. What are we doing?"

Kerry: That's right.

Sara: It definitely spurred the conversation. But thank goodness for that person. Very action-oriented, valuing the discussion, but also saying, hi, what are we doing here? What's the purpose of this conversation? Well, Kerry, for our last question in our time together, can I offer you some feedback?

Kerry: Absolutely.

Sara: So, as I touched on a little earlier, we overlapped for just a brief period at the same organization, and had the opportunity to sit together in some different spaces and different meetings, as I just kind of alluded to. One of the things I've appreciated, either in those meetings or in our follow-up conversations is a notion you kind of touched on earlier about the curiosity and the asking of questions.

And I feel like with question asking, there's a fine line where you ask a question in such a way that isn't targeted, isn't direct, isn't two-pointed, but gives space for other people to really hear, is that the core issue? Is that what we need to be focusing on? Is that really true? And I think of it more on this line of the inquiry instead of interrogation, right?

It's the same question, but the way it's phrased and the way that it's brought up, and what I observe the trust that you have with the folks in the room allows you to be able to do that. But there is the need for that gentle push of, I'm not sure that's completely representative, or I'm not sure that that's quite accurate, or what would be another way to do that? And I've always appreciated it. I know we've stolen a look in a meeting where maybe one of us has said the thing.

But I really find that to be so helpful. And again, that example that you lead by of thinking about even the advice versus feedback, which you talked about earlier, it's what seat am I in, what position am I in, and how can I provide to the conversation without taking over the conversation? How can I participate, give my insight, give my perspective, but it doesn't need to be the whole center. It doesn't need to be the focus.

So I've really appreciated seeing that kind of balance that you do and aspire to do more often in places. So I wanted to say, thank you for that.

Kerry: Well, thank you, Sarah. I appreciate that. That's very kind.

Sara: Well, Kerry, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. And thanks to you for joining us in another episode of Can I Offer You Some Feedback? You can reach me at podcast@mod.network. We would love to hear from you on your thoughts on feedback or any other perspectives you'd like to hear from next. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. And I'm hoping that tomorrow you take a chance and offer some feedback when it's needed most.