The First Rule Of Feedback

0:00Welcome to Manager Tools. This is Sarah. And I'm Mark. Today's podcast, The First Rule of Feedback, Part 1 of 1. As always, our content has been crafted by humans, and we are now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are, what is the first rule of feedback? Why is the first rule of feedback so important? And why do so many managers get feedback wrong? If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Most management conferences give you frameworks, speakers, and a binder you'll never open again. The M Conference gives you something different. Two days with accomplished executives having candid conversations about what management and leadership actually look like when the stakes are real.

0:49No keynotes, no platitudes. Just the kind of peer conversations that make you a better leader starting the next day. For more information, please visit manager-tools.com forward slash mconference. Mark, today we're talking about feedback. And giving feedback is, giving effective feedback, more specifically, is one of the hardest tasks for managers. I mean, when we're at our effective manager conference, and we're even, we're just, we're on the agenda for goodness sake. We're not even talking about the content itself. The moment we start talking about the giving of feedback, you can tell by measuring the faces of the people in the room just how many people are comfortable or lack thereof with giving feedback.

1:39And folks, feedback isn't difficult to understand. We know as managers we have to give it. I mean, it's part of the job description, for goodness sake. But too many of us don't understand feedback's first rule, that it's all about future behavior. Yeah. Yeah, it's sad, the number of people who believe that feedback is about the past, for instance, and there are all kinds of reasons why managers get feedback wrong. We think it's really only negative feedback that matters, missing the entire point that positive feedback is your silver bullet if there is one, not counting one-on-ones, which are the ultimate silver bullet.

2:16We think positive feedback is about praise, which it is not. We think negative feedback is about correcting people, which it is not. Another big problem for a lot of us, because of our fear and uncertainty and doubt, is we think that we're not very good at it. We actually probably know we're not very good at it. We also tell ourselves all the time, we think our directs know what they did right or wrong, and so we don't need to give them feedback. They're smart enough to figure it out. They don't need us telling them. Yeah. But all of these mistaken beliefs can be solved by understanding the first rule of feedback, which it is about future behavior.

2:58All right. So our outline for today has three points. First, the first rule of feedback, followed by why focusing on the past doesn't work, and then ultimately how to deliver negative feedback positively. Yeah. So the first rule of feedback is that all feedback is about effective future behavior. Whether your direct made a mistake or did something well, the purpose of your feedback in either of those situations, in both of those situations, is to encourage positive behavior in the future. We forget about the past. We're going to mention it, but we forget about it because what we're talking about and what hopefully we'll brief our directs on so we'll understand why, what we're talking about in every case is positive feedback in the future and if we're, or positive behavior in the future.

3:51And if we're doing that, we might as well be encouraging whether we're giving negative or positive feedback. Yeah, you know, Mark, I don't want to bend people's minds too early on in this podcast, but I might say something that's, I say to groups oftentimes, and that is, regardless of whether the feedback you're delivering is about something you want them to do again, or something you never want them to do again, all feedback is good. I mean, if they wouldn't have made that mistake, we wouldn't have the opportunity to mention to them why doing it that way is ineffective. I mean, the only reason we want to give it to your point is to affect the future and how they approach upcoming situations.

4:34Well, your point is a good one. I never thought of it this way, but all feedback is good. obviously nobody would argue that positive feedback is good. Hey, my boss recognized I did something good. That's great. Makes me feel good. I want to do it again. Great. But even negative feedback is good from the standpoint that in the past, maybe this morning or yesterday or two days ago, somebody made a mistake. And now we're talking about how to correct that mistake. That's good. That's good as opposed to leaving the mistake and not talking about it because we're afraid of shame and fear and pushback and all those kinds of things.

5:12But this is actually good. Even negative feedback is good because it can correct. It can get them to a positive place in the future. Yeah, that's exactly it. Now, folks, if you're relatively new to manager tools in our community, it wouldn't surprise us that this principle is new to you. The fundamental principle of focusing on the future is rarely one we teach. We know of no other managerial guidance besides us that highlights the fact that feedback is about the future. And not understanding that feedback is about the future means that like 90 plus percent of all managers think feedback is either about correcting or rewarding past behavior.

5:56behavior. Yeah, and it's a fundamental misunderstanding. And when you have a fundamental misunderstanding about something that's important, everybody knows that performance communication is important, and it's potentially dicey, uncomfortable, and so on. When you make a mistake about the fundamental principles, any choice you make down the road from that is going to be a bad one. Think about it this way. Say your direct made a mistake this morning. It's now noon. Can you do anything about the mistake that already has been made? No, you can't. Bueller? Yeah, Bueller. The only reasonable professional behavior that a manager can engage in about a past mistake is to encourage different, better behavior in the future.

6:45Now, folks, we say reasonable and professional. to help you rule out punishing a direct for a mistake. Now, by punishing them, we mean growling at them, raising your voice, demeaning them. All of these things are unprofessional. But folks, if we think about making the wrong choice and then demeaning a direct for that mistake, even that, as poorly delivered as it is, is designed to scare them into getting it right the next time. Oh, Mark, I got to tell you about one of the client sessions I did relatively recently that this just reminds me of so much. We're talking about feedback and everyone in the room throughout the course of our conversation, I mean, we're like 90 minutes into feedback already, can agree that the purpose of feedback is about the future.

7:35And then we're doing feedback practice. So they've learned all these things. And then one of the people says, but Sarah, when do I get to zing them? And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? It's like, yeah, but this is really bad. When do I get to zing him? I'm like, okay, but earlier we talked about, in fact, we agreed. Negative feedback is never meant to be punishment. Rather, it's done with the intent of more positive future behavior. Yeah? He's like, yeah, but when do I get to zing him? I'm like, oh my goodness, seriously. So, yes, it's permeated the management space, this idea that it's praise or punishment.

8:19It's reward or correct. Right. And why has it permeated the management space? Two simple reasons. No managers get training unless they come to us. Or that's what their boss did to them, who also, their bosses, didn't get any training. They got zinged. So apparently, I mean, this is how we do budgets, so I'll do budgets that way. This is how we do badges, so I'll do badges this way. This is how we do strategic planning, operational planning, people systems. This is how we do run meetings, so I'll do it that way. So because my boss zinged me, that's the way. And so I should zing people. Yeah, I'm going to zing them.

8:59Yeah. Yeah. I say this all the time. Even if you chew your direct out, you have to believe that the chewing them out is designed, even if it mostly is about you venting and about your personal feelings, it still has to be about the future. Yeah. I never want them to do it again. Right. And if you have a conversation at noon and you're not doing it to change the future, you might as well, if it's negative feedback, you might as well not do it, right? Because the mistake has already occurred. There's nothing we can do about the mistake that's already occurred. Look, even regrettable, unprofessional, negative feedback deliveries imply their true purpose, and that's to change the direct behavior in the future.

9:45Now, and by the way, I'm not even talking about positive here. I don't think anybody would argue that giving positive feedback for somebody would directly encourage them to engage in the same thing again. But I actually don't think, I think if we told managers, no more negative feedback, you can't do it, it's against the law, you're going to get in trouble, HR is going to be whatever, HR is going to be on you, you'll be dinged every time you do it. Managers would be like, oh, okay, it would take a while to get through the entire system. It would probably take a decade or two or more. But then they would start giving positive feedback.

10:17And then they would have to admit, Well, the reason I'm giving them positive feedback is not just to praise them, but I want them to do more of that. And there's your answer about why negative feedback, as we'll talk about in a bit, has to be delivered in exactly the same way, because the purpose of all feedback is to encourage effective behavior in the future. Yeah, folks, lest you think this only applies to negative feedback, to Mark's point, people would eventually give all the positive and admit it. When we give positive feedback to a direct, why are we doing it? I mean, are we doing it just to praise them, just to reward them, just to make them feel good?

10:56Maybe I would suggest that in some respects, we are doing that. But think about the rewards that you've gotten. Bonuses, raises, trophies, company awards. Why did whoever gave you those rewards give them to you? Well, in fact, they gave them to you to encourage you to continue doing what earned you that reward. Because all feedback is about future behavior. since we can't do anything about past behavior. None of us is capable of traveling time, but we can use that mistake for good. And that's what negative feedback is doing. Or meant to do, I should say. Yeah, yeah. That's why the Manager Tools Feedback Model is only one model.

11:48There are not two models, one for positive, one for negative. That's one of the reasons why when you read anything in popular press, and we'll talk about root cause analysis and a feedback dialogue thing. That's why both of those are wrong because they're based solely on mistakes. They essentially leave out what's more important, which is positive feedback. Nobody does root cause analysis when something goes well. Nobody tells you to have a feedback dialogue with your direct. When they do something well, they don't. These are specifically addressing negative. And it just proves the fact that people are out there peddling this junk just proves that they don't understand the fundamental first rule.

12:28They don't understand the principle that all feedback is the same. It's all encouragement about future behavior. And you don't have to go back into the past and you don't have to try to correct people. We don't say different words for positive and negative feedback. That would mean feedback was only about how you felt about your direct behavior that has already happened. We use the same words and the same tone for both negative and positive feedback because our purpose in the conversation is always the same, encouraging effective or positive behavior in the future. If you're anywhere near San Jose, the week of September 21st, clear your calendar.

13:08we're hosting a casual meetup that Monday, September 21st from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. That's 511 Coleman Avenue in San Jose. Come for five minutes. Come for the whole two hours. No RSVP. Nobody's checking a list. If you've ever wanted to put a face to the podcast or meet other managers who listen to this show, this is it. And if you're planning to be in town, the meetup kicks off our conference run. Effective Manager, Effective Communicator, and Effective Senior Manager Conference, September 22nd through the 24th at the Courtyard by Marriott, San Jose Airport. Registration info is at manager-tools.com forward slash SV.

13:58That's manager-tools.com forward slash SV. We'd love to shake your hand before you take a seat in one of those sessions. Folks, let's talk a little bit about why focusing on the past doesn't work. I mean, we've touched on some of these topics, but more specifically, focusing on the past doesn't work for a lot of reasons. The most obvious one is simple, because we can't do anything about the past. I mean, it's not rocket science. We're incapable of traveling time today. And it doesn't matter how much you work to understand what happened. To Mark's point earlier, the root cause analysis, nothing you do will change.

14:41That you can't change what happened in the case of the behavior they engaged in for negative feedback. The only thing any of us can change is the future. Yeah. And I mentioned root cause analysis. Many managers, particularly in the technical field, use root cause analysis, which full disclosure, root cause analysis is a fabulous tool, but it's not for performance communication between managers and direct. And they use it for negative feedback. In fact, I had a manager once say, Mark, I don't love your feedback model. I know how to do root cause analysis. I'm an engineer. Okay, I'm an engineer too.

15:19I know. I've done root cause analysis. It's really a great process. Okay. And they said, but I just can't seem to figure out how to use root cause analysis for positive feedback. I'm like, dude, you're not supposed to. You don't root cause every single thing you did that was good. That's not how RCA works. And the idea is when you use root cause analysis, you think that every time a direct makes a mistake, we must help them see the root of their error. We must go back through everything they did and they said and they thought and they planned and so on so that they can change it in the future.

15:55But again, root cause analysis is focused on the past, a long conversation with your direct about their past mistake, which is not going to make them happy. which, and again, it's about the past, which neither we nor the direct can change. And again, funnily enough, even RCA is based on the principle about learning about the past to change the future. And again, as I mentioned, it takes a great deal of time, which no manager can possibly hope to apply with all their direct mistakes. There's not enough positive and negative feedback as it is. If somebody tells you, you need to spend 15 to 30 minutes or for RCA, maybe as much as an hour, every time one of your directs makes a mistake, you'd be doing nothing than that.

16:41And managers are smart. They know I can't do nothing but that. And so they don't do anything at all. Exactly. Folks, what's more, root cause analysis causes the manager to have to help the direct solve their problem, which is counter to managerial economics 101. Some of you may have heard it. Some of you may not have. There's a podcast. We've got to explain it. But it says very simply, if a manager and a direct can both do something, it is cheaper for the direct to do it than the manager. And thus, the direct should do it. So if we don't abide by ME 101, pretty soon every problem will be delegated upward.

17:25And the CEO is going to be solving all of the company's problems. Not only do we as managers not have time to apply root cause analysis for every single mistake, doing it negates the direct agency to solve their own problems. And thus, they'll start expecting their manager to solve their problems for them and their manager to solve their problems for them I mean, the CEO has to do everything. And they won't get any better at solving their own problems. Thank you. And no one will get any better at solving problems. Yeah. If every problem caused at one level has to be solved at a higher level, that is an economic disaster for the organization.

18:08Absolutely. You think you have bottlenecks now, folks. That is a big bottleneck you're creating. Yeah. Another example of what we call past-focused, incorrect, feedback models is feedback dialogue, where I mentioned this earlier. The idea here is to ask questions of your direct to determine what they were thinking and figure out where they went wrong. This is a very soft version of RCA. According to this feedback dialogue, which was popular a number of years ago, and there are still people talking about it, and dialogue sounds good, and it sounds like collaboration, and it sounds like respect, and so on, this model honors, quote -unquote, the intent of the direct who surely didn't mean to make a mistake.

18:49And they didn't. Directs don't go around intending to make a mistake. I'm just going to ruin stuff up just to mess with you. We have an entire podcast called Assume Positive Intent, right? But feedback dialogue fails the fundamental future-focused first rule of feedback by focusing on what has already happened. What's more, it reminds your direct of all the reasonable thoughts they had because they didn't have nothing but bad thoughts when they were making this mistake. And if they're thinking about the good thoughts they had, that actually reinforces what they did, even though what they did turned out to be a mistake or an error and worthy of negative feedback.

19:25That causes them to defend their mistake, which is antithetical to your purpose of giving feedback, because the more they spend time defending their mistake, they're believing it's right, and they're talking about the past, and they're not talking about the future. All of which just proves that neither of you get it, because it's not about that thing that happened in the past. Exactly. So folks, in the manager tools feedback model, we have only four steps. First, we ask our direct if we can give them feedback because it may not be a time where they can focus on their future behavior or maybe they're in the middle of something.

19:59Then the second step, we state the behavior they engaged in. Followed by third step, we tell them what happened because of their behavior. So it's like the effect of their behavior, the outcome that was ineffective in the case of negative feedback. And then in the fourth sentence, we either ask for more of the same for positive feedback or ask them to change their behavior next time if it's negative feedback. And that's it. No root cause analysis, four quick sentences. I mean, short. It's 15 seconds. To the point focused on the future. Yeah. Typically, when I'm doing an effective manager conference, before I start the feedback model, I take the front row.

20:42Let's say there are four people on each side of the front row. I've got a room of 30 people. I've got eight people in the front row, four on my right, four on my left, with an aisle down the middle. And I say, okay, folks, I'm going to show you what effective feedback is like using our model. And I say, so what we're going to do is I'm going to pretend to be their boss. Now, obviously, this is a false scenario in the sense that I would never give feedback in front of 30 people. Feedback is for the private use of one individual. Folks, please, I'm just going to make an aside here. Please don't take what I just said to mean that you criticize in private and you praise in public.

21:15Both of those are wrong. We have a podcast called Praise in Public, Criticize in Private is Wrong. Because, first of all, praise and criticism don't work. That's not this. Feedback is for the private use. That's the way we describe it. for the private use of an individual. You can be walking down the hallway and have a very quiet conversation with somebody that lasts 10 seconds, and that can be feedback. You don't have to call them into the office and close the door when it's negative feedback or go out in the middle of the cubicle farm that you're in a couple of days a week and praise them in front of everybody.

21:47You don't have to do that. But some people say when they hear this, oh, wait, wait, you're talking about their past behavior, okay? Yeah, of course we're going to mention their past behavior. That's the cause, the cause, not the result, not the outcome, not the purpose. It's the impetus of the feedback, but it is not the purpose of the conversation. The past behavior is not the reason for our brief discussion. It's only the cause, the effect, the purpose, the principle of feedback is to encourage effective future behavior. We can't encourage the same behavior in the event of positive feedback or ask for change in the event of negative feedback unless we identify that initial behavior, say, oh, he's talking about or she's talking about this, and now we're going to talk about what I need to do in the future, either more of the same or something different.

22:45And I'll also mention this. We don't talk about it in great detail here, but we have an entire podcast about briefing your people before you change. In fact, Horstman's law of managerial change, I think, is never introduce a change to how you manage your people without first taking the time to introduce them to that change before you make it. So you will have a lot better results with our feedback model, which by the way, our feedback model is linked to in the bottom of this cast. If you're a licensee, you can click on the link in the show notes, which we'll get delivered to you if you want. If you're a licensee and you're not getting our show notes delivered to you, you should.

23:23Comes an email when the show comes out. If you're not a licensee, you can go to the webpage for this podcast. You can actually, on our website, Google the first rule of feedback, you'll find the page for this podcast. You can listen to it online, of course, on our website, or you can get it a bunch of other places. I'm sure many of you have, But on that page, there will be links to several podcasts, including the Manager Tools Feedback Model. So now let's talk about how to deliver negative feedback positively, because that's the thing. I think managers bifurcate on negative and positive and think tone negative, tone positive, when in fact, as Sarah just mentioned, when she walked through our model, there's only one model and you don't change your tone for positive or negative.

24:08But to finish my story, I've got eight people in front of me, four on my right, four on my left. And I say, okay, I'm going to give these four people positive feedback. And I tell them they need to say yes to the part of the model so there's not a misunderstanding. And then the four people on my left, I'm going to give negative feedback to. And so I make up some scenarios as if I were their boss. Hey, Sarah, can I give you some feedback? When you come in early and help me set up for the meeting, it saves me a bunch of time. Thank you very much. Okay, that's positive. feedback or negative feedback.

24:40Hey, Joe, can I give you some feedback? When you're late to a meeting, it slows us down. We have to rearrange the agenda. Can you be on time next time? That's all. What I do is I do all eight of those, four positives, four negatives. And I asked the group, see if you can figure out if my tone changed from one side to the other. And I asked somebody to keep track of time. They say, go. I give eight bits of feedback. I say, stop. And we count up the amount of time we just, and then we divided by eight in that example. And typically the answers, the numbers around 60 or 64, let's say eight times eight is 64, an average of eight second per direct.

25:16Now I also say, okay, but that was really super fast. So you might think you need five minutes to discuss with your direct. So did anybody not understand what I was talking to them about? Yes, exactly. Oh no, no, no, it was absolutely a hundred percent clear. And then I asked the audience, okay guys how did my tone change did my change my tone change and if so how between the positive and negative and some people say no no it didn't change at all it was positive on both sides you were you seemed encouraging you didn't you had a smile on your face when you gave negative feedback and i said yeah that's the right way and i say why and they they sort of why why didn't his tone change.

25:56And I say, the reason why my tone didn't change is I didn't want it to. I'm in charge of my tone. I decided this is about effective future behavior. There's no zinging. My emotional state about effective future behavior from my directs is positive. Whether they made a mistake, I'm still encouraging positive behavior in the future. Or if they did something good, I'm just encouraging them to do it again. Yeah, I like the way you think about that, Mark. My feelings around the behavior they engaged in may not be positive, but I can feel positively about the fact that I trust this person to do right with the information I'm giving them and change what they're doing in the future.

26:38Yeah. And by the way, we're going to talk about this in a minute, but a little bit of forgiveness on your negative feedback. It's really helpful, folks. As Mike says, Mike Ozan, my co-founder, as he says, if I can't chuckle when I give negative feedback, meaning indicating he's encouraging, positive behavior in the future. If I can't chuckle when I'm giving negative feedback, I don't give it. Because I would be going against the fundamental principle. Exactly. That's exactly it. Folks, I mean, we believe that one of the big reasons most managers shy away from negative feedback is really because in doing it wrong, what they're causing in their directs are these negative feelings of shame and hurt and embarrassment and fear.

27:21And most of us as managers aren't trying to make people feel bad. We're not trying to make them feel embarrassed or shameful. We're not trying to hurt them. But in focusing on that mistake, we cause the direct to relive in front of us, their boss, that shameful mistake they just made. Because again, we're not doing it right. We're not focused on the right thing. The solution to avoiding that pushback and the shame and the fear is to minimize the review of the past as we do in our feedback model that Sarah shared. Okay. And follow the first rule of feedback by focusing on encouraging the right behavior in the future.

28:03When you think about encouraging, as opposed to revisiting the mistake or punishing or shaming a mistake, you're much more likely to get a positive response from your direct. That's exactly a lot less defensiveness, which is one of the things that in my conversations with managers we're most looking to avoid. Yeah. And because they did it wrong, I'm doing it wrong, I'm getting pushed back, they get defensive, I want to do it less vicious cycle in the wrong direction. Exactly. Exactly. And folks, what our data shows is that when a manager thinks about encouraging behavior in the future, the direct recognizes that the manager is not upset about the past, but rather forgiving of the mistake and willing to move on.

28:43And we do encourage you to work on your forgiveness when you give negative feedback as well. Well, one easy way to focus on letting go and forgiving your directs is what do you want your boss to do? Apply the middleman test. You have a boss. Do you want your boss to try to shame you or engender in you a feeling of fear? No. What you want is your boss to forgive you and say, I know you're better than that. and to feel he knows or she knows you're better than that and to encourage you to do it right the next time. All right, let me summarize here. The first rule of feedback is that all feedback is about effective future behavior.

29:27The whole point of talking to your directs now about something that happened then is to recognize there's nothing can be done about the past and therefore focusing on the future is the only reasonable professional way to talk about performance. and when you do that, your directs will appreciate your encouragement and your positivity and they'll strive for more effective behavior whether they made a mistake or they were successful. All right, that was a good one. Thanks, Mark. You bet. Thanks, Sarah. And thank you folks for joining us. We hope this one helped you. Now, help us, help others and tell your friends and of course, follow, rate and review our podcast and remember, five stars only, please.

30:11We'll be right back.