Why Your Feedback Isn't Landing

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1:25Jason:Adobe Express released its AI Snapshot for Small Business, a new survey exploring how today's entrepreneurs are harnessing AI to build distinctive brands, create with confidence, and turn their passions into content that's unmistakably theirs. The findings reveal that small businesses are early AI adopters, with 66 % already using AI for marketing. But the real secret sauce? AI plus the human touch. Nearly half of small businesses shape and refine their AI-assisted content before publishing, bringing their distinct point of view to every piece. The takeaway is that AI works best when it amplifies your vision.

2:06Jason:Adobe Express is an AI-powered, create-anything tool that helps small business owners turn ideas into polished, on-brand content for everything from social posts to marketing materials. If you're a small business owner or solopreneur, check out Adobe Express at adobe.com slash express to discover how to make every piece of content distinctly yours. Survey conducted by Morning Consult to 850 small business owners. Sometimes when someone has done something that we don't like or we don't appreciate, there's a sort of phase where what you really want to do is go, ah, that is an expression of your distress or annoyance, but it is not feedback.

2:50And so, you know, I think, you know, there is something about teasing those two things apart. Feedback really is about how do you develop the other person. And once you go into it with that frame, I think that you already start to have a different type of conversation.

3:05Jason:Running a business means solving problems. I tell you how the smartest entrepreneurs do it. Hi, I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, and this is Problem Solvers.

3:19Jason:Like anyone who has worked for other people, I have worked for a lot of bad editors. And the worst piece of feedback, it was really an edit, but let's say feedback, that I got from an editor whose name, oh, I'm so tempted to say, but I won't. many years ago, I worked at another magazine and, you know, we would have these stories that we wrote circulated and lots of editors would read it. And anyway, this one guy was known for just incredibly harsh feedback. And he once circled a large portion of something that I wrote. And then he wrote next to it, lots of words with an air of meaning, but not much substance.

4:03Jason:And I thought, what an ass. I've since thought, you know, the problem with that, aside from just that he was an ass, which he was, let's be very clear, was that it wasn't really instructing me to do anything. And I have gotten so much of that kind of feedback over the years where it is reactive. It's telling me that something's wrong. It's not exactly moving me towards doing something right. I'm not actually even sure what it's supposed to do. And I think that we just have a chronic problem in which we don't exactly know how to give people feedback that actually accomplishes something, that actually drives action.

4:44Jason:So that is why I was so excited to talk with Caroline Webb today, who you just heard laugh a minute ago. She is an economist, leadership coach, author of, well, previously, How to Have a Good Day, and now Leadership Intelligence, Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges, including how to give great feedback that actually matters. And when I saw that, I said, I've got to have her on the show. Caroline, welcome to Problem Solvers. It's great to be here. Thank you. So talk to me for a second about why we are so bad at giving feedback. Hmm. Well, it's a really intimate thing to make a comment on how someone is going through their life.

5:25And, you know, it takes something from the giver. It takes something from the receiver. But I think often the challenge is that we don't really know how to do it in a way that preserves the relationship and actually helps the person grow. And sometimes we don't stop to think about why are we doing it? And you know, the reason we give feedback is, or it should be, to help the person develop and get better. sometimes when someone has done something that we don't like we don't appreciate there's a sort of phase where what you really want to do is go ah and that is an expression of your distress or annoyance but it is not feedback and so you know I think you know there is something about teasing those two things apart and feedback really is about how do you develop the other person.

6:16And once you go into it with that frame, I think that you already start to have a different type of conversation.

6:23Jason:Yeah, that's a really great reframing of it. Feedback is not a reaction. Feedback is development. Is that right? Right, exactly. And so if I'm thinking about it in that way, then when I'm giving someone feedback, what I am trying to do is make them better. And I suppose the selfish reason to make them better is because the better they become, if I work with them, then the less work I have to do on something. And that is why, for example, I, just to brag a little bit about my own good development feedback, when I edit other writers, not like the guy from a long time ago, I always explain the reason why I made a change.

7:04Jason:So I'll change the way in which the lead of a story is, and then I'll email the writer and I'll say, the reason I did this is because I felt like that other part wasn't right. And what I'm trying to do, I guess, I hadn't really thought about it this way, is I'm trying to explain but also to train so that they don't just see that something happened and think that I didn't like it, that the reasons are mysterious and maybe they can disagree, but instead to just say, I want you to become better at the thing that we're doing together. Is that a good approach? Exactly. Beautifully said. and I'd even go one step back and say it's a lot easier to create that sense that what you're doing is developing the person if you're also being really deliberate about noticing what they do well and very specific about calling it out you know I think some people I mean there's definitely a enormous shortage of positive feedback in in the workplace in my experience you know and that can be a few different things you know you didn't get it when you were coming up and you know why should you give it to other people?

8:07That's certainly one version of it. Another is to say, wow, you know, it seems a bit soft. Or another version is, I say good job, what else do they need? I mean, that's actually a really broad, lovely thing to say, you know, well done. But the thing is that everybody's brains remember specific things more than just generalities. And so if you say good job, you're not actually sticking it in their mind as well as saying, I really like the way you wrote that paragraph because it created a real sense of pacing the way you started with this and then ended with that. And what that tells the person is that they should do that again.

8:44And this is also really useful information. I think sometimes we assume that people know what they're doing well. But if you don't call it out, it might have happened by accident and it may not happen again. So if you see something that you think is good, it's just as important to call that out as specifically and factually as you can, because people learn so much from understanding what's working.

9:09Jason:Positive reinforcement, right? And it's also about creating patterns for people. I thought it was really noteworthy what you just said a moment ago, which is that people might not know the thing that they did well. They could have done it by accident. They could have run a little experiment. They don't know exactly what is working unless you point it out. So what you're helping people do is develop the patterns of recognizing what success looks like in this environment. Exactly. And I think we just so easily assume it's obvious. There's something in behavioral science called the curse of knowledge, where we assume that what we know is known to everybody else.

9:46And actually, it's just, you know, very much not. And, you know, we're all in our own bubble. we think it's absolutely obvious that you know Jason is absolutely brilliant at you know telling someone's story in a way that really resonates with the reader. Jason might not know that or Jason might not know what he's doing that actually lands that so well so you know it's really good to to tell him that to make sure that you know he's he sticks that in his mind and especially if you're trying to get them to develop in other ways because what can often happen is you know you want to encourage them to do something new or different, it's so easy to suddenly then lose what you're doing well because you're trying to be something different or try something different.

10:29So it's especially important if you're giving developmental feedback to help people understand what they should hold on to and keep doing.

10:36Jason:I bet a lot of people want to do this or think that they're doing it, but a restriction is time. What we're talking about is time consuming. It is investing in people, possibly a lot of people. And sometimes you just got to get the thing done. And, you know, in my case at the magazine, the story comes in and I just, I got to get it over there. And sometimes I don't have time to explain every little thing that I'm doing. I just got to get it moving. Can you talk to someone who maybe just feels a little overwhelmed by the amount of time good feedback seems like it would take well i've got two answers to that i think the first answer is it takes much less time than you think and we can talk in a moment about you know what my recommended approach is uh but i think the other thing is that if you're only working with someone once and it's a one-shot game then you know okay that's that might make sense to say okay i've just got to get it over the line but as soon as this is someone you're working with more than wants, and in general it is, anything you do now to give them more information, for example, what you were saying about understanding.

11:45Jason:If you're building a business, you know that standing out has never been more important or more challenging. With more AI tools available than ever, it's easy for brands to start looking and sounding the same. Adobe Express released its AI Snapshot for Small Business, a new survey exploring how today's entrepreneurs are harnessing AI to build distinctive brands, create with confidence, and turn their passions into content that's unmistakably theirs. The findings reveal that small businesses are early AI adopters, with 66 % already using AI for marketing. But the real secret sauce? AI plus the human touch.

12:24Jason:Nearly half of small businesses shape and refine their AI-assisted content before publishing, bringing their distinct point of view to every piece. The takeaway is that AI works best when it amplifies your vision. Adobe Express is an AI-powered, create-anything tool that helps small business owners turn ideas into polished, on-brand content for everything from social posts to marketing materials. If you're a small business owner or a solopreneur, check out Adobe Express at adobe.com slash slash express to discover how to make every piece of content distinctly yours. Survey conducted by Morning Consult to 850 small business owners.

13:06It's only the reasons why you're making changes and it's going to pay back. It's going to pay back because you're going to have to spend less time on it next time and the time after that. And by the way, if they don't obviously take on board your feedback, then you have a different type of conversation. I'm not being, you know, Pollyanna-ish about this, But any extra time you spend now repays in full and with interest further down the line.

13:31Jason:How should a manager or founder or something think about who to invest their feedback in? This is possibly a weird sounding question because doesn't everyone deserve good feedback? But if you've got a lot of people, do you start to think about the different ways in which people are processing feedback? How much time individual people should get of your feedback? How do you parcel out that time and effort in the way that feels most effective for the organization? That's a good question. I think the proper answer is everybody does well with getting feedback. Everybody wants feedback. okay your mind might go immediately to the one person who really just wants to be left alone but actually research is really clear on this uh surveys suggest that employees do want more feedback yes they want more positive feedback right you might expect that but actually the numbers on how many people want more uh developmental feedback it's even more it's almost everybody says that if it's delivered you know well with care uh in a factual way they want more developmental feedback because of course we all want to feel good about our ability to do the job we all want to learn and grow and that's uh you know that's that's one of the realities is that you know everybody is going to benefit and um get better as a result of you giving them feedback so but then you've got limited time of the day i do think you know you end up with a bit of a u-shaped curve don't you you give a lot of feedback to the people who are you know struggling ideally you're thinking okay well how do I how do I get them up the curve because you know this isn't working you might be more inclined to give appreciation to the people who are working very solidly and smoothly at their jobs I think people in the middle often get missed out and you know most people are in the middle so I think there is this big opportunity even just giving a little bit of feedback once a week.

15:43I was actually, I was just working with a leader last week and we said, okay, once a week, make a note, see what people are doing, notice one thing that they're doing well. And let's start with positive feedback because that's, you know, that's an easier place to start. And it has been so interesting to see how little time it's actually taken because you have the thought you think oh great they delivered on time oh that that went yeah okay that's good you just need to jot it down and then you've got your list and then it's not so hard it's not so hard it's not so hard just to go from saying thank you to thanks I appreciate you got it in on time it makes it possible to do this that takes so few seconds but you're being specific about what they did well what the observation was and you're being specific about what the implication was and that's my my my the core of what i think is good feedback your factual observation and factual about what it what the implication is whether it's positive or negative i saw you do this it had this effect that doesn't take that much time you know not really not really you just have to get your head in to the right place to notice what your team is doing so that you can talk about it pretty crisply.

17:04Jason:You know, buried into your answer there, for example, one of the things you said was, let's start with positive feedback because that's easier, is that giving feedback is hard for some people. It might feel uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons. I can just hypothesize because you don't want to come across as mean or negative, because you are, well, I don't know. You tell me actually, unpack this a little bit more for me because I bet that a lot of the reason that sometimes people don't give feedback is just because doing it makes them uncomfortable. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I would say there's not a single leader I've worked with.

17:51I'm just checking whether this is a factually true statement. There's not a single leader I've worked with where we haven't worked on feedback. because of the things you've said, because of the fact that we're busy, we're just trying to get things done. It does take a slightly longer term perspective to say, actually, it's quicker for me not to give feedback right now, but it's slower in the longer term. I only have to extend my time horizon to a week or two for it to start to be worth it to actually just say, oh, you did that well. Thank you. It made this possible. Yeah. Way more likely to happen again.

18:27So, I mean, talking about the discomfort I do want to say also I think any new habit feels a little awkward initially you know so it's like it you know this has the extra spice of it being an interpersonal habit which is I think why we articulate the discomfort more but it's like any other habit it's like you know it's like going to the gym or it's like getting a little better organized with your task list it's like learning to work with you know other people when you've been working on your own for a while you know there's there's we all have these changes in identity and action and you're laying down new neural pathways in your brain every time you do that so yes it does take a little bit more effort than going on autopilot.

19:21But in this case, there's just no question that it's worth it. You know, as we've been talking, my brain has started to unpack

19:31Jason:other memories attached to this traumatic, apparently, little piece of edit that this jerk wrote for me a long time ago. And it reminded me of something else that had happened because of that guy. And I want to share it with you. If you're building a business, you know that standing out has never been more important or more challenging. With more AI tools available than ever, it's easy for brands to start looking and sounding the same. Adobe Express released its AI Snapshot for Small Business, a new survey exploring how today's entrepreneurs are harnessing AI to build distinctive brands, create with confidence, and turn their passions into content that's unmistakably theirs.

20:15Jason:The findings reveal that small businesses are early AI adopters, with 66 % already using AI for marketing. But the real secret sauce? AI plus the human touch. Nearly half of small businesses shape and refine their AI-assisted content before publishing, bringing their distinct point of view to every piece. The takeaway is that AI works best when it amplifies your vision. Adobe Express is an AI-powered, create-anything tool that helps small business owners turn ideas into polished, on-brand content for everything from social posts to marketing materials. If you're a small business owner or a solopreneur, check out Adobe Express at adobe.com slash express to discover how to make every piece of content distinctly yours.

21:05Jason:survey conducted by morning consult to 850 small business owners get your take on it so now again for context because i'm working in the world of editing a lot of the feedback takes place on page instead of just verbally although there's certainly plenty of verbal uh feedback as well with with writers but this editor in a in when when i'm writing a draft so it's not laid out on a page yet. He can't circle it and just be mean. Instead, what he would do is he would almost line by line rip apart what I have written and he would do it in all caps and in red. So what I would get back is a piece of, is a document that was just absolutely stuffed with all caps red.

21:54Jason:It felt like I was being screamed at. And when I thought I, this was very early in my career. So as I thought about becoming the boss, the editor, the person who is now working with others, I thought, I want to do the exact opposite of that. What is the exact opposite of that? And I realized, okay, well, the exact opposite of that is instead of red, my edits will be in blue. It was soothing. Yes. And then also instead of all caps, it will be in like all lowercase or at least kind of regular structure, capitalize the beginning of a sentence, et cetera. And that is how I have operated ever since.

22:38Jason:And I suppose what I am describing here is a kind of anti-role model that I identified, the person who was doing it wrong. And I know that because I experienced it myself. And then instead of just repeating that pattern, I decided to define myself exactly exactly opposite of what I was experiencing. Good strategy? What do you think? Well, I think we can learn a lot from our bad bosses, actually. Yeah. I think it is actually pretty instructive to look at how someone is working in a way that you don't like and say, okay. I mean, you have to sort of ask yourself, well, what is it I don't like about this?

23:18And what would be both the intention and the action that would point in a different direction? So So, yeah, I, you know, I think it is a really positive thing to say, OK, this was not very pleasant, but I can make use of this for sure. I think the thing is that if you just flip what he was doing, you might still leave, you know, something on the table unused or unexploited, because I think you could go further and say, OK, these are definitely things I don't want to do. what is the effect that I want to create on someone I'm giving feedback to I want to leave them motivated probably I want to leave them informed I want to leave them better a better writer and so I think you know absolutely flip it but then say okay what am I trying to do here and I think in that case and I speak as someone who's given feedback to editors on how I like to be edited is to say, I know you think you don't need to say this, but please tell me what you think is working in this.

24:27Tell me what you like. Tell me what is landing for you. And put that at the top of the email or, you know, in a note at the top of the document. And I do this for my clients too, right? So sometimes they'll send me a board paper or, you know, they'll send me something that, you know, they'd like my feedback on and I think, oh, this should be different. This should be different. This should be different.

24:49Jason:If you're building a business, you know that standing out has never been more important or more challenging. With more AI tools available than ever, it's easy for brands to start looking and sounding the same. Adobe Express released its AI Snapshot for Small Business, a new survey exploring how today's entrepreneurs are harnessing AI to build distinctive brands, create with confidence, and turn their passions into content that's unmistakably theirs. The findings reveal that small businesses are early AI adopters, with 66 % already using AI for marketing. But the real secret sauce? AI plus the human touch.

25:29Jason:Nearly half of small businesses shape and refine their AI-assisted content before publishing, bringing their distinct point of view to every piece. The takeaway is that AI works best when it amplifies your vision. Adobe Express is an AI-powered, create-anything tool that helps small business owners turn ideas into polished, on-brand content for everything from social posts to marketing materials. If you're a small business owner or a solopreneur, check out Adobe Express at adobe.com slash express to discover how to make every piece of content distinctly yours. Survey conducted by Morning Consult to 850 small business owners.

26:10up go up to the top what i think is working well about this what do i like about this and if you do that all of your developmental feedback lands totally differently because it's landing in a brain that isn't on the defensive and you're giving them useful information and you're signaling i'm on your side i want you to do well and this is you know this is good in these ways so don't you know don't lose that so i think that will be you know that will be the next phase

26:41Jason:that's great yeah and also something that you just introduced there which is really valuable is that we've largely been talking as the people giving feedback but also everyone everyone should be getting feedback and you might not get it unless you invite it it reminds me of i do a lot of keynote speaking. People hire me to come speak at a company. Not long ago, the CEO of a pretty sizable company had me fly down to give a talk to his team. Before I spoke, he spoke. He got up and gave a talk. He told me beforehand, he said, I don't actually feel all that confident doing this. I like doing it, but I'm not sure that I'm very good at it.

27:29Jason:So I would love if you watched me right now and then told me what you think afterwards. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. It would never occur to me to do that. I would never dream of just walking up to someone who just got off stage uninvited and giving them feedback. I would never. But because he asked me, I actually sat there taking notes throughout the entire talk. And then we had a great conversation afterwards and he found it super valuable. So you won't get that kind of stuff unless you're asking for it, huh? Yeah, absolutely. And it is one of the most powerful things that you can do if you've got people that work for you and you're, you know, you're giving them feedback by, you know, well done.