Feedback Is a Gift! and this is how it works - Jessica Neal & Patty McCord

0:00And this guy was like, I'm taking my wife to dinner. And it was such a little thing. It was such a little thing that meant so much because, and it was just that tap on the shoulder. It was that little bit of acknowledgement.

0:20What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty-gritty of leadership and work. And what needs to change. I'm Jessica Neal. And I'm Patti McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

0:56So pretty interesting this morning, getting our feedback from our production crew, huh? I know. We told them to give us feedback and they did. We said we'd love feedback. Right. And we screw things up a lot. But the reason I wanted to bring it up was, you know, when you get in the habit, it kind of never stops. And I find myself talking to everybody, you know, my plumber, my, you know, whoever I'm talking, my housekeeper, my friends, like, just tell me. Tell me and then we'll get through it and then it'll be great. Don't worry. You can't really hurt my feelings. It's helpful. No, it is. But I think the challenge with giving feedback, it is very hard to get into the habit.

1:40It's hard to break through that barrier of fear and uncomfortableness. And whether you're giving it or hearing it, it's hard to do both. And I think that's what we should talk about today is like, how do you get comfortable with it? I agree. And I have a couple of comments. One of them is it's a skill, right? And it's not natural to do it particularly at work, right? But you can learn it and you get better at it with practice. And like I said, you know, and you don't get weird about it after a while. You realize that it's a really helpful thing to do with the people that you care about working with and that you care about being friends with.

2:28The second thing is it's fascinating to me that whenever I'm asked to talk about giving feedback, it's always about negative feedback. right and everybody assumes that it means saying something really mean or crappy or you know evil to somebody in a really nice way so it doesn't hurt their feelings and one of the things I want to say from the get-go is that's kind of like guilt tripping right so those of us that are parents know how to do that it's like that bad thing that you did that was a bad thing if you do that bad thing again I want you to feel really bad and the next time they do they will because they'll do it again, right?

3:09I mean, it's the hit you over the head feedback mechanism. And it works. It's just slow. And there's another kind of feedback that we always forget, which is like the doing it right one. Oh, Jessica, thanks for saying that in this meeting today. That was super helpful. Do that again. And you will. And it brings me to another part, which is like in the moment is so successful. But if nothing else, learn that saying great job in the moment, as corny as it sounds, is really, really productive and not that hard. No. And so important, right? When we think about feedback, we think about the negative and it's pointing out what you did wrong.

3:57And I think that's where also the fear comes from, because the minute somebody says, hey, I want to give you some feedback, your wall just goes up because you're like, oh, fuck, what did I do? You know, like, and, you know, you don't even know what you did and you have no idea what they're going to say. And it's a little bit terrifying. And I think that, and this is one of the things I used to think about in being a CHRO, especially at Netflix, because we were really good at giving feedback. And we were really good at giving critical feedback because we were always, what can we do better? What can we do better?

4:36What can we do better? It was sort of this aim and aspiration to be exceptional all the time. And we never did any of the celebratory stuff. It was like, maybe for a second, they'd be like, oh, that was good. Okay. What can we do better? What can we do better? And so we sort of got in this habit of just being super uber critical of everything. And no one was hearing the good stuff. Right. And you had all of these high performing people who didn't know they were high performing. Right. They knew what they could do better. They were very good at telling them, But they didn't know what they were doing well.

5:22And I think that that is something we have to reframe with feedback is that feedback isn't just critical. Feedback is also the good stuff, right? I totally hear you. And, you know, I've been so lucky since I've left that I've done lots and lots of talks with professional coaches, like professional sports coaches, the coach of the San Jose Spurs and the, you know, the coach of this incredible winning highest hockey teams ever. And, you know, if you look at them, I look at sports in a different way now because I'm not that big of a fan, but I watch the coaches. And there's a very, like the physical, you know, when somebody does great on the field as soon as they come off, you know, their coach and all their teammates are like, yeah, great job.

6:11So, you know, I think it's really important. The other thing I was thinking about was like we both, I'm sure, have lots of examples of really crappy feedback. And I was thinking about today, what story would I tell of somebody who's given me feedback that wasn't helpful? And I realized that almost every example I came up with was criticism of me as a person, not me as a worker. And it wasn't in, you know, so, you know, goofy things come up in your head, right? So one of mine was a CFO saying to me that I didn't dress appropriately for an HR person. I know this one, Patty. I've heard this one. Yeah.

7:01And I was like, you know, I'm working with a bunch of people who I have to remind them to wear shoes occasionally, right? And it's like, what do you want me to? Am I supposed to shop at JCPenney for career outfits? Yeah, wear your stockings. Because when you go to, yeah, because when you used to go to HR conditions, you'd look around and go, where do they shop? Who has career dresses? But the other one I got one time was somebody who had done a flip chart on all the things that were wrong with me. You know, I'm too outspoken. I defy authority. I tell inappropriate jokes. I use humor inappropriately.

7:44I don't respect my superiors, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it just went on and on about, you know, kind of what a rebel I was. And then as soon as he was done, you know, he's like, and we need to talk about how to help you become a more professional and appropriate and successful human resources executive. And I thought, wow, that's a list of all the things I do really well. I know. It's so funny because I got the very similar feedback in my career, maybe because we're cut from the same cloth. I think sometimes some of your biggest drinks can be a weakness, right? We both have a sense of humor. At the end of the day, these are jobs.

8:35Nobody's got - Yeah, that's right. Right. Nobody's going to die. Nobody's going to die today. We're, you know, it's like, let's, let's take a little bit of the seriousness off the table and, and be humans for just a second. You know, but I, I got similar people, you know, your, your sense of humor is sometimes misused. Okay. Well, did I get all the work done? And did I do it really? And then did I do it really well? Okay. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think the other thing with feedback, and I think I learned this from you, and I may be, I don't think I came up with this on my own, but I think you taught me this.

9:16But feedback is a gift. That's right. Right? And you don't have to like every gift you're given, right? That's right. Like, you know, somebody gave you some socks, and they're like purple socks, and you're like, I don't really like purple, and I didn't really need socks. socks, but they went out of their way to give you purple socks. So you should think about why and be grateful that they did, right? You don't have to agree that purple socks is, you know, right or wrong. Just like with the sense of humor thing, I reflected on it and I was like, okay, maybe there's some truth in that. I don't know, but I'm going to reflect on it and think about it.

9:54Yep. And then I can return it to the feedback store if I don't agree. Yeah. Well, you know, I stole it from Leslie Kilgore, who is our CMO at Netflix a long time ago. And she added this to that. She's like, feedback's a gift. And so don't give it thoughtlessly. Pick out something special, something you know the person can use, and wrap it up and put a bow on it and give it with sincerity. Yeah, I like that. So she had more to it than that, which really made me think about it. And I was thinking about great feedback. And so back in the day at Netflix when we did our million different ways of doing 360 reviews, and when I was there, I think I tried a completely different system every year, and I never totally got it right, to be fair.

10:48Maybe you did. I didn't. But I used to. I would put up feedback that I had gotten. And so I would go into a room and I would have my projector and I would say, okay, here's feedback I got in my last performance review or my last 360. And one of them was, you seem really nice and the people on your team are too. You do a good job hiring. Everybody seems competent and knows what to do in a friendly way, right? So I say to the audience, what do you think of this feedback? And they're all like, oh, that's great. I'm like, that is useless. that's called like the criteria for the job and it's not even that high of a you know bar it's like of course they're friendly and know their stuff duh like you know that's not helpful and then I show one that I got from a member of our team when you were there and this person said I love our staff meetings you know you always say things that we don't hear anywhere else You're really funny and articulate and you use up all the air in the room.

11:53And I come in prepared to ask you really important questions for me about business strategy or what we're going to do. And we never have time for it because you're always talking. So it would be really helpful sometimes, Patty, if you just shut up. And I put that right on the slide up and I say, what do you think about this feedback to the audience? And people are like, oh, shit, career limiting move. I can't believe somebody said that to you. And I was like, that's great feedback. It was so helpful. And the best part about it was it had instructions for what I needed to do better. And what I needed to do better was just shut up sometimes.

12:41And you probably don't remember because I talk all the time. But I try to remember you doing that. Always leave 10 minutes at the end of the meeting, you know, so that people could ask me questions because I just, you know, I can talk forever. And so, but it was, has lasted me the rest of my life, that one little tidbit that was just listen. Isn't it interesting how like one little piece of feedback can change you forever? It's so powerful. And yet, you know, we're so apprehensive to do it. I think what we did well, Patty, though, and I learned this from you and hopefully a lot of other people learned it from me, is that we tried to make it normal.

13:24We tried to make it part of our every day and we taught people how to do it. And how we taught people how to do it was, one, doing it ourselves, right? Right. So the simplicity of asking for feedback all the time till it's like nauseating. It's like, you know, you injure me. Hey, can I have some feedback? Hey, can I have some feedback in a meeting with lots of people in it? Hey, can I have some feedback? And then people would see somebody on your team give you feedback and you didn't fire them. You like embraced it. And then the next day you changed. And then the thing that you just said, like we shared the feedback we got, We put it up on a Google Doc and shared it with the entire company and said, hey, here's all my feedback that I got, right?

14:12And then we practiced. Like, we practiced and we taught people how to do it with care and empathy, right? Right. The skills of doing it, right? And the other thing I think that I believe and I know you believe is that it's a mechanism for everybody to help everybody be better. It's not from your boss, right? It's not the end of the year performance review where your boss is going to tell you all the things you did wrong in the last entire year and what you could do better for next year when it's too late to fix it anyway. And what you're describing is something I absolutely remember with you and the people on my team was I remember that in when I would prepare for our one-on-ones, I was like, oh, I got to ask Jessica how that last meeting went, right, from her perspective, because I tried to do better and did I, right?

15:10And so that frequency, particularly manager to subordinate feedback, is something that is a really good rhythm to get into. But you're right. The other part of that is asking the other way around. What could I do better? I've been trying to work on stuff. You know, at Netflix, we had this thing where we did stop, start, continue. We'd go around. And that was the framework of one of our feedback sessions. And I remember doing it once at an executive meeting. And I mean, it was really scary. We did it, you know, to each other, for each other, around the room with everybody else listening. I mean, and it was really emotional.

15:54And then, unbeknownst to me or anybody else, not an HR program, not an HR initiative, not a branded HR thing, a couple of the people from that meeting went to their teams and said, hey, by the way, here's what we did at executive staff the other day. And here's some feedback I got about how I could be a better leader. Let me know. What do you guys think? And then pretty soon that became a habit with a lot of teams around the company. And what was my favorite part of that story is we didn't do it. No. Right? We didn't send out a form. We didn't say, here's an alternative way to give feedback that might be really useful in your team.

16:41And the other thing about that particular instance was it allowed people to learn, to give them an opportunity to say in words to each other things that were hard to say and not, A, hide behind email or the computer. Or B, the other thing I want to talk about is anonymous feedback. So in all of the iterations that I did when I was there for 14 years of 360 feet, I bought software, I did my name. And Reed and I used to have this argument all the time about should it be anonymous or not. And his argument was that people wouldn't give their superiors, their managers, that they wouldn't give executives honest feedback because they were fearful of retaliation.

17:37And so it was part of the software engineering whatever vibe to make it anonymous. and I remember having arguments with other leaders around the company who are like, wait a minute, we're supposed to be candid, but we're anonymous? Like, this doesn't ring true. We don't like this. This isn't, you know, how people are so black and white. This isn't consistent with our values. And so one year, people signed their names in the feedback. Hey, Jessica. I remember that year. Here's a couple of things that you could do better. And here's what happens when you do this thing. And here's what you could do better.

18:18Love, Kevin. And I remember Reese's like, people sign this. I'm like, yeah. Because it was important to them because it was part of our culture. And the thing, too, about anonymous feedback is the magic is really in the follow-up. Yeah. Right? Especially if it's written. Right? So if Kevin writes me, this feedback says, love Kevin. But if I don't have to love Kevin, I don't know Kevin wrote it. So I can't go to Kevin and say, gosh, thank you for giving me this feedback. I didn't know. Can you tell me more? And that was my thing was that the feedback is important, but the follow-up is also important.

19:06And there's magic that happens in those conversations. And I think that, you know, one of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is to build and everybody talks about like, how do I have a culture of feedback? How do I have a culture of feedback? Is you are feedback ready. You are feedback open. You ask for it all the time. You follow up with your teams. You make it part of every team meeting. You make it part of every one-on-one. and then you yourself are asking for it all the time. And then when you receive it as the leader, you're not defensive about it. You don't argue about it. You take it, you listen and you say, thank you.

19:55Right. Right. Even if you don't agree with it in the moment, you say, thank you. For that gift. I'm going to think about this. I really appreciate it. I'm going to follow up with you. Like there's sort of this art that you have to kind of have in these conversations. And there's grace as a leader that you have to have to receive this information. And if you can do that, which is hard to do, but if you can do it, you will start to have a culture of feedback and you will start to normalize it. Yeah, I got asked by somebody I know to do, it's a group of people that are authors of other books. And this other author said, hey, let's do a session.

20:40It's called the Silicon Guild. Let's do a session with the guild, you and me, to talk about trust. because that's a big thing everybody cares about, and it's really important. And she wants to talk about trust in relationships, and I'm supposed to come on and talk about trust at work. And I realized that what builds trust at work is that when you say you're going to do something or you commit to changing, that you do, right? And when you do it over and over and over again, that builds trust. It's not falling out of a tree. It's not opening your heart. It's not bleeding all over the place. And the feedback part is so important to that.

21:24Like if you see me, we have a conversation and you tell me something, that example, right? You really need to shut up sometimes. When I actually do, then the people that gave me that feedback trust that I'm going to listen and I'm going to do something about it, right? And it's funny because, you know, you and I both get asked to pick apart all these different parts of how you work. And it's all part of the system, right? And the system, I was thinking as we were talking about radical candor, right? I wish I had never, ever used that word, even though I stole it. Because it's not radical, to be candid.

22:09It's just called being honest. And I think that that's the part. One of the things that people ask is, is it about a manager to subordinate? Is it OK to give feedback to your boss? What about skip levels? What's the method? What's the rhythm of doing that? And what I heard you just say is, as often as possible. And if we could make it be as often as possible and 50 % of it's positive. Yeah. You know, just imagine how quickly you might be. And, you know, and it's sometimes it's not about, here's the things you could do to get better. But it's about, you know, I don't know. I mean, you seem bored.

22:52Is the work we have for you the right work? Yeah. And that's, I don't know if it falls in the category of feedback, but kind of. It's like, it just seems cranky. So like, what the hell? Well, I do think that's feedback. And I think that a few things here. So when you're normalizing things, and I think you're right about the radical kind of quote, because it also enhanced this thing that inherently helped it be more critical, right? Like it had to be radical and radical. Radical can't be, you know, you seem cranky today or, you know, you seem bored. Radical is like, let me tell you something, you know, that's going to blow your mind here and knock you off your kilter, right?

23:39Yeah, right. You know, like there's so much like strength in that word. but feedback is an everyday thing. Like, Hey, you don't seem yourself today. Is everything okay? And guess what? From asking that question, you may find out that they lost someone in their lives, right? And they, they're not themselves that day. And then what, what can you do as an, you know, colleague to support them? Right. You just asked. And I think that if we can find a way to practice it every day, it's not this radical thing. It's just a thing that you do and you do it because you care and you care about the people you work with and you want to make them better and you want to help them.

24:24And if we come at it from that angle, then we don't have to be so fearful of the reaction or what's going to happen. When there's that pressure for it to be radical, I would, you know, oh, God, I need to be radical here. That's a lot of pressure. Like, no, just be a human. Well, and I found that, I mean, I certainly have given radical feedback. Of course. I mean, I have certainly taken VP wannabes and closed the door and pushed them up against it and going, you know, I know what you want. I know you're ambitious, but you're an asshole and we're not going to promote you because you're an asshole.

25:02So here's the deal. Let's think of 10 things you can do that might not have people perceive you to be kind of a jerk that doesn't listen very well. Because when you get really good at that, then your ambition will work out. Yeah. Right? If you're going to be a leader, you have to have followers. What a concept. What? You do? But I think, Patty, you just said something important there. Because if you use that example, what you told that person was the truth. It's not that radical. It is true. It may be radical for them to hear, but it's true. And then you followed it up with, what can we do about it?

25:46Right? You didn't just say you're an asshole. Like, you're not going to be promoted ever because you're just a jerk. Yeah, right, right, right. You said, hey, you're an asshole. However, I can help you. Right? Well, and this person happened to be the classic brilliant asshole. Mm-hmm. Those are the best. Right, which everybody talks a lot about. And they're like, you know, do you or don't you tolerate the brilliant asshole? It's always a thing in Silicon Valley, and it's probably a thing wherever anybody works. You know, there's that person who, like, you know, is the star. I only want A players.

26:21I only want stars. But, you know, those people have probably heard a form of this feedback most of their adult career lives, right? And no one has probably ever said, you don't have to be. I can give you some tools on how to be better at it. like. Sometimes in meetings when you're taking up all the room and for this particular person and you raise your voice and you seem really stern, you could just shut here. Let me tell you what's worked for me. Shut up and go around the table and say, Jessica, what do you think? Because people perceive you to not care about what they think. So here's a little tip.

27:09Why don't you in front of other people, ask them what they think. And it's just, I mean, it's the little nuances. It's the little things, but I think it's, it's delivery, how you deliver it. You're delivering it with care. You're delivering it with truth, but you're also delivering it with help or support or solutions or ideas or thoughts on what they could do differently. and that is where people get the feedback is through the one the example the specific example that you're sharing them but then other things that they should consider or do differently and then the other thing that I think about with feedback often you know I don't know I I'm sure you experience this but there'd be somebody that we needed to give some feedback to it's like okay you know so and so is doing something like hey they report to you go give them this feedback and then you you ask the person hey did you give them the feedback like yeah yeah yeah give them feedback but then that that person you follow up with the person they gave the feedback to they didn't give them the feedback right and so and and maybe they tried and maybe in the classic shit sandwich.

28:25Yeah. Hey, you look great today. I love your hair. Oh my God, that outfit's so cute on you. By the way, you know, you talk too much. And, but you know, how's the pets? Yeah. That's the other thing I think with feedback is like, did they hear you? Yeah. Did they hear what you had to say? Yeah. And if you shit sandwich it, they're not going to hear it. I mean, I think it was Erin we had on and she gave the example of, or maybe this was just one of her talks. I don't remember whether she mentioned it on the episode with us or not. But she gave this example of a performance review and the American manager with a French woman.

29:08And, you know, he gave her all the good stuff before, but because she was French, like French are very direct and kind of clear, which she had never had a performance review that she ever got any good stuff. And so then all she was focused on was like, I did all this good stuff. And then at the end, he was telling her all the things that she needed to improve. But then she walks out and he's thinking she's got a lot of work to do. She walks out thinking she did amazing, right? She's amazing. And he's like, no, she's not doing anything. So, I mean, it's like, did they hear you? Because she didn't hear anything he said after he said, I think you're doing a good job.

29:46Right. And the other part is people forget the part B, which is here's what you could do differently. Because if you don't have an idea about, you know, you make me crazy, you know, you're too aggressive. your two particularly when you cross those cultural barriers right speak up speak up speak up if you come from a culture where people don't speak up then you got to learn to ask them then they will right but they don't but it's not natural and so the other thing I was thinking of that's just a little off the wall but I think is really important about motivation feedback as motivation. Most people, in my experience, particularly when they're early in their management career, assume that they're going to motivate people the way they want to be motivated.