Transcript- Accepting Feedback With Grace by Tiffany Elsener

Accepting Feedback With Grace – Transcript

by Sophie Odgers

(Edited for length and clarity)

Intro

As Holly said, my name's Tiffany Elsener, and I've been working with WIMDI for a number of years. My current thing is just having graduated from Antioch University with a Masters in Leadership Anthropology. My thesis focused on the evolution of leadership and more importantly, where we are in 2021. I'm stoked to be back here and create a way for us to get our human needs met and get wicked feedback. I'm a lifelong learner and a leadership coach for conscious leaders. But enough about me, because this is about you and how you are going to Accept Feedback with Grace with the toolkit that you're going to get.

How to Turn Your Performance Review into a Career Opportunity

So maybe some of you are like, "Graceful?" "Bleh! Like, why?" Performance reviews can be this crappy thing that we dread all year. Why do I have to be graceful and why even bother? I want to rephrase the title and say, how are you going to own your performance review? Because who doesn't want to be graceful? Honestly, it's an opportunity. It's a time for you to negotiate a raise, a promotion, or simply have a real conversation that serves both you, the company, the boss, and it will help you get to those goals –and not those NASA goals, we're talking the real goals. It's an opportunity to move from a situation of perhaps dread or anxiety and look at it as an opportunity for a career win.

How do we actually do that? How do we turn our performance review into something that's an opportunity for our career? The key here is useful career-enhancing feedback. That's what we're going to get by the end of this, is aiming to get useful feedback that propels your career forward. We're going to do that by: A, B, C, D, here. A, specific actions. In order to get feedback, that's actually useful, we want to make sure that it contains specific examples of the action that needs changing or the new behaviour. Essentially, this is the, “what” of the feedback. What is the feedback that is being given to you? What do you hear as the behaviour, thing or action that need to be changed? We also need context. Why? Why is your supervisor or boss making the request? What is the significance of it? What's the tie to the bottom line.

Holly did a great job of saying, "How do we begin to calculate that?" And on the flip side context gives us the why, almost as if you're trying to figure out what the little alien Holly was saying, understands. The context is really important.

Firstly, we want to get to agreement and understanding. Why does this matter? And how will you both agree that this feedback can be useful? Maybe your boss is giving you feedback, but you disagree. Next, we're going to go over what happens when you are on different pages, but also, if you agree and how you leverage that? And lastly, what's going to get you to a development plan and we'll end with the clear five “W’s”, who, what, where, when, why, and we'll throw in an “H”, how?

#1 - Specific Actions: The “What” of Feedback

What's really key is first understanding, what we are even talking about. Have you ever received feedback that felt incredibly ambiguous? Perhaps you were sitting there like a deer in headlights. We've also been there because vague feedback is very common. It's actually way too common where we walk away from a performance review, feeling more confused than when we walked in. Telling you to work on things really isn't very useful on it’s own, or on the flip side, if it's a positive review, but your bosses saying “good job”, doesn't give a lot to work with.

It's important to be clear on what the behaviour, the action, or skill, is. Don't be afraid to ask for specific numbers or metrics, because metrics are your friend. They're a way that you can tangibly show and measure things. I will give a little heads up when I say, take a snapshot of this, because the clarifying questions are very simple, but very powerful.

Quite often, when we receive vague feedback, it's difficult to know where to go from there. When somebody says, "Oh, you're great." Or, "Your performance is lacking." What do you do with that? A lot of managers, on the flip side, are not so great at knowing how to articulate what they want from you. Give them a leg up, make this performance review easy so that you can get more of your actions and more of your goals in alignment.

We need to manage up just as we manage down and that means communicating when clarity is needed. What that might look like is asking questions such as, "If I was doing this out of 10, what would that look like?" Or, "How will I know that I'm meeting the standard?" I've used a couple of these clarifying questions in my own performance reviews and it's kind of funny how many deer-in-the-headlights situations happened with the manager because they had never truly thought what they wanted it to look like.

They knew that the feedback towards me was, “We want something to change”, and when I asked what the ideal situation was, they weren't clear on what the standard was themselves. It's important for not only you, but also the person giving you the performance review, to be clear on exactly what you're both talking about.

#2 - Context: The “Why” of Feedback

The context tells us the why, but why is this important? Perhaps you understand the feedback, specifying what action needs to be taken, but why is your supervisor or manager providing this feedback at all? What might they be trying to accomplish? Again, in understanding their own goals or perhaps what they're trying to accomplish, you're both going to be on the same team, which will set you up for the next step where I talk about getting your strategy on the same page.

An appreciation of why all of this is important to your manager will give you more leverage. In order to gather context, some clarifying questions are, "What makes this a priority over X, Y, and Z" or, "What are the consequences if this doesn't change?" Because understanding the context, makes sure that you understand why this matters.

There are endless ways that any human being can improve, right? We can always be better. I don't believe this 100%, because there are so many ways, that quite often this mentality leads to burnout. Really, what we want to be clear on here is, what improvements your superiors asking for, will make a difference. For example, you might think that your boss is nitpicking and maybe it comes down to something else that you had a misunderstanding on. They didn't understand that you were strapped for time, right? And if you are clear about asking the clarifying questions, "What are the priorities?" or, "What are the consequences?" It gives you both a very clear view of exactly “what” and “why” you're talking about this, as opposed to staying in vague territory.

#3 - Getting to Agreement: Dealing with your emotions

The agreement part… because we all know that we completely agree with everything our boss says all the time. Yeah, chances are probably not. "What if my boss is totally wrong? The feedback that they gave me just was totally off. Where do I even begin?" Step one, breathe and pause. You probably don't think about your breath that often, but it's always there in the background when you need it. Paying attention to your breath can make a big impact on your stress levels. By breathing slower and more deeply, you signal your nervous system to calm down. It takes practice, so I would suggest trying to do some calming breaths on your own. This isn't a breath workshop, but in this context, it is so important.

The quick biology lesson behind this, is that the sympathetic nervous system, the one that controls your fight or flight response, sometimes freezes. The other part is your parasympathetic nervous system and it controls your rest and relax response. Both parts of the nervous system are always active, however, taking the time to breathe can help quiet the sympathetic nervous system and reduce feelings of stress or anxiety. So, take a breath and manage your emotions.

There's always going to be emotion, we've all experienced it, and it can run the gamut from confusion to happiness, sadness to anger. It's important that I state that it's okay to be human. Feeling emotions is not only a natural part of life, but an integral part of our humanness. That is something I explored when doing my thesis—the idea that human emotions are actually an integral part of the way that we are, and also how we show up as leaders.

It's tricky though, because are you managing your emotions or are they managing you? use this quick diagram to overview what the importance of managing your emotions are.

There's the survival part of your brain, and this is the--“Am I safe?” It's the lizard part, the brain stem and the cerebellum. These are what triggers our immediate responses such as fight, flight, freeze or autopilot. We also have the emotional brain that thinks about, “Am I loved?”—connection, the limbic system, emotions, memories, habits, and attachments. Then there's the executive brain, and this is where we get into homo sapiens as humans. This is the neocortex, the gift of the brain that gave us language, abstract thought, consciousness, reasoning, and rationalization. What happens when we're triggered to the point of having our emotions manage us? This is when we are driven into the survival or reactionary brain and is probably not the best time to be trying to negotiate or get feedback.

The idea of managing your emotions is understanding, in the moment, where you are, because if you're on survival brain, either take a few breaths or remove yourself so that you can function at the executive level.

How do you manage your emotions? Well, naming them for one, don't do this out loud necessarily, but naming them actually creates a great power. If you've ever been in a certain mood and just said, "Oh, I'm so frustrated" or, "I'm feeling sadness" or whatever it is, naming how you’re feeling in your head can help you manage your emotions.

You can use this in a work setting, managing your emotions, as opposed to them taking hold and going for a wild ride during your performance review, by reframing the emotion. Perhaps, the anxiety or tension that you're feeling can be reframed as excitement. “My boss has my back. We're on the same team.” When I frame it that way, us both caring about this issue, how can I use that and create a positive emotion? Now, this isn't toxic positivity, we don't want that either, but rather, how do I reframe this so that it's useful.

And don't cry. Crying isn't bad, it's an emotion that is very vital to human communication and processing, however, we’ve all done something we would've rather not when in the survival state. It's important to try and get back into the executive brain, because otherwise you can't participate actively.

You're in a conversation in your performance review, and if you can't show up at an executive level, you're not doing yourself justice. On the flip side for whoever's giving the performance review, not everybody is emotionally equipped to deal with crying, and that can only exacerbate the situation. I wish we all had emotionally intelligent managers and leaders, but unfortunately I’ve dealt with some firsthand, who are not.

Stepping away or avoiding crying also avoids awkward points of not being on the same page, perhaps they don't know how to deal, or perhaps you don't know how to deal and that's okay, but the whole focus once the crying starts is all on the crying. It's no longer about the actual topic. But, you're human. If you cry, it's okay to ask for what you need. Holly said it first—ask for what you need and that includes what you need in order to have a mature and grounded conversation. If you're hysterical or crying, then perhaps it's hitting you a little harder than expected and it's okay to ask to regroup.

The way I look at it. is if it's an emotionally intelligent human, they're going to get it. And if it's not an emotionally intelligent human, they're probably feeling awkward because of the crying and would be better served if you regrouped and came back to it another time. If you're still a mess, it's okay to come back or even reschedule. This is a sign of maturity and allows the other person to also come back into a situation where they feel like they're better equipped.

Getting to Agreement: Listening to Understand

We want to listen, understand and not respond. How you listen matters, it's a way to be curious and look at feedback as a gift. Again, reframing it as "What can I learn from this?" or, "Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about that." We can look at it as a problem that needs to be solved. Perhaps the feedback that you're getting isn't to do with your actions, but a system or a process that needs to be changed. It's not about you, it's about the data.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret, favor, or recall information in a way that confirms or supports already existing beliefs. This is a bias that has a significant effect on how we communicate, so watch out for that. Sometimes when people give us feedback, it's like, “Oh, I know that already” or whatnot, but when we shift it to, “What don't I know about it?” the possibilities are much more open.

When we listen to understand, it allows us time to gather the evidence and give concrete examples and determining patterns. Is the feedback in regards to something that happened only once or is it in regards to something that happens often? Gather evidence and find situations so that you can actually process the information or the feedback, check for understanding. Quite often, checking for understanding is letting them know how you understood it because so much can get lost in communication

#4 - Checking for Agreement

You can take note, because these phrases can be useful for clarity. "What I hear you saying is…", or even, "What I understand is… Is that correct?" Quite often when I use these phrases, I'll catch a misunderstanding that would've otherwise gone unnoticed, and I’ll realize that we have completely interpreted the same discussion in different ways.

Check for understanding and don't be afraid if it's not correct, it's no big deal. If it doesn't land, that means that you now know that that was not what you were talking about and perhaps you were on different pages. Check for understanding, otherwise you could be having a conversation on two different topics and not even realize it. Breathe and pause; it's uncomfortable sometimes. We feel the need to fill the silence, but you don't have to.

In her talk, Carrie Gallant shares how owning the silence and allowing yourself to gain composure will help you with your negotiations. I’ve learned so many things from Carrie over the years, and one of them is the power of pauses and owning the silence. It’s a power move.

Let it sink in—you don't have to deal with all of the feedback in that moment. You're allowed to take it home, talk it out and be curious about it. Holly shared this great thing with me, “Jane Goodall” yourself. Jane Goodall works with apes in the jungle and she says, “How would you look at the chimp, if you were the chimp?” And I love that idea of observation. Quite often we observe others. However, that self-reflection or observing of oneself from the outside, we don't do that very often. When we get curious about ourselves and our own actions, it is very insightful in allowing us to make connections and use that feedback in reflection.

And lastly, you can ask for what you need to set a follow up meeting. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, but I do need to process this." And that's adding value to the feedback by letting the giver know, “You know what? I'm telling them that I'm going to take this feedback and reflect on it.” That's important because quite often feedback doesn't get received, it gets given but not received.

#5 - What To Do When You Disagree (with Example!)

So, you've been given this feedback and you've processed it. You're understanding it and you've listened, but do you actually agree with the feedback once it's been given? It's important to distinguish whether you agree that the behavior is in fact happening, the impact the behavior is having and whether it is important enough to address. Those are three distinct things, behavior, importance, and impact.

I'll use being late as an example here: I'm in the role of feedback giver and Holly is in the role of feedback receiver/petulant employee. Let's say Holly’s late all the time, we're going to go through a couple scenarios where Holly might disagree if I gave her this feedback. Firstly, let's be clear about what we're disagreeing about. Let's say that Holly, didn't go to this training and I'm coming to her cold, and saying:

“You know what, Holly, it's a problem for me that you're always late.”

“Who cares? I don't think it's a big deal.”

“You're late every single day by like five minutes.”

“Oh my God, Tiff, I can't believe you're trying to micromanage me like this, you're a complete tyrant.”

Alright, so that kind of went sideways. I don't think we were clear about what we were disagreeing on, because we didn't really nail down the fact that we both agreed the behaviour was happening, nor did we nail down what the impact or importance was. She called me a tyrant, which is not excellent emotional management or fact-focusing. We're not talking about the same thing. Alright, now let's say that Holly came to this awesome talk and was like, okay, I'm going to use all these tools in my toolbox and I'm ready to disagree with the feedback:

“Holly, it's a problem for me that you're always late.”

“You're right, I am late most days, but I don't think it's that big of an issue.”

“I think it is though, you're always five minutes late. It's disrespectful.”

“Tell me a little bit more –what is it about me being five minutes late that feels disrespectful, Tiff?”

“All the other employees show up early or on time and when you come in late, it disrupts everybody else.”

“Oh, is there something in particular about the way that I come in that is disruptive, do you think?”

“It's just not good, you know if my boss comes in or the GM comes in and not everybody's in the office… I like to make sure that we all follow the same guidelines.”

“Got it, okay. What do you imagine the GM would think if they showed up and not everybody was there or I wasn't there at nine, exactly?”

Holly: It'll probably go that way in real life. Tiff had to really think about that. We ended up in some places with that conversation that she didn't expect, and me too.

Tiff: In the situation with Holly, we both agreed that the behavior of her tardiness was happening. The disagreement was on the impact; Holly didn't see that there was an impact and I did. Yet, in the conversation of disagreement, she was able to meet me on the same team, because the point of disagreement is to find agreement.

If we disagree, how do we get to that same team? That's what Holly did in clarifying certain things. In allowing me to respond and asking follow-up questions, I started unpacking and analyzing some of the things that perhaps as a manager, I'd been taking for granted or not even questioning myself.

What happens with curiosity is it allows us both to talk about things as fact, as opposed to interpretation. Holly could say, "Oh, you're picking on me" or something like that, but instead she used "I" language, focused on the facts and allowed me to respond and answer the follow- up questions so that we could have a conversation.

#6 - Development Plan: Getting Clear on Career Goals, Timelines & Milestones (with Example!)

So now, we're on the same page, what comes next? A development plan. We already have specific actions that told us the what we did, and the context that told us the why, but now we need to get clear on what our goals are and how we move forward with that information. Let's put it to good use with our timelines and check-ins.
Let's talk about an example of a development plan, because sometimes they can be vague. For ex. I want to be a bike rider. Are we learning to ride a bike from scratch? Am I doing the Tour de France for the first time? It's important to distinguish because those are different skill sets; being specific allows us to understand different ways that we can get there.

An example development plan is, what? Become more effective at presenting ideas to senior leadership and use less technical detail and more strategic financial angle. Why? Well, better uptake of my ideas. If I have more power, influence and voice when I'm able to communicate clearly, it will improve my chances of promotion. The actual development plan includes the goals, opportunities, and timelines.

We've included specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound plans, because that way, you have some metrics. Just like metrics were important in preparing for your performance review, they are just as important in the development plan and negotiating the career and salary that you want.

Summary: How to Get Useful, Career-Enhancing Feedback

You came here to figure out how to get career-enhancing feedback and we reviewed the specific actions: understanding the "What" of the feedback is the first step. Understanding the "Why" it's important to the company; to your boss; to your team. And this was where we spent most of our time on C, Agreement. because that's in our experience where most people actually have the most sticky point is getting that agreement stage and without the agreement stage, it's really hard to build a development plan. So the agreement stage really is the foundation for a development plan and also the agreement stage of agreeing on your performance or different aspects of it. It will prepare you for that awesome negotiation that Carrie's going to talk to you about soon, so on the agreement stage, breathe, quiet, your sympathetic nervous system. It'll reduce your feelings of anxiety. Manage your emotions. Get into that executive brain.

Now, don't cry. And if you do take a break, if you're still crying, reschedule. Number four, listen to understand, get curious, watch out for that confirmation bias and gather evidence. Check for understanding such as, "Oh, could you clarify or rephrase?" So, do I understand it correctly? And then explain. Breathe and pause; let it sink in, try it on, take it home, talk it out. Don't be afraid to set a follow up meeting.

Check for agreement internally. If you feel like you're still disagreeing, what is it do you think that you're disagreeing about on that checklist? And lastly, if you do disagree, use "I" language facts, talk about behaviour importance and impact, and get curious. And then we covered a development plan. And that was all about, again, getting with your smart goals that are in alignment. And in Holly's prep, she talked about that as being clear on your goals. And so when you do your development plan, you should already have all of those goals in mind, so that it's much more easy for you to share what your next steps are together with your boss. And last but not least, certainly not least, celebrate.

Performance reviews can be hard regardless of how good they are, they can be very stressful on the body, as well as the mind and emotions. And so celebrate yourself because even just showing up today, I'm sure that you've picked up quite a bit, and I want you guys to be the Sabrina of the next story, because that would just rock all of our worlds.