Feedback: grow yourself and lead others through the RIGHT kind of feedback.

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 

How to give, receive, and ask for the RIGHT kind of feedback - feedback that helps you and others change so together we can make progress. 
 ________________________________________________________________ 
Summary: 
 
Feedback is the cornerstone of progress in any domain, be it personal development, professional growth, or the enhancement of leadership skills.
 
The ability to both provide and receive feedback is an art that, when mastered, can significantly impact our relationships and success trajectories. 
   
Our recent podcast episode offers a comprehensive guide on how to harness the power of feedback for exponential growth. 

The episode begins the episode by emphasizing the crucial role feedback plays in communication and personal development. The idea that life's quality is intertwined with our ability to communicate effectively is a central theme. By adopting timely feedback, we not only foster improvement but also accelerate our journey towards achieving our goals.   
   
AI-added insights:   
The discussion moves towards the intricacies of effective feedback.

It must be immediate, specific, and clear, for delayed or vague feedback loses its potency.

Angela offers guidance on ensuring feedback is comprehensible, advocating for follow-up questions to confirm understanding. She also stresses the importance of feedback being thoughtful, which requires a comprehensive grasp of the recipient's context, aligning feedback with their goals and life circumstances. 
 
Angela then explores the concept of 'wise feedback,' which involves conveying high standards and belief in an individual's potential. This form of feedback empowers and inspires, driving individuals to embrace challenges and pursue growth. 
   
Storytelling is highlighted as a tool that makes advice more relatable and memorable, further contributing to the narrative of success and learning. 
 
The episode also underscores the need for leaders to express gratitude for feedback, which encourages an environment of continuous development. 
 
Leaders who appreciate feedback demonstrate a commitment to personal and organizational growth, setting a positive example for their teams. 
 
Moreover, by actively soliciting feedback and framing it constructively, feedback becomes a source of empowerment rather than defensiveness. 
 
To wrap up the episode, Angela shares a powerful transcript from her podcast that brings to life the discussed concepts. She candidly speaks about her journey, learning, and growth, inviting listeners to join her in mastering the art of feedback. The shared insights provide a practical roadmap for creating a feedback-rich environment where improvement and recognition go hand in hand. 
 
In summary, the episode serves as a potent reminder of the transformative power of effective communication through feedback. By adopting the strategies outlined by Angela Shurina, listeners can shape a narrative of success and continuous learning, both personally and professionally. Feedback, when skillfully employed, can elevate not just individuals but entire teams, leading to a more fulfilling life and career. 
 
Resources Mentioned: 
📚"Cultures of Growth:

Transcript

The Power of Feedback in Communication

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you all the best, most research, cutting edge, most interesting and most effective brain-body tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions and, most importantly, of your actions, so you shape your life closer and closer to the experience that you absolutely love living to your fullest expression of self and of the vision of your life. And, of course, guys, I'm not here as some guru who knows it all and mastered it all. I'm actually learning and growing and changing with you, and what I'm talking about on this podcast is often what I'm learning about, what I'm putting into practice, what I'm mastering, so I could create the life closer and closer to the vision that I have for myself. Someone who is actively engaged and producing positive impact in the areas of human potential, helping more and more people to unlock their potential by learning the tools to do better, to know how to make ourselves feel better, do better, perform better and just get out of our own way of being stuck in certain patterns that just don't work for us. So this is what podcast is all about, and, as, again, as I'm making this podcast, I'm learning with you and I'm putting this into practice, stumbling and failing and figuring it out and then getting better and building a life experience that is again closer and closer to my vision.

Speaker 1 2:02

Folks, today we are talking about feedback. Feedback is such a crucial part of our personal development and also of our development as leaders, developing ourselves to create that positive impact on other people, on the world that we seek. We need to get better at receiving feedback and also giving feedback and sometimes teaching others how to give better feedback, because, although we all talk, communication is a skill that not all of us at all are good at. In fact, yours truly is not a master of communication. Yours truly is not a master of communication, but now I'm more focused on learning communication skills and I am getting better and I'm looking for feedback and always trying to receive as much as possible of it by asking for more feedback and the right kind of feedback, and it's improving. And with that, folks, with improving our feedback skills, our communication skills, everything else is improving as well, because what I realized, I feel like too late in my life, is that life is all about relationships and the quality of our life, the quality of our health, the quality of our health, the quality of our work everything that we experience depends on relationships, and relationships, as it turns out, is all about communication, and so the more masterful you're going to become at communication and feedback is a part of communication so the more masterful you become, the more your life will open up and the faster you're going to progress towards your goal and also your life is going to feel so much better. At least that's been my experience and experience of people whose book I read, whose work I admire, all kinds of impactful leaders in different arenas of this world.

Speaker 1 4:10

So feedback I feel like feedback is such a crucial part of getting better, of growing, of improving and of building anything. Whether you're building a business or building a relationship, feedback is what makes improvement faster and what makes improvement possible and what ultimately makes the best product, whether, again, that's product of your business or your relationship. As a product, very few ideas are just great ideas. In fact, I don't know any ideas or any relationship or any product that just came out perfect. No, you iterate, you try, you test, then reality or other people give you feedback and you iterate and you change things. And if people give us better feedback, if we learn how to give better feedback, this cycle just would be better and faster and more effective and we would create better products, we would create better relationships and the world would progress faster. So feedback is crucial, learning it, learning how to ask for the right kind of feedback, learning how to give the right kind of feedback. So what I'm learning about feedback I'm learning lately.

Speaker 1 5:26

I've been learning through a few sources. A couple of most prominent ones are OKR. It is a course of how to align a company's goals with individual goals and how to progress. Is a company, a purpose-driven company who wants to create positive impact, wants to grow and stretch themselves? Okr is created by Jeandor, one of the first, if not the first, mentors of Google. He introduced a system of goal setting and aligning everyone on the common purpose mission goal, and you can take a course on Coursera on learning how to do that for yourself, for organizations, as a coach, depending on your goal. So, as a part of the course, they teach you about communication, because in order to reach any goals collectively, we need to communicate between each other, different departments, different people, different teams of leadership and the rest of the company. Communication has to be very effective in order for the goals, for the objective to be effective and to be communicated well on all levels, be effective and to be communicated well on all levels. So a part of the course, they teach you how to communicate and they have this system of CFRs, conversations, feedback and recognition. So I'm learning from there. And also a huge help was Cultures of Growth. That's an amazing book on mentorship, on coaching, on how to create and build that kind of culture where people are growing, they want to do their best and they have the resources to do their best, and one of the resources and one of the crucial elements of culture of growth is learning collectively how to get feedback, how to give feedback, how to receive feedback, feedback, how to give feedback, how to receive feedback. And so that's the combination that I'm going to be giving to you, a compilation of what I'm learning.

Speaker 1 7:32

So let's begin First. How to? Well, I want to start with feedback. Feedback has to be timely, and by that we mean it's the right kind of feedback. I'm stumbling here a little bit, thinking about, like, what is the first, the best, but I think all aspects of good feedback are equally important, actually.

Speaker 1 8:02

So the feedback has to be timely, meaning it has to be right or as close as possible to the action, Like if somebody did something wrong or if I, for example, as a coach, delivered some coaching strategy in the wrong way and the person on the other side, my coachee, did not tell me until like two months down the road. Well, two months passed. I already kind of forgot about the experience and also it didn't affect coaching moving forward and I don't remember. The person also vaguely remembers that, and this feedback is just not as effective. And I don't remember. The person also vaguely remembers that, and this feedback is just not as effective. And also you cannot again always act on that feedback as effectively. Or if you give feedback once a quarter to your team and there is never a conversation about anything related to performance until many months down the road, well, guess what? It's hard for people to connect the action with the feedback that is given down the line in several months. So feedback always has to be, or needs to be, as close as possible to the action that you are giving feedback on.

Speaker 1 9:16

Feedback has to be specific and clear. It cannot be vague like oh, you're doing it wrong, or like I got a feedback. I went to a class on handstands and the coach I think he was just in a bad state on that date he's like, well, you're making excuses and that is not feedback. Like I cannot do anything with that feedback. I'm making excuses. So do I need to work on my communication better instead of my handstand? So I couldn't really do anything with that and it just made me feel really not good.

Speaker 1 9:51

So the feedback has to be specific to the action, like what do I need to do to improve? It has to be very clear and understandable to the person and in order for you to realize whether the person understands what you're explaining to them, you can ask questions Is this clear? Do you know what to do with that? How can I help more? How can I explain it more? Can you please tell me what it means for you? How are you going to improve, moving forward? What are you going to do, without judgment but with that curiosity? What does it means for you? How are you going to improve, moving forward? What are you going to do right, without judgment but with that curiosity? What does it mean for you? Did I say it right? Was it specific enough? Do you have everything? You need to start, try to be as specific as possible, giving feedback and then ask back did I get it right? Did you get it? Can we move forward? What does it mean for you? Without judgment in your voice, but with curiosity like will the person implement? Did they get you?

Speaker 1 10:52

Because understanding is not given, so you always need to make sure that the other person understands you. We speak different languages even though we use the same words. It has to be thoughtful, and by thoughtful we're going to actually unpack thoughtful. First of all. Being thoughtful means understanding or trying to understand the context in which person operates, and that means their wider context, like their life, their stories, their background, and you never really know a person holistically, so you've got to ask as many questions as possible to make sure that your feedback is thoughtful, and it's something that they can do. Like, for example, as a coach, someone who advises people on nutrition. As a part of my coaching, I can say, well, you've to eat that much protein or you got to eat that much vegetable. And if I don't ask, who does the cooking in the family? What is the family diet looks like? What requirements does everyone have, what does everyone like? And is it even possible to do that kind of cooking like, for example, without oils for the period of weight loss, or with this amount of vegetable? Is it something doable or it's going to completely ruin your family dynamic. And that's what it means to be thoughtful asking questions after you give the advice about other people's situations and context.

Speaker 1 12:17

So ask about their goals. What are they trying to achieve? You, as a leader, might have certain goals for your organization and you might think this should be the goal of this individual with this specific project. And then you ask them and they have different goals. And if you did a good job and we're going to talk about that on the podcast as well by creating safety and trust and so people know that what they see is not going to be held against them, so people will share what their goals are and what their thinking is, and that's what you want to see and understand. Like, what is their thinking? Maybe in their mind, they are reaching their goals because they have different goals.

Speaker 1 12:56

So what are your goals? What are you trying to achieve here and how are you progressing? Like, what do you goals? What are you trying to achieve here and how are you progressing? Like what do you feel? How's your progress? What do you find challenging? Where can I help you the most? Where do you feel like you need help? Where do you feel like you need feedback? Ask the person, don't tell. You know, my favorite phrase for being a good coach, a good mentor, these days is Don't try to be a mind reader because you're not. Instead, ask as many questions as possible. So that is what it means to be thoughtful with your feedback. Ask about their goals, ask about their aspirations, ask about what they might be going through in their life, ask how you can support them, ask what progress means to them and if this what you're asking of them, is this challenging? Is it too challenging? Do you need to scale down at this point in their life? What's their struggle? What can you help them with? What resources can you provide? Maybe you need to split the project, or part of the project, between two people. In terms of my clients, I always ask them who's in your support team? Who can help you with that? Perhaps your spouse? Perhaps your kids? Your support team? Who can help you with that? Perhaps your spouse, perhaps your kids? Perhaps you can hire some help who's in your support team.

Speaker 1 14:13

Don't try to be a hero and be in that state that you aspire to a lot and then you fail and fail and fail. And you think it's you, but no, the goal can be reached with other resources and other people. The purpose is to get the progress, to get the result that you seek, not to be a superhero trying to do it all by yourself. And that is the part of feedback being thoughtful. Are you thoughtful? Are you asking enough questions? Do you have the understanding of the other person or what they're going through of questions? Do you have the understanding of the other person or what they're going through? And then the last part is being actionable. So back to my example with nutrition, I can give the person all the macros and all the micros and all the ways they can consume their food. But if it's not doable and their schedule is hectic and all they can do is a couple of meals and it has to be out because they don't have time for cooking, shopping or the whole logistics not gonna work, then it's not also actionable for them.

Speaker 1 15:19

Like, actionable also is in the eye of the beholder, but also actionable is about not being that coach who yesterday gave me this feedback. You're just making excuses, so what am I going to do with that? And then he just moved on and I'm like, okay, that is not working. And I also understand that, again, people have different days and he might not have slept well, et. But that made the whole experience so much worse for me that I am more likely to never come back to him for any coaching or feedback. And the situation could have been amended if he asked me more questions. Are you making an excuse here, or can I explain it better? Can we scale it down? What do you an excuse here, or can I explain it better? Can we scale it down? What do you find hard here? Why are we having all these excuses? Right, and then I could have explained, and then there could be a conversation and feedback and I could have improved and the whole interaction went in a completely different direction.

Speaker 1 16:24

I hope you see now what actionable means. It's actionable from the perspective of the other person, like he can tell me well, just get over your fear. But is it actionable for me in the moment? Probably not. That's why I have the fear. So I need to scale it down and work through it, and actionable is in the eye of the beholder, not just in your eye, or keep your shoulders straight. Right, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it's not, something that the person can do at that moment, and so you have to scale it down and figure out what is actionable for this person, for this situation.

Speaker 1 17:03

So let's repeat, the feedback has to be timely, it has to be as close to the occurrence as possible, it has to be specific and clear, and you've got to confirm by spelling it out and asking many, many questions. See, feedback is a lot about asking questions. So you know that it is specific enough for the person who you're giving the feedback to, because feedback is not meant for you. The feedback is meant for another person, and so they know better whether your feedback is working or not. But before they open up, you got to create a safe environment of trust, and if it's not there, no matter how many questions you ask the person, you're just never going to get there.

Speaker 1 17:48

Thoughtful asking questions, right, what are your goals? How do you feel about your progress? Are you progressing? Are you not progressing? How fast you'd like to be progressing, or how slower? What's been your challenge? How can I help you better. And then it has to be actionable. And again, actionable is in the eye of the beholder, not from your perspective, and very often, even if you try to get into the other person's perspective, unless you ask them questions, unless you ask them to tell you more about their experience, it's almost impossible to get into other people's shoes, because you're just not there. Again, don't try to be a mind reader.

Speaker 1 18:31

What I also learned from the course on okrs is that conversations, feedback, recognition it has to be ongoing in order for people to feel safe, in order for people to get accustomed to getting feedback and don't and not feel threatened by it, like, oh my God, my whole career and life depends on it and I'm just getting it two times per year and if I'm getting feedback, it's probably something bad and it's never good news. Like you don't want that reaction. That is not the reaction that's going to create trust and safety. So giving feedback has to be an ongoing conversation, and that's what I heard from many more resources. It has to be an ongoing conversation and that's what I heard from many more resources. It has to be a conversation with questions and with back and forth and with this dynamic of both of us being on the same side and trying to make progress, trying to move things forward, trying to figure out how we can help each other.

Mastering Feedback for Growth and Development

Speaker 1 19:27

A few other points about feedback. It has to be about specific issues. You get a very specific part of the performance, not about people's talents or people's character or the whole situation. People cannot take all the action all at the same time and create and figure out this complex system how to do better. Specific issue, specific situation, specific piece of feedback. It has to be focused on behaviors, not on people, not on their talents, not on their personalities, not how they are. It has to be focused on behaviors and even if it is related to someone's personality, it has to be focused on the behavior. Hey, john, can you speak to other people with less interruption or can you work on your tonality? So you don't sound that know-it-all. You see it's specific. I didn't say can you change your voice, right? No, it's specific. Can you change your tonality or perhaps volume? Can you perhaps give other people more chances to speak when you deliver, whether that's conversation or feedback or presentation? So it has to be very specific about focus on the behavior.

Speaker 1 20:58

You also got to acknowledge efforts and that going back, or back and forth. To the OKR course. You got to give people recognition Ah, that was thoughtful of you. To the OKR course. You got to give people recognition. Ah, that was thoughtful of you to mention that. Ah, that was kind of you to help me with that. Ah, that was so useful for you to give me that feedback. Now I know how to improve. There got to be acknowledgement in again OKR course, they call it recognition. So the other person or any other people are more likely to give you feedback. And also, by the way, if you're a leader, if you're a leader organization, if you're a founder, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're more in a senior position, it's hard for the people to give you feedback to begin with because of your status. And so when people give you feedback, don't push it off, don't get defensive. Acknowledge it Like thank you, that's helping me become a better leader. So, acknowledging the efforts, acknowledging the feedback, that's what will make other people more likely to give you feedback.

Speaker 1 22:04

And again back to the idea of personal growth or growing your company or growing your relationship you cannot grow without other people's feedback. So let's tattoo that into our minds. Feedback is crucial for growth and development and if we learn how to get and receive the right kind of feedback, without getting defensive, without getting into fights, without realizing that we are together working on progress, with the realization that we are here together working on progress, we can collectively grow. Working on progress, we can collectively grow, develop so much better and faster, and not being afraid of feedback like something negative. Feedback is a constructive opinion about how things can get better or made better. And, the last but not least, I love this phrase or tool that is called wise feedback. What research found?

Speaker 1 23:07

When you give people feedback and you tell them something along the lines I'm giving you these commands because they have high standards for you and I know you can meet them, when you let people know that you truly believe in them and in their capacity to do better, to grow and to deliver great results. When you make people aware, when you make this transparent by communicating that what research found, people rise to the occasion, they really lean into the feedback, they really start working on it, they're so much more motivated and engaged with this process of getting better, instead of feeling defensive and feeling like their whole identity is under threat because of this feedback. So, when you spell it out, speaking it clearly, delivering it out loud, making sure that people understand what you mean here. So I'm giving you this comment, I'm giving you this feedback because I have high standards for you, because I believe in you, because I know you can do better, because I know you can reach certain heights, because I know you can get great results. I'm giving you this comment because I have high standards for you and I know you can get great results. I'm giving you this comment because I know, because I have high standards for you and I know you can do that.

Speaker 1 24:25

So what research found in all kinds of practitioners and coaches and mentors? When you tell with sincerity and when you truly believe that and you communicate that to other people, people start rising and start growing like plants. When you give it all the nutrition, all the water, we start truly rising to the occasion, growing like trees to the sun. So wise feedback Make sure to give people this reassurance that this is why you're giving them feedback, because you know they can do better and because you believe in them and truly mean it. And in terms of getting feedback, getting the right kind of feedback, getting more of it don't expect people to just give it to you. In fact, don't expect people to be anyone or anything ever. Give it to you. In fact, don't expect people to be anyone or anything ever.

Speaker 1 25:23

If you're not getting enough feedback, you can also use what the author of Cultures of Growth suggests, this phrase of wise feedback on your mentors, on your guides, on your superiors. You can say I have high standards for my work and I know I can deliver. I know I can grow and I know you can give me the right kind of feedback for me to grow faster, to develop and to deliver better results. So can you please give me feedback more often, because I believe your feedback is going to be very impactful and will create positive impact on my work. So ask for people for feedback in that way that they are capable, that their feedback matters, that that is transformational for you, and then ask yourself, when getting feedback, ask more questions. What does it mean? What do you mean by that? Well, I'm still struggling with that and that is too much for me. And can we figure out how to break it down, scale it down or figure out a different approach to get the same result we're both trying to get.

Speaker 1 26:28

So receiving feedback or getting more feedback. It is also a proactive journey. Don't expect people to know all of this that you learned today on this podcast, but instead encourage them, guide them to also give you the right kind of feedback that is timed, that is specific, that is thoughtful, actionable, that is focused on behaviors. That is again very clear, clear and specific. And one more piece that I kind of brushed through telling stories.

Speaker 1 27:04

When you're giving feedback and people are still struggling to believe that they can actually do that when you kind of feel that, tell your stories about how you got better, how you struggled through certain skills. If it's the same skill, even better. Tell your personal stories how you struggled, how you got better and how you improved, how you asked for feedback, how you collaborated, how you learned from others, like how you failed and then tried again and tried different approach. Tell your stories, and people can relate to stories better than to anything else, and when we see other people overcoming their challenges, we are more empowered to believe that we can also do so. So tell stories with your feedback that you've also struggled with that and this is what helped you and that also humanizes you, making you not some sort of figure from some ivory tower that is unreachable for normal human beings, but instead it makes you more relatable, and relatable when it comes to feedback and communication, as I'm learning as well. That's a superpower that you're going to have as a guide, as a coach, as a mentor, as a leader, and in some form or shape, we do get into all of these roles in our lives, whether that's for your spouse, whether that's for your kids, whether that's for your relatives, siblings, your parents, whether that's for your coworkers. We all need to show up for each other as guides and mentors and leaders often.

Speaker 1 28:43

So if you'd like to recap of this podcast, then please just listen. And yes, guys, communication will shape your relationships and relationships will shape everything else in your life, and a huge part of communication is giving each other feedback. It's worth all the time to be working on it and to master it. Put it into practice. It's going to improve your communication and it's going to improve your rate of growth in all the areas Asking and receiving feedback in the right way. Folks, this is a superpower. Pick up the book Cultures of Growth, linked in the show notes If you want to check out the course on Coursera. Also check it out OKRs by Jean Dor, but specifically Cultures of Growth is amazing book on feedback, on communication, on creating the kind of environment that helps other people grow, develop and be their most awesome self. So the book is linked in the show notes.

Speaker 1 29:49

Thank you, guys for listening. Thank you for tuning in, hone into your communication. Become a master of it as much as possible and your whole life is going to start opening up in all the different dimensions. Don't forget to share this podcast. Folks, this is the biggest thing you can do for me. So this podcast reaches years of more people and we all grow, we all do better. So that's the biggest gift you can give to me. Well, besides feedback, if you have any feedback, if you know how I could improve this podcast, how I can reach more people, please do reply to Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom or there is also a button where you can text us. Feedback will help me, just as it will help you and all the people around you that you're going to lead. Thank you, lead impactfully and purposefully and until next time, work on that feedback. Talk to you very soon. Have an awesome, full of feedback week ahead.