In today’s minisode, we kick off our new series on How to Give Feedback. We're going to start off with how to prepare for feedback, such that when it comes time to deliver it, it not only lands, but it drives tangible results.

Chief, we’ve also got a FREE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE with all the templates and conversations you need to have with your team.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions. It's in the oxygen of legends. Way back in 2005, I was working over in Canada, and I was an up-and-coming young manager going really well, being promoted to really solid levels. But then a few things started to go, I suppose, not quite as planned.

I had a few issues going on outside of work, financially and relationship-wise. And then at work, I was starting to get to that level where I was being found out. And I had this magnificent boss, this guy called Chad, who I really respected. And I'll never forget this. One morning, Chad took me for a walk. I remember walking through the snow in Calgary. As I'm walking across town, Chad said to me a few things about being a nice guy. And he said, “You know what, Greg? You're a really good young professional, you're a good young guy. But dear me mate, you can be lazy. You just cut too many corners.”

And at first, it hit me really hard, for two reasons. One, I really respected him, trusted him. And two, he was right. Just knowing that someone really had the courage to tell me what I always needed to hear was so important. I can tell you now I wouldn't be where I am because Chad cared enough to give me some hard truths.

And for 20 years since then, I've hardly cut a corner. I've really, really dialed in and he was a wonderful, coach, mentor and friend because he really then worked me through the challenge, saying that it was a classic personality trait for someone like me, and it was easy to fix. We just had to lean into it. And we worked on some ways to fix that and a lot of personal growth came from it.

In my role as coach, I get to give feedback an awful lot. In fact, it's half the job. It is easier in my job than it is normally in a leadership role because people call me up for feedback; that’s the nature of the relationship. So what I wanted to give you now is some of the preparation that I would do in order to give feedback to an individual or team, some of the scripts or the different processes I might use in feedback, and then some tools to make it more embedded in your culture.

Where does feedback fit into the High Performance Teams model?

If you know the Chief Maker pillars of high performance, we talk about Mission, People, Culture, Tools and Execution:

• Mission is a clear vision steeped in a bigger goal. It's about having clarity of strategy, clear roles across the group, and alignment. We know where we're going and we know how we're going to get there. We know who's doing what.
• Then the team is the right People with the right capability in the right roles and the right development plans. We all know that we have the grunt power and good people to do the job.
• Culture is the team united. Constantly improving. Giving and receiving feedback. It's enjoyable and it's accountable. Good rituals and traditions. 
• The Tools are scoreboards, the systems are processes and hardware to do their job effectively.
• And then Execution is good governance and tracking of what you're doing, risk management, stakeholder management, and communicating what's going on across your team and or business.

So these are the five pillars of a high performance. In any of those, If you take feedback out, it plummets. Any team I've ever walked into where they were either too kind to each other or a bit mean to each other, or people working in silos, I can tell you that all elements of this start to really falter and the results are really quite clear.

Giving feedback is a learnt skill

All high performing environments and all great chiefs are fantastic at feedback. And almost all of them have learned how to do it. They've added skills, they've read books, they've done anything they can to improve their skill set. 

In my early years in business, before I learned coaching, I knew nothing about this. It wasn't that natural to me. I didn't love conflict, I really had to lean into this and grow that skill set. Even now if I get in a lot of conflict, I really find that my mind goes into overload and I've really got to think in a lot of depth about how I'm going to solve this problem. My mind won't settle until I've solved it. 

So this kind of skill set is so important for a character like me and I'm sure for a lot of you because it will help you deal with probably some of the most stressful parts of business and that's all people related. 

So Chief, in this episode, I want to talk to you about how I prepare like a coach, and we really do have to start with a couple of principles and mindsets.

1. There is no such thing as negative feedback

At least not when it is done properly. Feedback is the greatest tool you have to improve skill, align the team, craft culture, build trust, get results, and help people achieve their dreams. How could that be negative? You have to view feedback as one of your greatest tools.

2. Every person gets feedback

From the lowest performer to the highest performer and everyone in between. Very often, we tend to avoid the edges. It's really hard to give feedback to someone who's a low performer. And we often think, oh, high performers are going alright, they don't need feedback. Well, they really do need to have feedback. When you have a high performer in a team, you've got to drive them and really make sure they're fully occupied. Give them feedback. Help them grow. Always be thinking what's the next big thing for them? How am I going to help them get there? You won't keep a high performer forever. They're going to keep going. So your job is to be their greatest leader in their career. By helping them slingshot to the next level, keep them as long as is reasonable and then let them fly.

3. An insight made by the coach is owned by the coach. An insight made by the client is owned by the client

If you come and tell someone what they're doing wrong, they don't own it. If you help them come to their own realisation that maybe someone else has taken something the wrong way, or maybe their performance is not as good as they thought it was, or maybe they could be doing even more because they've got, they've still got potential, and they realise that, they will own it. When you make the insight, you own it. Now, there are many ways you can create a scenario where you can create that insight. 

4. Dancing around an issue serves no-one

If a high performer is starting to get out of their lane, or a low performer's not going well, or they've got too many people in the middle who are not doing anything, it serves no one. It doesn't serve you, it certainly doesn't serve the broader team and absolutely doesn't serve that individual who could really use a little bit of feedback and coaching right now. Every chief I know has gone through this from the very, very top all the way through to frontline leaders, being too kind. It’s a massive pitfall and it's just so easy because we really do care and I totally get that. But you can actually be kinder to someone by giving them feedback because you're thinking about their career, about their life, about the one thing they really, really need.

5. Not enough trust is really common

I want you to consider a moment in your career where someone who was a boss or a peer or a senior stakeholder who you didn't necessarily respect or have the greatest trust with gave you feedback. When there's no trust there's a block that pops up.

6. Trying to do big feedback is a pitfall

The vast majority of feedback is small, easy, one percenters, everyday stuff, with zero emotion. So, if we just think that feedback is only the big type, then we're always going to find it hard when those key moments come. If we've got a track record of continually giving feedback and people feeling like you have their best interest at heart, feedback's easy.

So, how do you prepare like a coach? 

First thing is that feedback is never done in isolation. No one lives on an island. Someone in a role at work, there's a whole range of things going on around them. And it's really helpful to think about these things before you give feedback. 

Here's a few things:

1. What’s the business performance and change urgency?

If you have a business that's in real trouble, maybe the business is in a bit of a reset mode. Or even in a fix mode where we're in real urgency. Feedback then is even more important than ever. So that provides some context because it will tell you how long you can accept and hold on to the current level of performance.

2. Is there a history of culture of feedback in the team?

Maybe you take on a leadership role or maybe you've been there for a while and there has been no feedback. You need to build that into the team over time. Just coming out of nowhere and starting to give feedback to everyone out of the blue will be a bit of a shock. So take your time building it. 

3. What’s the history of leadership quality in the team?

So, that might be you, or it could be someone else, could even be history of leadership quality across your organisation. People perform at their current level because of the environment they're operating in. You must consider that. If that person has never been led well, in their entire career, and that is so common, they've never had a great leader, that is important to remember before you give feedback.

4. What is their own individual performance and career trajectory?

Have they flatlined? Are they tracking down? This is important. They will know this. They will sense what's going on. It's very important for you as a leader to consider that before you give feedback. What has been their trajectory over the last five or ten years? Where are they now? Are they stalled? Are they going up? Are they going down? That's important for you.

5. No trust, no feedback. 

Give yourself a score. What is my level of trust with this person out of five? If you're three or less, then build trust first. Listen to their story. Seek to understand. Support them in their roles to build that trust up.

6. What’s the outcome required from feedback?

What do we need to achieve and by when? This is really important because it will tell you the depth of the feedback you can give right now. Do you have a little bit of time to build up their performance over 6 to 12 months? Or do they need something right now because this is becoming urgent? That outcome, that urgency, is really important.

When I'm starting to work with a client, I actually gather all this information through some discussions with them when we have our first coaching session. I do the same when I'm working with a team. And it gives me the context of feedback. And then it allows me to know how I should actually give feedback. 

Chief, that's your context. Think about that before you even give feedback, because then you can go into deliver like a true chief.

As I said, we’ve got a FREE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE with all the templates and conversations you need to have with your team.

Stay epic,

Greg