Differences Between Feedback and Performance Conversation: Are you Setting Your Team Up for Failure? Solo Cast

on LNM family Jesse here with another solo cast. I'm kind of digging this frequency of having an interview and then a solo cast and then an interview. Hopefully you are too. What I want to kick around with you is the confusion we have around giving feedback and giving direction. I was speaking with the group of graduate students and I was talking about the value of feedback, which my good friend, james Gable, the uncommon communicator, has recently put some content out about. You need to go check it out. There's a couple of important things when it comes to feedback. One is how do you gracefully receive feedback? That's by saying thank you and that's it, rebudding it, giving any more response or explanation as to why the thing happened the way it did. Even though you mean it in a sincere and honest way, it feels like you're arguing and rejecting the feedback. So guess what? I'm not going to give you feedback next time. When people say thank you and take action on it, that's awesome. Guess what? I'm going to give them more feedback when they ask for it. Now, on the other end of that, as being the receiver of feedback, I can say thank you, because I know I am not going to take action on every single bit of feedback that I receive. I get to select what I'm going to take action on, and when I'm on my A game, I'll let people know hey, that feedback you gave me, I used it and this was the outcome, thank you. Or hey, that feedback you gave me, I didn't use it. I appreciate you taking the time, but I'm going to continue going my way and hopefully the lessons I learned won't be too difficult. So I get to accept or reject the feedback I get after the fact, and so I was sharing that with this group of graduate students and their I don't know if it was their instructor or their boss kind of like I ruffled some feathers, right, they're like well, what do you mean? They rejecting feedback? I'm like you don't have to take feedback that you don't think is pertinent or valuable. And so we got into this conversation about well, you know, I'm trying to coach and develop these people, I'm trying to coach and develop my team and if they're rejecting feedback, that's going to generate, like that's going to impact their being a part of the team, and I'm like, oh, how interesting. Because I don't see feedback as like a critical performance conversation. I see feedback as a neutral, maybe professional interaction between folks for continuous improvement. Right, we want to get better, we want to grow and learn. The best way to do that is to get feedback and in the moment I really couldn't address her concern, but the more I thought about it is like ah, so it sounds to me like what she's talking about is giving direction, and my assumption I don't know if it's true or not, but my assumption is we're powdering it up, puffing it up, making it softer and more digestible, by calling it feedback. So I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but I do know that in Jesse land, feedback is a neutral, maybe friendly, exchange, in that I'm seeking feedback, and it could be from my boss and it could be from a peer, it could be from anybody, and I get to choose what I want to do with it. As a manager or supervisor, when I'm giving people feedback or observations or, more precisely, when I'm having a performance conversation with somebody, I am extra clear that this is not feedback, this is not neutral observation. This is a performance conversation. There is a gap in the performance and these are some adjustments to focus on or some actions to take to close the gap, as well as these are the things that you're killing in the sense of really doing great, and these are the inputs or the contributing factors that I see you do that make it great with consistency. Now, I'm pretty abrupt and pretty direct about things, and so maybe that's why there's a difference for me. So, on one hand, I kind of want to pitch the idea, or plant the seed in your head, that there is a difference between feedback and a performance conversation. There's a difference between feedback and giving somebody direction, and if we cloud that line, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment and we're setting up our team members for failure. And so I'm wondering what do you think? Is it confusing to to soften up a performance conversation by calling it feedback? Are we setting people up for failure, or am I just being getting too far into the weeds, into the whole thing? Let me know, let me know in the comments and share this with your people. Right, like, maybe they have some better insight than I do. I'm sure their insight can add clarity to this issue and hopefully, in the long run, help us all become better leaders, better managers, better performers, better followers, better, better, better, better everything. And, if you get a chance, I'd appreciate if you took a little extra time to hit like a five-star review. Leave a comment, shoot me a text, slide into my DMs and let me know how these conversations are landing with you and what value that I'm bringing to your day. Be cool and we'll talk at you next time, peace.