Sticky Learning Lunch#61: How to Give Feedback Part #4

Need to have ‘That’ conversation but don’t know how, worried how it’ll be received, or just believe that if you ignore it for long enough it’ll go away? This 4-day training will dispel every belief you have about feedback, that you’ve been previously taught or learned by yourself along your leadership journey. Here's How to Give Feedback Part 4.

Learn how to give effective feedback with this sticky lunch

Transcript

Nathan Simmonds:

Get the camera up. Where are we? There we are. Blurry of activity to get here on time. Gentlemen, good to see you all. Slightly dramatic morning, getting things done. I'm here. We're in. Colin, thanks for being here. Garrett, good to see you. Thank you, Martin. Bonjour. Tim, good to see you. Where are we at? Phones over there. Let's get the phone, and make sure we're switched off. Give it a moment for people to arrive.

It's only just gone one o'clock. Let's get the little aeroplane lit up. So for those of you who haven't already, mobile phones, hold them high and turn that little aeroplane on. Zero out all the distractions. A hundred per cent attention. See there's a little bit of hair just outta place. Just give it one more moment.

Nathan Simmonds:

I'll see where we get to. Question for all of you that are here now, because all of you have attended most of this week, if not all of this week. What has been useful so far from what we have covered? Having had a chance to reflect on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and we're now on Thursday for the last part of this session, what have you started to see differently? Oh, I could have done that differently in this situation.

Oh, that's useful actually for that approach. What things are coming up for you now before we dive into number three? Number four. Sorry. What's been useful? Just looking at the time. Sed model and removing the you from feedback. Good. We're gonna go into that even further today. The Sed structure is very helpful. Good.

Nathan Simmonds:

Like I say, the preparation piece. Great to see you Claire. The question I just thrown into everybody right now is as this is session four, we are moving through this work and into this last stage is level two. What's been useful so far for you and what you've taken away from this training and what can you see differently or how can you use it differently for the future? Making it non-emotional. Good. One of the key things about making it non-emotional, was when I started picking up, and I shared this with other people before. Good to see you again, Cindy.

Is asking questions that don't begin with why. So it's really important we understand. It's not saying never ask questions beginning with why. It's about making sure that we get intelligent with the use of our questions and the intelligent use of this question. So in order for us to increase the level of objectivity about what we're doing, we ask questions beginning with what as. I'm not asking that, but the question, beginning with the word what. Okay.

Nathan Simmonds:

This just helps us to just take the emotion out. Just helps us to remove the sense of attack sometimes. Because when people ask us questions beginning with why often we feel we have to justify it. You ask a child a question beginning with why. Why didn't you do that? What do they do? They make a lot of excuses. Billy did it. The dog ate it. That happened. It wasn't me. It was so and so, da, da da. Yet as we grow up, we still do that.

We just make it more complicated with the choice of words that we use or nuance it or make it appear more complicated with the choice of words. But in truth we're just making excuses and defending and justifying what we did or didn't do. So it's important we understand it. So use as many questions as you can that begin with the word what rather than why did you do that? What was the thinking that led up to that? What were the actions that happened before? So I can completely understand. Remember, seek first to understand before making yourself understood.

Nathan Simmonds:

Ah, we are in. I've already done kind of the little bit of the setup, but went and dived in because I was conscious of time. Welcome to today's Sticky Learning Lunch with me. Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these sessions is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do.

Whether that's from home if you're still working from home. Yes or no, are you still working from home? I'd like to know. Or if it's preparing you to return to the workspace so that you can join in with earlier conversations, face-to-face conversations with your team. Where are we going today? Feedback level two. What do we need to include in this? Recap on Monday. It's all about helping people make the decisions themselves.

Nathan Simmonds:

That's all feedback is. No one enjoys being told what to do unless it's them telling themselves. I know this is a reiteration, but I wanna really make sure this thinking stays in. It's about helping to kind of put a spotlight on things so they can have a look at it and then take responsibility for the actions that need to be taken so they can start to move forward. Otherwise, they just feel like they're being told, told, told and they'll stop coming up with solutions and stop actually do, do, do for themselves.

So it's important we understand that. Then as we got into looking at the Sed model yesterday, it's then about understanding that there's a time to tell, which is if it's dangerous or urgent. We can tell people to stop doing things or to do certain things because it's critical. But we still always give them that option at the other end. If it carries on, it looks like this, if you change it, it looks like this, what would you like to do?

Nathan Simmonds:

We still give that person the opportunity to do that. So level one when we looked at it yesterday is often we use that for people that have not been in the business very long and maybe don't know the job very well or they're not aware of a certain situation and there needs to be an intervention directly. When we get into level two, let's have a look at level two. This is for when we're talking to people that have potentially been in the business for a while.

They know what they're doing and you're having a more coaching conversation and you're asking a lot more questions to help people answer them themselves. So I'm just gonna move my camera over my video player over a little bit just so I can see. Because I've got some questions here that I'm gonna ask and share with you as we go through this.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the key element is, is yes, one is is tell, tell, tell. I'm sorry, tell me when you need to. But still giving the option when we get down here the first part. The second stage is asking questions because in the majority, everybody knows when they're doing something that isn't right or isn't appropriate or everyone knows when they're in the car and they're driving too quickly that they're driving too quickly and that they shouldn't be doing it.

If you are on the motorway here in the UK and the speed limit is 70 and you are doing 78 and the policeman pulls you over, in the majority, nine times outta 10, who does the person speeding get annoyed at? Open question to you. You are speeding on the motorway and the policeman pulls you over nine times out of, it's the cop. Absolutely. Whose fault was it really?

Nathan Simmonds:

But what happens is we know when we are doing things that we know in our heart of hearts, we know if it's working or not working. We can completely comprehend that and feel that. Who here as a child—and it's gonna be a bit of a strange one—did something like get their head stuck between the bannisters or get their hands stuck in a tube or any of those sorts of things? Yes or no? I was one of those. I was a curious child. I was always putting my hands into things that probably couldn't.

Then, you know. Park railings. Yeah, amazing. But it's that sensation and we've all done it as children at some point. It's that hot flush you get where you go. I've now got to own up to the fact that I've got my head stuck in these park railings. Yes or no? Has anyone? I'm presuming everyone is. Yes or no. Have you had that sensation at some point in your life? That hot flush that comes up and you're going? Yes. Yes. It's not just me then. I know we all know when we're doing these things.

Nathan Simmonds:

Yes, more than I like. But I protracted across the light bulb connector. Put up a tractor across the light bulb connector. Yes. I actually got blown across. Good work. Nice job. Someone putting something metal in a light bulb connector. Yeah, you've definitely got more than a hot flush on that one. Everybody knows this is the trick so I'm getting you all to understand. Everybody knows when they do or do not do something, we get frustrated at other people rather than take the ownership ourselves. So we then have a go at the cop for pulling us over for speeding.

Who was driving the car? The policeman. Did the policeman tell you to go fast and then arrest you? No. So it's about ownership. So I'm gonna give you kind of a super easy example of how we do this with people. Lateness is the easiest example to use. Now you start at nine o'clock, the person arrives at 10 past nine, they're late. So we can start asking questions. We can start to say, well again, lots of questions beginning with what? So now we're gonna say, what's the conversation gonna be about?

Nathan Simmonds:

What's this conversation going to be about? What does this conversation need to be about? Because you're sitting there at 10, past nine, it's kind of obvious. What is the company's expectation? If they're not, again,