6 Rules Of Constructive Feedback

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Crazy Ones, the best startup show on planet Earth. This is Alex, and I am back with a journal-style episode where in 10 to 20 minutes I tackle the most important challenges or goals or skills that builders need to successfully build their businesses. People have been loving these types of episodes. If you've been listening to my show for a while, you may remember Founders Journal, which was kind of the predecessor to The Crazy Ones. And this format is a lot like what Founders Journal was. So before I hop into this episode, I would love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at thecrazyones@morningbrew.com and share one specific topic that if myself or Jesse talked about it on a future Crazy Ones episode, it would make a world of difference for you and it would increase the probabilities of you being successful in your business or your career significantly. So shoot us an email. Now, without further ado, today's episode is about how to give feedback well, because it is wildly important and most people are terrible at it. Let's do it. What's up, everyone? I'm Alex Lieberman. Yo, this is Jesse Pujji. And this is The Crazy Ones. Most people suck at giving feedback, yet it is a non-negotiable skill for leaders and managers. So what I want to share with you are 6 rules to not suck at giving feedback and to in fact be great at giving feedback. Because if you are a founder, you're a leader or a manager, it is your responsibility to be good at giving feedback to your employees, to your co-founders, to your senior leaders, to other founders. And so this is your playbook for doing it. First rule to not suck at giving feedback is ask a lot of questions. You can't give feedback without immersing yourself in the right context. I mentioned this last journal episode where I talked about how to handle people shitting on your business idea. And if you haven't listened to that episode yet, you should go in the feed or if you're on YouTube, Go check it out on YouTube. But the only way for you to give feedback rather than uninformed criticism is to actually sit in the same context as the person that you're giving feedback to. You need to understand their goals. You need to understand where they want or need help. You need to understand what's working versus not working for them, and you need to understand the specifics of their job or their business. This is why, whether it's with my operator for The Plunge with my co-founder of Morning Brew, or when I'm talking to an early-stage founder who's looking for business advice, I will spend an inordinate amount of time, like half of our time talking, just asking questions to try and bring myself into their context. Rule number 2, follow every problem that you share with a solution or a strategy to find the solution. Think about it like this. What is the goal of giving feedback? My view is it is to increase the probability of a founder succeeding with their business, or it is to improve an employee's probability of succeeding in their job, which in turn increases the probability of your business succeeding. So you should always come back to one very simple question: What can I say that's going to increase that probability? And a generally good rule of thumb is that more direction is better than less direction. So if you're going to point out an issue or a hurdle, don't you think that offering a way for the person you're talking to to get around that hurdle serves you and your goals for delivering feedback? So here's a quick example. Let's just say someone sends me their Facebook ad spend metrics and I see the percentage of people that convert from landing on their website to putting in their email address is 10%. And let's just say I believe that the ideal metric is more like 25% versus 10% based on their goals. Here's an example of what bad feedback would be. Bad feedback would be me saying, hey, you need to improve your landing page and get your email conversion rate up or the economics of your business simply won't work. And then I stop there. All that will do is get them worried and anxious. And because of the lack of direction, lead them down this wild goose chase of their own to find the answer because I haven't provided enough guidance. Here's what good feedback would look like. It would be me saying, hey, your landing page conversion rate is too low right now. I think you have the opportunity to move it up meaningfully from 10%. And here are 3 simple things you can do and test today to move the needle. One, make a clear call to action on your email signup. Right now, I don't think people know exactly what they're signing up for. 2, A/B test a different headline next to your hero image at the top of the page. I think you're underselling the solution your product delivers. And 3, shorten up your landing page and remove unnecessary links. Right now, there are too many ways that a user can avoid putting in their email. Far more specific. And every problem that I describe is followed by a solution or a way to find the solution. Rule number 3 for giving great feedback: show you care about the person and their goals. Said differently, study Kim Scott's Radical Candor framework. I should release a full episode about Radical Candor soon, but here's what you need to know. Radical Candor is, in my opinion, the optimal way to run your business and deliver feedback. And how you do it is simple. Picture a Y-axis. So line going up and down. We'll call it the give a damn axis. At the top of the Y-axis is caring personally. At the bottom of the Y-axis is not caring personally. Okay, so you have that in your head. Caring personally at the top, not caring personally at the bottom. Now picture an x-axis that goes across and through the middle of the y-axis. We'll call this one the honesty axis. To the right is challenging someone directly. To the left is not challenging someone directly. Where you want to be is in the top right of this grid that I've just created. And what that top right quadrant is, is you care personally and you challenge directly. And that quadrant is known as radical candor. Most people either don't care personally and they challenge directly, which means you're an asshole if you challenge someone, but they don't think you care about them. You're an asshole. Or a lot of people— and I fall into this camp when I slip and I'm not being the best version of myself as a leader— you care deeply about the person, you care personally, but you don't challenge them directly, which is what Kim Scott calls ruinous empathy because you care. But you don't help them at all. So you're not helping your employee, your co-founder, other early-stage founders to actually grow. So this is like an abridged version of Radical Candor. There's a lot of talks and articles on it. There's also a great book on it. But the long story short is you want to challenge directly and care deeply. And by caring deeply, someone will be open to you challenging them directly because they know you're trying to push them to be the best version of themselves. Rule number 4 for giving good feedback: demonstrate that feedback giving is a two-way street. Said differently, you want to create psychological safety for others to give you feedback. Here's how to think about it. People are parrots. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a fact. So when you lead with a certain behavior as a founder or manager, you can assume that behavior will be copied. If you don't solicit feedback, from people or you shut down or get defensive when people give you feedback, you can assume your employees or your co-founders will do the exact same thing. So if you want to train anyone to be great at receiving feedback, show them that you are great at receiving it as well. Rule number 5, know people's growth language. Said differently, what is the way they want to be delivered feedback that creates the greatest chance for growth? There are 5 love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch. And I believe there are growth languages in the context of work too. Said differently, different ways you can communicate to someone that you're giving feedback to that creates the highest probability of them taking that feedback and actually growing from it. It's like when I signed up for my fitness app, which is called Future, and one of the first questions that I was asked when I filled out this kind of intake quiz in the beginning of downloading the app was how How would you describe your ideal fitness coach? And the options included a lot of things, but examples are always positive, calm, cool, and collected, drill sergeant, analytical and results-driven. And I think the same concept can be applied to giving feedback as well. You should ask whoever you're giving feedback to what type of feedback most resonates with you, or said differently, what type of feedback will lead to the greatest change for you? Is it tough love? Is it short and to the point? Is it analytical and numbers-driven? And say the person you're giving feedback to doesn't know the answer to that. You can always ask them after you give feedback, how did my style of giving feedback land with you? What did you like about it versus not like about it? The 6th and final rule for giving great feedback is about compliment sandwiches. And let me just say, compliment sandwiches are not it. If you're going to give feedback, give feedback. If you're going to affirm someone, affirm someone. Blending the two creates confusion. So compliment sandwiches are very simply a compliment followed by constructive feedback, followed by a compliment. And it is not the answer. A lot of people believe in this strategy because they say it creates psychological safety for the person receiving feedback and it makes them more open to hearing how they can get better. But I generally think that this is an excuse to make giving feedback easier for the person doing the feedback giving. And the worst part about it is it can lead to the recipient of the feedback not remembering what the actual feedback was and not at all leading to the desired outcome of changed behavior that increases their probability of success. So again, compliment sandwiches are not it. Be direct and be direct in going back to a rule from before in a form of radical candor where you're challenging directly, but the person you're talking to knows you care deeply about them and the trajectory of their career, and you want to see them win and succeed. And so those are my 6 rules for being great at delivering feedback. Now, I would love to hear from you. What is missing? What is a topic that I should cover in an upcoming journal episode of The Crazy Ones? Think of any painful challenge or top priority that you are currently spending a ton of time thinking about in your business or your career. Career and let me know what it is. Shoot an email to thecrazyones@morningbrew.com, and I would love to cover as many of these topics in the near future. With that, thank you so much for listening to the episode, and we'll catch you next time.