Why FEEDBACK can be Overrated

So feedback is. I've always said it's the breakfast of champions. Gotta get feedback. And it's overrated because, you know, just because people are giving you feedback doesn't mean that you have to go make changes based on what you hear. I'll never forget there was a time where I was in my company leadership practice with about 30 people, and there were a lot of new people in the office. And I used to hijack my leadership practice with where I wanted to go today. But. And that was the cool thing about our leadership practices. You could do that. And our builder would come in and he'd know where he wanted to take us. But if someone had a better place, we'd go there. So I took two chairs and I put the two chairs in the middle of the room, and I told my builder to come sit down. And I asked him to hit me with some feedback that will make me better. And I knew he was going to give me something good. And I had a lot of trust in my coach, and I knew that it would come from a good place. And I wanted everybody in the room to see an example of giving your leader feedback and one to show them how I would take it and what I could do with it. And when he got done, I let all my employees come up one by one and give me feedback. And I didn't know it at the time, but that was one of the hardest things I think I've ever done, because they felt so comfortable that they started hitting me with things that I didn't see coming. And some of it I was really upset about, and I had to sit there and take it because I asked for it. And that's an important thing for any leader. When you ask for feedback, keep your mouth shut, because if you respond and do what we call a Triple D, Triple D is when you defend, you deny, and you destroy whatever it is that's being said. I was good at it. I was a master Triple D. Er. And it was not a good trait to have as a leader. And if you're going to ask people for feedback and they give it to you, you better keep your mouth shut. Because if you stomp on them, they'll never come back and they'll never tell you what they're thinking because of the experience that you gave them in that moment. So when I heard people giving me some feedback that I didn't agree with, I knew wasn't even true. I had to sit there and I took it. And again, I didn't do anything with that. And Some of the feedback I got, I did take action. Some of it I followed up to understand a little bit better, to make sure I understood what was being said. But it certainly opened up my eyes to a lot of things that I would not have known or been aware of that were going on. And looking back, I'm sure glad I asked, because it's stuff that I wanted to know. And there's nothing worse than having people thinking things in your company and they don't tell you because they're too scared and you never ask, and then they're sabotage. So the rule and the discipline for a leader is you ask for feedback and you ask 10,000 times and you can expect crickets. Nobody's going to give you anything. If they don't trust you, don't expect anything. But you keep asking and you keep asking. You make that your discipline. Eventually they're going to see that you are asking because you genuinely want to know, and they're going to let it out one day and they're going to hit you. And when they do again, keep your mouth shut, because you got what you asked for. It may not be what you wanted to hear, but you got what you asked for. And that's a big breakthrough if you don't triple D them and you just take it in and you process it, and then you think about what's being said and you can either circle back later and talk about it, but don't respond in the moment. So feedback is good and overrated, but you got to make sure you're building the discipline to ask for it. And, you know, be careful about giving it, in the same way that you have to be careful about when you respond, when people give it to you.