The Feedback That Changed Everything with Jessie Novey

Have you ever read an email you sent and thought, did I really sound like that? One piece of feedback can hit like a gut punch, especially when it exposes a gap between who you think you are and how others experience you. For today's guest, that exact moment reshaped how she leads forever. Because the truth is leadership isn't about the title you hold. It's about how aligned you are when no one is watching.

Or reading.

Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge, brain science for bold leaders ready to master their mind and own their voice. I'm your host, Claire Hayek, neuroleadership expert, ex-engineer, recently TEDx speaker, lifelong musician, and founder of Mind Soul Purpose team building. Welcome everyone. Today we're breaking down how feedback, when you least expect it, can become your greatest leadership accelerator and what authentic leadership really looks like under pressure. And finally, the neuroscience behind self-awareness, how your brain actually reacts to criticism and how to reframe it into learning, into growth. My guest today is Jessie Novy, Head of People and Culture at Evolving Solutions. She's known as, as a visionary, results-driven HR leader who helps executives transform organizations and elevate performance. With experience spanning talent, culture, and organizational change, Jessie believes leadership starts with authenticity, showing up the same way in every room, every email, every conversation. Hallelujah! Hi, Jessie, how are you?

Hi, I'm good. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Glad you're here. Glad you can join us. Now, probably a lot of the listeners are going, okay, tell us what's going on. What is this? What happened? We're so curious to know. Give me that. Give us the rundown of what happened. What did change for you with that moment of feedback early on in your career?

Yeah, it was one of my first roles being in a people leader position and I had given some feedback to one of my direct reports that we had actually had some verbal conversations about too prior, but there had been some follow-up via email as well. And she had later given me some feedback that the communication via email came across as more abrasive or abrupt and kind of contradictory to the way that my verbal communication that I had shared with her previously came up. And so it really— Gave me an opportunity to reflect and pause and think about, gosh, I felt like I was communicating the same thing in person as I was in email. But we also know that the way things can be interpreted, interpreted grammar we use, et cetera, can come across in a different way in an email versus verbally.

Yeah. And I mean, imagine texts.

Oh yeah. Oh, exactly.

Communicating with emojis. You know, we're like, hmm, is this sarcasm or is that person really happy to talk to you right now?

Right.

And it's actually neuroscience says this is feedback activates the same pain centers as physical pain. I don't know if you can just imagine that. When I read this about neuroscience, that it actually does that when it comes to feedback, I fell off my chair. Your brain goes into, when you receive feedback, your brain goes automatically into a mild threat response. You know, some of us may feel the heart rate go up and, you know, the amygdala alert, right? But the interesting part is that you didn't defend. You actually got curious. And I applaud that. That's literally the turning point between reactive leadership and resilient leadership. So that says a lot about you. Kudos to you. This is, this is good to know as well, that if we do go through the physical pain response, you are normal. But it doesn't mean you have to stay there. You could bounce it around and pause, breathe, bring it back to your prefrontal cortex and reflect. Take this as a gift, maybe something that you need to learn and grow from.

Exactly.

Yeah. So how did you train yourself to respond differently, to stay aligned between how you show up and basically your impact, your intent, and how you communicate How did you train to do that?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was just an aha moment for me, right? Of like, gosh, I would never want— I would— I'm always putting myself right in the shoes of the people that I'm giving feedback to. Or given that the role in HR where I've coached a lot of leaders, a lot of executives in my career on giving feedback, I'm always like, put yourself in the shoes of the person receiving the feedback. And I know we're going to be probably talking about clear, you know, being clear is being kind later on today in the podcast. But I think when you are clear, and I think you can still be clear and direct, but being clear and direct and providing it in a way too that can also be conversational, asking the person for feedback, asking them what their interpretation of it was. And so I don't know if it was so much training, more so. Just that my credibility as a leader was really important to me. And I know how influential the strong leaders that I have had in my life have been to me. And I wanted to be that to the people that I— that also reported to me. And so I think it was just really wanting to have high credibility and authenticity in my leadership.

And I applaud that. I applaud that you're so self-aware about what other people might be feeling. And, you know, many leaders don't have that naturally. They actually have to work for it. It doesn't come naturally. It doesn't make them bad people. It's just not something that their brain is wired for automatically. And empathy is definitely something we can work on and practice and develop those neural pathways to feel how my words affect others and maybe what's happening in that person's mind right now or body emotions. the whole thing, right? And if you have trouble with that, if some people have trouble with that, it could be just simple as just pausing, not just reacting, not just automatically being defensive, or if you're receiving feedback, that is. Because not all leaders are— could be as empathetic and in tune and connected to how the other person receiving the feedback is feeling. So if you are the person receiving feedback, just pause, breathe, and think of this as a gift. Say, how— let's find the gift out of this. What do I need to learn out of this? This is not an attack. It's just feedback for me to grow and be better. And interestingly enough, as well as a leader giving feedback, well, maybe we can make an effort and learn here from Jessie. To be a bit more empathetic about it and read the room, right?

Yeah, well stated.

Yeah, exactly. So you've said before that you never wanted to be behind the curtain. You wanted to be out front aligning people with business strategy. And how has authenticity shaped the way you build trust with executives? Because I mean, that's not an easy job. I'm really curious to hear you on that.

Yeah, I think, you know, I've always said that HR isn't just human resources. It's really about understanding your— the businesses in which you support human resources departments in. And there's nothing more frustrating to a leader or an executive is an HR person that is making recommendations on processes or, you know, any, anything that would fall underneath an HR umbrella, if you will, that doesn't align with their business goals or their business initiatives. And so I feel like the best way I've always gained rapport and trust with the leaders that I've worked with is first understanding their business, understanding what their initiatives are, what they're looking to accomplish short-term and long-term.

Mm-hmm.

where their pain points are. And those could be related to people or not related to people. But since people are typically every company's most valuable product, right, it typically has— it typically is related to people. And then from there, ensuring that anything that I'm providing them, supporting them, suggesting, etc., aligns with those things. And then therefore, it's indicating to that leader She hears me. She understands me. She's asking good questions. Her intent is in the right place. And I think no matter what situation you're in, that would build trust with just about anybody.

100%. I mean, talking about empathy and active listening skills and being interested in the other person. And I love how you mentioned understanding the reality, understanding the business reality, understanding the culture. And this is where performance and humanity literally coexist. It's not one or the other. It's not just let's analyze and put the relationship aside. It's both. Let's be analytical. Let's look at the 2 brain hemispheres, you know, the left and the right. Also try to connect with that person at a level where we understand their priorities because that's how we can best help. I mean, I couldn't have said this better. Jesse, now, you know, we did talk about clear is kind. You know, this is— I love that. I really love that. And I really want to share this with our listeners. And I find that that's a gold nugget. Why do you think so many leaders avoid giving feedback? And what's your advice for changing that pattern? And tell us about this clear is kind.

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, but you know, I would say, you know, I, I know your listeners are, are probably located all over the world. I reside in the United States in Minnesota. So the Midwest and us Midwesterners, especially those in Minnesota, have a tendency to have a stereotype that we're a little passive aggressive.

Okay.

And most, Most of the companies that I've worked for are headquartered here, or their employees are predominantly located in the Midwest. And so I do think that it has a little bit to do with cultural, how you've been raised, you know, how conflict occurred in your family, how your parents encouraged you bringing forward concerns and having conflict dynamics. But I also think that there's just maybe a feeling of insecurity sometimes in corporate companies of, I'm not really sure how to provide it. It's easier for— they think it's easier to ignore it, but then you will quickly find out how much that catches up with you and how it actually ends up dominoing into something that's a lot worse when you don't address it up front. And so I think it's probably a combination of things. I think it's, it's leaders that get into leadership positions because they were really good at what they did, but they're not strong with leading people and those communication skills and ability to give feedback. They've just simply never been given the tools, you know, and the coaching and the mentoring on how to do that. And I don't think that that's their fault. I think it's the fault of the system not supporting leaders, you know, as they move into those types of positions.

Right.

So, I think it's a lack of coaching and development. I think it's some insecurity and how do I deliver it? How is the individual going to receive it? It could also be, You know, a reporting relationship concern. You know, it's not uncommon for a leader that's really good at their job to be promoted and then be leading people that were once their peers. And so then you have that, you know, uncomfortability of, oh my gosh, how do I give feedback to this person that I'm a friend with? And, you know, we still go out and have happy hours and lunches together. So I just truly think there's a lot at play there. Do you want me to jump in and talk about the Clery findings as it relates to that?

Yes, please do. I'm all ears. This is so interesting.

Okay. You know, I've always coached my leaders to, you know, when they come to me and they're like, oh, I haven't given feedback, or, you know, they're frustrated. And I'm like, gosh, how long has this been going on for? And they're like, oh, it's been going on for weeks or maybe even months. And I'm like, well, have you addressed it? No, I haven't addressed it. And again, going back to the comment that I had made earlier about putting yourselves in the shoes of that person. I think most humans can kind of pick up on something is off.

Mm-hmm.

There might be this non— these nonverbals that are occurring or this dynamic that feels like it's shifted, but nobody is addressing the elephant in the room. And I would say that that is way more tarnishing to a relationship than actually communicating to that person what they're doing that's impacting you, the company, or the team. And the more feedback we give and the more clear we are when we give that feedback, it's actually the kind thing to do because it's helping to mentor that person. It's helping to say, I believe in you. I hired you for a reason. I feel like you are a capable person, but I'm observing these things, or my team, our team is observing these things. And so I want to make you aware that there's this gap. You know, what are— and then as I mentioned earlier, I think that it should be a conversation. You know, what, what are you observing? how do you see this?

Right.

What am I not doing as a leader to help support you here? What do you need from the team? And then instead of it feeling like this one-way dialogue, which I think is what prevents a lot of leaders from giving feedback, is they feel like, oh, I'm on this pedestal talking down to somebody and it's gonna make them feel a certain way. But really feedback should be a dialogue because oftentimes It's not just the fault of the individual that's getting the feedback. It's a combination of things. Coaching, not giving clear direction, not having the right resources, etc.

Absolutely. I mean, just being aware of how the reason why that person may be lacking certain skills and taking responsibility as well. Putting yourself putting yourself as a leader as part of the solution or part of the problem, that is already so, you know, you're in, you're being humble, you're being vulnerable, you're taking responsibility. Because in a way, you know, if they're in your team, you are responsible for them. Like, obviously somebody needs to take responsibility for their actions as well. But it's such a great way to give that, you know, virtual kind of hug in a way, right? To that person and say, hey man, I hear you. I see you. And I'm here to help you. This is good. This is positive.

Yeah.

And basically, you talked about avoidance. Avoidance might feel safe momentarily, but the brain registers that as ambiguity. And ambiguity for the brain, it's danger. So if you're avoiding giving feedback to somebody, you think you're really protecting them, but you're not. If you're providing that ambiguity by avoiding the conversation, They're probably freaking out. So because when your team doesn't know where they stand, where you stand, what you think of them, if they're doing well, they're not doing well, are you happy or not happy, what can they improve, that uncertainty spikes cortisol and drops performance. And then, you know, that intrinsic motivation is no longer there because it doesn't really matter what I do. I get no feedback. I don't know if I'm doing well or not. There's no motivation there. Clear is kind, I think you say. Kind is clear. Sorry. What is it again?

No, clear-headed, right?

Clear is kind. Clarity, even when it's tough, believe it or not, creates that psychological safety. Yeah.

I love that so much. And there's been this theme of quiet quitting now for the last couple of years. And I think that ambiguity that you referenced of like, I don't know where I stand with my supervisor. I don't know if he or she thinks I'm doing well or I'm not doing well. And the more communicative we can be to our teams to provide them the security of you are doing well or you're doing great, but here are some opportunities where I would like to see you improve and I believe in you, only creates more trust, stronger rapport, and then therefore likely stronger retention and higher morale between, you know, you and your employees.

Exactly.

I mean, it's, it's, I couldn't—

honestly, I couldn't have said it better. And I love that you mentioned the quiet quitting. It's just that that is an issue. And I hear that a lot about when I talk to HR professionals. It's actually a thing. And it's, it's your job as a leader to, to take away that ambiguity, you know, make it clear. Clear is kind. Clear is kind. Write it down. Put it up somewhere on your desktop screen. Put it on your wall next to your You're avoiding giving feedback. And think of it that way. You're doing them a favor, but be kind about it.

Yeah.

A little tip here, a neuroscience tip. So if you are receiving feedback, you know, if feedback is landing and you feel that punch in your gut, just pause for a second, breathe. I know maybe hard for you to do that or think of that. And this is why we do this podcast, giving you tips that you can practice literally right after this episode. So you can write this down, the Triple S tool, which is scan, shrink, and shift. See, be self-aware. What's happening right now? You know, scan your body. Notice that tension. Are you— is your breathing— did your breathing change? Are your shoulders up? Do you feel something in your gut? Do you feel sick? Are you scared? What is it? Just name it. So scan your body. The shrink is basically you shrink this whole effect just by naming it. By saying, by putting your finger on it, labeling it, go, this is anxiety. This is me scared of losing my job. This is just me dealing with criticism. I never liked criticism. This is a pattern from my childhood, whatever it is. Now I'm just coming up with possibilities here just to give you ideas. Name it, scan your body, label it, and name it. That automatically takes away its power and shift your focus. That's the last one. Shift. Scan, shrink, shift. And the shift is all about— you can ask yourself, what is the gift here? How is this going to help me? How is this helping me grow? Where can I take responsibility? What can I do to improve? This is a big gift. And every feedback is a gift. Now, I understand sometimes it's given in a bad way. And this is why we're having this episode. So the person giving feedback can do it much better.

Yeah.

But if you're on the other end, you can also regulate that emotion or that reaction towards feedback. And this is how you rewire your brain from defense to growth, to development. And we're already at the rapid-fire questions. Jesse, it's been a pleasure so far. And, you know, we're not done yet. Okay, bear with me. We have 3 questions for you. So the rapid fire, you know how it works. Questions I'll be throwing your way, quick, short answers. And I will definitely ask you to elaborate if I need more. But I would love to take another 30 minutes. But I definitely want to ask you these 3 questions. You ready?

I'm ready.

Let's do it. A book, a podcast, or a conference that changed how you lead?

So here locally in Minnesota, we have an HR event called the HR Executive Forum, and they hold quarterly meetings. And I attended a meeting last year where they had an HR executive, so a chief people officer who had actually just been promoted into a chief operating officer position. So out of an HR capacity into more of an operational capacity. And it was just really inspirational to see that, going back to the statement I made earlier about how HR is really about knowing your business. You just happen to wear this HR hat where you're focused more on the people side.

Right.

And it was really inspirational to see HR, an HR individual who had so much success in learning her business that she had moved into an operational role helping lead that part of her business. And so, I don't know if that is the route that I plan to go in my career, but knowing that someone is paving, paving that path was very inspirational for me.

It is very inspirational. That's great. Because you, you know, you're not putting your expertise and what you studied and your experience so far in a box. You're opening it up to a lot of possibilities. Second question, a daily ritual that you would never skip or that keeps you grounded, one or the other.

Yeah, it has to be movement for me, whether it's a walk outside or Working out. I'm very into yoga, so any kind of movement that just keeps my blood pumping and keeps my brain going and keeps me— my mind set in the right place is something I can't go a day without.

Wonderful. Last one, uh, one sentence you tell your younger self.

Gosh, you know, it, it, it would have to be don't let titles, don't let titles deter how you show up. And what I mean by that is, you know, my younger self may not have said what I wanted to say in certain rooms depending upon the titles that were in those rooms. And now that I'm somebody with that title, you know, it's just so clear to me that we're all human. Somebody once said, we all put our pants on the same way, which is so true. And so I think I would have just encouraged myself to be more confident and say what was on my mind, regardless of the people that were in the room.

That's great advice. Thank you so much for sharing. If this episode hit home, and if you're ready to train your brain to lead from calm, not chaos, and also just be able to tackle on the challenges of day to day, whether it's at home or whether it's at the workplace. You can see if you're watching this on video, you can scan the QR that you see right on my screen here and basically join our masterclass. There's a masterclass on mental fitness and stepping into your power. There's also free resources you can download, assessments you can do. I'm always sharing new tools. There's also the newsletter. Of course, follow the podcast. If you found this useful, please follow and share this episode with somebody you think needs to hear this. Maybe somebody that received feedback recently that didn't really land and they're struggling with it. Or on the other end, share it with a leader that maybe can use a little piece of advice on how to give feedback. And maybe if you have a couple of words to tell our listeners, you know, anything you want to share before we wrap this up.

You know, the only thing that I'll add is While Claire was talking about identifying your feelings, you know, when she was talking a little bit about how to receive it and she was talking through the 3 S's, I'd also say when you are, when you are on the receiving end, and if those feelings are coming up for you, not only identifying them internally, but it's don't be afraid to identify them externally, meaning say, gosh, this feedback is really hard for me to receive, or— I'm feeling a little anxious about this feedback, or whatever the feeling is coming up for you. Because sometimes, I think when we can say it out loud and the other person knows how we're receiving it, it can kind of take the conversation from elevated down to a different level. And again, create kind of more rapport and authenticity in that relationship between both parties.

I love what you just said. And ironically, I did a TEDx on this a couple of weeks ago. And the TEDx was Why Your Voice Matters More Than You Think. Ready for this? The say it out loud rule. That's what I talked about. Okay. Whoever's listening, this was not rehearsed. I promise this was not rehearsed. I had no idea you were going to say that, but for me, it's a validation and a confirmation of what I'm teaching. And exactly, Jesse, you said it, you know, this, this was proven neuroscience. It's called the production effect. That when you say something out loud, it really influences things within you and around you. And the important thing here, the triple S, is naming it out loud. And thank you for being specific about naming it and not being afraid to name it in front of the person giving you feedback. Of course, do it kindly and just say that. And this is where vulnerability comes in and humility, and that makes you human. And that's beautiful. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Jesse, thanks again for being an amazing guest on the show. Everyone else listening, lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. And see you very soon. Actually, see you all next week. Jesse, lovely seeing you. Stay in touch.

Thank you.