381. The Art of Effective Feedback w/ Therese Huston

Welcome to episode 381 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Terese Houston, author of let's Talk.

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You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Therese Houston. Therese is a cognitive scientist at Seattle University and the author of three books. Her latest, let's Talk Make Effective Feedback. Your superpower is what we're discussing today. Therese received her BA from Carleton College and her Ms. And PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She completed a postdoc at the center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, and she recently graduated from a program in Organizational leadership at Oxford University. In 2004, Therese founded the center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University. Her book How Women Decide was named a summer reading title by Oprah.com and called required Reading on Wall street by the New York Times. Therese has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the Guardian, and Harvard Business Review. Therese leads workshops and consults internationally on how to give and solicit more actionable feedback at work. In addition to giving a TEDx talk, Terese has talked at Microsoft, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, the Cleveland Clinic, and the US State Department about how to create more inclusive workplaces. Her favorite place to speak was Harvard Business School to a standing room only crowd. And her least favorite was a conference in Denver where no one showed up. Yikes.

I bet there's a story there. Really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I.

Want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes.

For everything, including related past episodes, articles.

And books, including let's Talk and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 381 now let's jump right in. Dr. Therese Houston, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Thank you so much. Great to be here, Melina.

Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here with me today. Quick shout out to our mutual friend Kwame Christian for the intro. Love him. He's one of my very favorite people and I believe from what we I believe anyone who knows him that he'd be one of their favorite people.

He's so delightful.

Totally. For everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about your background and the work that you do?

Absolutely. So I'm a cognitive scientist at Seattle University and I'm a writer. I've now written three books and most recent is let's Talk, which is basically a book about how to give feedback to the other person so they don't crumble.

Yes, very important. And I know when it comes to giving feedback, you know, we, anybody who's ever had employees especially, and the advice you give in the book is pretty much from that perspective of a manager giving feedback to their direct reports. But really, I mean, you can use the advice to give feedback to anyone.

Your husband, your wife. You're.

Right.

Can I use this with my kids? Like, absolutely. So yeah.

Yes. Yes. The answer's always yes. I think pretty much with those. The things that work at work can tend to work with, you know, kids and things for sure as well. So what led you to the, you know, interest in giving good feedback? I feel like there's a story there that probably stems from some not so good feedback.

That's exactly it. I've had a couple of really pivotal moments in my life where it's been a crucial feedback moment and someone's really flubbed it and giving me feedback and it's just helped me appreciate. So I'll tell you one quick story. There I was in my, my first year in a new job. I'd made a big career switch. I'd gone from being a professor to being a consultant. And it was my first year in the job and I went to my manager and I said, hey, could we, you know, do a review of the year and some pointers on how to go forward in year number two? She said, great, let's do lunch. Like, okay, great, we're going to lunch. So we go out to lunch and we have. And we're in this elegant restaurant and it's lovely. We talk mostly. I'm about to get married. So we talked about that and we talked about her husband and her kids and our dogs. And we're getting to the end of lunch and we haven't talked about my year at all. And it's start. I know we've got about a 15 minute walk back to the office, so. So as we're packing up, we're leaving the restaurant, she's paid the check and she says, oh, do you mind if we stop in the restroom before we head back to campus? And I'm like, no, sure, let's do that. So we're in the. We're each in the public restroom stalls. And she said, so Therese, about the past year. And I am not kidding. She launches into my performance review in.

In.

In a public restroom. It were both in our stalls. I'm like, no, I can't even write this down, let alone who could walk in, you know, And. And I think she met. Well, I think she had the best of intentions. I think she was just all of a sudden remembering herself like, oh my gosh, wait, I need to give her feedback. That was the whole point of this lunch. And. And she knew she was only going to say positive things, but I didn't know that. I had no idea where this conversation was going. And it was really, you know, it taught me two things. One, the other person has all the power. The person giving the feedback, whether they see it that way or not. Because I could have said, no, no, no, not now. But I didn't feel I could do that, especially my first year in the job and new in my career. First of all, the other person has all the power. And secondly, even when they're really well intentioned, they can flub it because I do think she was well intentioned. She was great at feedback. Most other moments. I've got a couple of other hard feedb stories if you'd like to hear more, but that was one that to me just was a pivotal moment of, oh, people need help doing this better.

Well, and that is definitely as the receiver. Right. And where, like you said, your boss definitely has power and there's this fear and concern that if you. If you were to say, like, can we wait till we're out of here? Like, and then she feels awkward and uncomfortable and then is that gonna totally sabotage your whole career moving forward and you're going to jeopardize all of this and then your brain is spinning on all that sort of stress instead of. And like, what might happen instead of being able to pay attention in the moment.

Exactly. I mean, Melina, I can't tell you anything that she said. I have no memory. I have no memory of that. I have the memory of the panic. I remember the color of the bathroom. I mean, all these irrelevant details. And like I said, what she said was positive. But you're exactly right. You know, I couldn't process the content of what she was saying because it was the. Everything else was such a threat in that moment. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, you definitely have the. The. You're sitting there. Well, in the moment, you're thinking about the story you're going to tell later. Like, oh my gosh. Right in that. In I. It's it in a similar and totally different situation. I give an example in my second book, what your employees need and can't tell you, which I think these two dovetail really nicely, which I believe is why Kwame introduced us. But in I talk about one of my bosses that I had gotten an email at 10am on a Thursday and it says, we need to talk. Be in my office at 2. Right? Yes. That's like how I felt. Right. So of course you don't go back to what you're doing and think, oh, I wonder what that is. Right. It's four hours of stress and looking at every project you been working on, every person you've talked to, all the things.

Is there some email I missed? Exactly, yes.

Right. What's going on? And then you go in ready for the fight and probably more like shaking, you know, what's going to happen. Deal. And, you know, she gestures for me to sit down and said, okay, so I'm going to be out of the office tomorrow and I wanted to let you know that I've put your name as the contact on my out of office responder.

You're kidding. That's all it?

Yeah. As you were just saying, I'm sure there are other things we talked about in that meeting, but I couldn't tell you what they were. And the same in that moment, if the intent was to be bringing me in to give some sort of feedback, to try to coach me on something, even to tell me about something that was a change that she thought was positive and that I'd be excited about, there's no way that I'm ready to hear it. And that's why that framing and the setup and all that presentation matters so much. So I think the audience listening, especially if they've been around for a while, they've heard that story before. So sorry to tell it again here, but for everyone, you know, just to know, it would have been so different. When we think about just the little moment of thoughtfulness, the little bit you can do to be the ripple of positive change. Like if her email had inside instead said, I'm going to be out of the office tomorrow. Do you have some time at 2 o' clock to talk about it? Yeah, easy. I don't lose, you know, all that time. And so thinking about the. The ripples of effect that come from those little moments that we think are nothing, but they can be everything to someone else, especially the higher we get in an organization.

I think you've got such a good point. I was listening to a podcast recently from someone else who. Who works in the same space that we do, and he was saying that one of the things he'll say to people when he had. Or he tells a story of a time when he had really bad news for someone. And what he did is he left them a voicemail message saying, I've got news you don't want to hear. Call me as soon as you can. Right? Knowing that that person wouldn't be available for a few hours because they were in their parade of zoom meetings that we're all in. In any case, he was saying this was a great strategy. And it was so fascinating because. Because I thought that's a great strategy if the two of you are equals or if you have more power, if you feel you have a lot of power, but when you feel you have low power, just like in both of our stories, you feel like you can't think about anything else for the next couple of hours, Right. And you're on such high alert that you can't take in parts of the message. When you finally do find out, it's actually not as alarming as you thought. So anyways, it's really tricky. I'm not a big fan of. Of making people panic before you give them the news. You know, it's one thing to say, hey, I've got bad news. Brace yourself, we need to talk about this, and then go right into it. But giving that a couple hours in advance, I think is. Creates more stress than it does any good. Right.

And then you're just like, there's nothing else but dwelling on that in a way that's not going to be. Be helpful. So I know you said you have some other examples of flubbed moments which may or may not come up throughout the conversation. I would love if you can step into, you know, you talk about the three, like, types of feedback in the book and that when we think about meeting with our employees, you know, we maybe kind of lump it all together and, you know, why is it so hard for us to be giving any sort of feedback? I don't know. I feel like I could rattle off all sorts of questions for that, but I'll let you go.

Those are great. They're all important and tricky issues. So when I tell people there are different types of feedback, I get, usually get a nod. And people say, right, there are two kinds of feedback. You know, there's positive feedback and there's constructive feedback. Which is, you know, a euphemism for negative feedback.

Right? I did like. Sorry to interrupt, but there was one point in. In the book when you're talking about that, you know, that it was like, so it's positive and negative, but we like to say it's constructive criticism or it's whatever. And it's like, you call it whatever you want. Like they know it's negative. That definitely made me laugh.

Yes, yes. Yeah, whatever. However you want to. You call it a growth area. I just consulted with a company that called it a growth area, which is great. It's really nice to put a positive frame on it. However, the other person knows what you're saying. I really like the distinction made by Stone and Heen in their book thanks for the Feedback. And they distinguish three kinds of feedback. So they call it appreciation, which is the positive feedback that we all know and love. It's the recognition. It's what I want you to do more of that you're already doing. It's the thing that you do that no one else does on the team that I need you to do. Right? What makes you a valuable employee. So that's appreciation. And then the other two types of. Are coaching and evaluation. So coaching is advice. This is the. Here's how you can adapt. Here's what you need to adopt. Here's how you can pivot. Here's how you. Currently, I see a place where you could have more impact. That's coaching, and then there's evaluation. And evaluation is the feedback we give least often, and that's letting someone know where they stand. So finding out, given the number of podcast interviews you've done, are you having the reach and impact that you want to be having at this point? Right. So, you know, that's evaluation, that's evaluative feedback, and it's, you know, that's harder feedback to give to let someone know where they stand as an employee. How are they performing in year one and year two and year ten? But. Or how are they performing relative to their job description? But it's so helpful for people, especially new employees. They're wondering, I'm six months into the job, is it okay that I'm still in learning mode, or do I need to be in contributing mode? Mode. So those are the three types that employees really need. They need appreciation, they need coaching, and they need evaluation. And the way this gets blurry is that often an employee will come up to their manager and say, hey, I'd love some feedback on how I'm doing. And the Manager launches into one of those, they might launch maybe into coaching. Well, like, oh yeah. In fact, I've been meaning to tell you this. In meetings, if you just stop doing blank, it will really, I think we could move through the issues a lot faster. It's kind of getting in your way. And the employees like I, I just wanted some appreciation. I wanted to hear I was doing a good job. And I hear especially hear that for people who are working with Gen Z and Millennials that they find themselves kind of surprised how often they're misaligned. They're giving coaching or evaluative feedback and that person wants appreciation and they, they there's a frustration happening there in any case. So I really being more specific about the kind of feedback that you want. Appreciation is definitely the hardest to ask for. But you can kind of do it jokingly. Right. I have said to people like, it's been a hard week. I would love to hear one thing I'm doing right, please. And then person the manager. And my manager in that situation can lean into like oh my gosh, I didn't know it was a hard week. What's going on? Right. So they can show care while they're drumming up in their mind like what could I say that would be genuinely appreciative feedback. Right. So anyway, I encourage people to get specific on either side, either asking for what you need, need coaching evaluation or feedback, or being really clear as a manager, like, okay, I have some coaching to give you, but you're asking for evaluative feedback. Let me give that some thought. Right?

Yeah. Well and so in that case where if someone doesn't have the language yet, right. So you have employee that's coming up and saying hey, I need some feedback and go, oh, would you like coaching or evaluative? And they I don't know. Right. That could be true. Almost a worse situation. Right. So do you have a recommended best. We love questions around here and I know there's a good open ended question there. When someone says I'd love some feedback, what can we say to help gauge what they're actually asking without them necessarily being given the type, you know, kind of words.

Yeah, yeah. So a couple of different things that you could do there. So if I were the manager, in that case I might say great, I'm so glad you're interested in some feedback. I'd love to give you some. If you don't have any. Right then because sometimes managers find they're not in a place where they can give feedback to just say great let's schedule a meeting for tomorrow. I want to make sure that you get the time that you deserve, because sometimes managers need to think. I'll often talk with managers who feel pressured into giving feedback in the moment, and that often doesn't work work. So I just want to. For the manager, a good piece of advice is say, great, let's give this the time it deserves. Let's get something on my calendar for two days from now, or something like that, right? So that would be once. One thing I would definitely do as a manager. The second thing that I would recommend doing to find out what kind of feedback they want. Say, I'd love to give you some feedback, but I want to make sure I meet your needs. Are you. Are you. Do you want to find out what you're doing? Well, do you want to. Do you want some. Some advice? Do you want to know where you stand? And that person then will probably be stumped because they haven't given it that much thought, right? And that's okay because you're. You're helping them get clearer about what they want. And so that if you do you, you know, they say, oh, I don't know. I just was, you know, just, how am I doing? That's a usual, typical response. And you say, okay, great. Well, I think I've got some advice that might be helpful, but if there's other kinds of feedback that you want, let me know. So it's really nice. As a manager, you're trying to raise the level of discourse, right? You're trying to give the other person some ways so that the two of you can be more helpful to one another. So that would be a piece of advice that I would recommend is to say, let's talk tomorrow unless you're ready, but don't feel. I've talked to so many managers who try to give feedback before they're ready to give it. And then the second piece of advice would be to simply say, great. So do you want to hear what you're doing? You know, how you're knocking it out of the park? Would you like a little bit of advice, or do you want to know where you stand? It's really interesting because once you put it out there, do you want to know where you stand? I usually find about 20% of people want that, and that's higher than most managers expect. So if somebody says they want that, say, great, but I am going to need to give it a little thought because that's typically something where you need to step back. And as a manager, and think about it.

Yeah.

I feel like that is the spot where even as a manager, you know, putting that out. Do you want to know where you stand? It sounds unintentionally ominous, and I think that's where people are like, oh, good point.

Right.

So you hear it and be like, where I stand. I wasn't even thinking about that.

Yeah. Yeah.

But that doesn't mean it's not important. And even if you're. You haven't been paying attention to it. But I think that's something where sometimes some managers would say, I don't even want to ask that question because I don't know what advice to. To give. Uh, so knowing that this, you know, that's in that evaluative feedback, right?

Yes.

And where you were saying, that's the one people do the least and don't necessarily think about and don't even know what they're. What they don't know in there. So it's sort of a very much like ostrich effect of, like, that's a thing that someday maybe I'll think about, but I don't have time for now. What sort of advice would you give to people about that?

So if you. If you don't want to put that out there because you're afraid the other person's going to freak out, then just give them the two options. Do you want to know what I love about your work? Do you want some advice? Is there something else that you'd like? You could. You could just leave out the. Do you want to know where you stand? If you think you're going to upset the other person by even suggesting that. But what I do recommend is that if you are. If you. If you manage people at least every six months, you should be sitting down with someone and letting them know where they stand. And you could. You can say to them, like, hey, I'm trying to get into this practice of letting people know to what extent they're meeting expectations, because I think this is something we kind of wonder about, but we don't articulate. So I'm practicing as a manager, getting better about that. So I'd like to give you some feedback on that so that the person doesn't feel as though, oh, my gosh, I'm hearing this because I'm screwing up left and right. But what I find is when managers do say, I'd like to let you know where you stand, because I think. Because I've been. I've been listening to podcasts or I'm doing my homework and I know this is an important thing that all. Way too few people get this kind of feedback. I want to let you know where you stand. Usually you have positive things to say about where they stand. You know, I went back over your job description, and you're doing, like, three things that go not even listed on your job description. I'm so impressed. And you're such a valuable asset to this team. What usually happens is managers come back and say, when I had those conversations where I let people know where they stand, the other person was so grateful that they've never had an manager do that for them, that it reassures them. You know, they had anxieties they hadn't articulated, and now they realize, oh, I'm exactly where I need to be and here's how I get to the next level. You know, if I want a promotion in the next year, here's what I need to be doing. It allows for those conversations to happen more fluidly.

Yeah. Well, I think even if people. So everyone who's listening, if you were sort of shying away from asking the where you stand question, know that, like, when you heard what Therese was saying about the. The what that actually means, right. Of how you're progressing and what I see and things you can be working on, you probably thought, man, I would love to hear that. If you think about. From your own boss, right, you would love to get that sort of feedback. And you probably don't, not for sure, but what we know, statistically, probably not. You have an opportunity to be the first one to start to give that and hope that there will be some sort of rippling effect that comes from it.

Right?

Because then you can go back, perhaps, and talk to your boss about how you've been giving this type of feedback to your employees and what you've been able to see, and then maybe they'll go, oh, I didn't even think about that. Maybe I should do that. Can I practice on you in whatever. Right. You can. Would be amazed at what can happen when you put in that little extra step. And I know it feels a little scary, but I think it's totally, totally worth it.

Absolutely. And it's really nice because it opens up an opportunity, you know, when you get into the conversation of where you stand relative to expectations, relative to what I, you know, what someone in your job is supposed to do. When you get into that kind of conversation, you can then get into a conversation of like, so are there any skills that you want to use in this job that you're not using yet? Right. You get into these, you get into some textured conversations that take you out of the normal day to day deadlines projects and you get into more career mentoring. And some of us have trouble moving into that space that doesn't come naturally to us. And these kinds of conversations of, hey, let's talk about where you stand relative to what I'm hoping for in your role. You can get into some nice mentoring.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to link to when Scott Miller was on the show recently, he was talking about his new book, the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship, which I think is a fantastic book. And I was thinking about his book a lot while reading yours, of course, and. But when you were just talking about that, it reminded me of something that I really loved in the book that was not in the prep questions I asked you. So if you don't have something to share at the moment, that's okay. But there was the piece on the me versus we type of work and tasks that people have and how that you can be identifying some of that and helping people. It may be jumping way too far because it was kind of late in the book, but if you're able to share a little bit about it, I think it would be helpful for people.

Yeah. So a distinction I make in the book, when you're giving appreciation to people, you know, we think about, we're going to talk about what someone's strengths are in their role and a distinction that I like to make. It's kind of a silly distinction in terms of the words, but the concept is so important. So the words are me strengths and we strengths. So a me strength is something that feeds that person. It makes them happy to be doing their job. And a we strength means the team is better because they do it. So an example that I ran into in my current organization, I work with someone who loves to design websites. It's not part of his job. It's not. It's just something he kind of does on the side. But you know, I think he would have been a graphic designer in another life just if he could hit the reset button. So when he gets to tinker with our organization's website, he just like he loves his. Those are the days, probably his favorite days at work. So when I was his supervisor, I used to give him opportunities to tinker with the website whenever I could. It wasn't the main part of his job, but it helped him love his job. So that was a me strength, whereas his weak strength, the thing that he didn't necessarily love but that he did so brilliantly is if there were a tense topic, he was masterful at making other people laugh and be comfortable about that topic. So let's say something like racism came up in a group discussion, and we're talking about racist policies in the organization. He could make it light without detracting from the topic. He could crack a joke that we would all laugh and kind of the tension would go down, and then we could dig back into the hard topic. And so it was really interesting when I was his supervisor and we would talk about his strengths in the role, I would let him know, you've got to let people know what their WE strengths are, because they're not going to gravitate towards those. But you want to let them know when you do this, it makes the entire team perform better. And if there are ways that I can make that easier for you, I want to do that because that is a unique strength that you bring. And you want to let people also do their ME strengths. But I don't need to tell him. He's great at web design. I mean, he likes to hear, but he already knows, you know. Right. It's. It feeds him. He gets in the flow. Right. When he's doing website design. So you want to give people the opportunity to exercise their ME strengths, but you want to make sure you comment on their WE strengths, because otherwise you not only want to give them chances to do it, but you want to let them know how valuable it is, because that they probably don't realize the impact they're having or they don't, you know, they might do it begrudgingly. And you want them. You don't. You just don't want them to ever stop doing it because it helps so much.

Yeah.

Well, and I think with that, too, like you're saying with the acknowledging the ME strength and that you see them. So I love the piece of the we strength. So it doesn't become a, oh, they're asking me again, but it's like they're looking to me again. Right. It feels good in that way.

Right.

And then with the me, like you were saying something with the website that probably doesn't come up all that often, and if you can try to find, maybe there are some other things that you don't know about that could come up. And so being able to say, hey, I know that, you know, you love. I've noticed you really love doing this website work, and I try to give that to you whenever we have it because I know that that's valuable. To you. But is there another me strength that I'm missing that we haven't seen that you would love to incorporate? Right.

Exactly. Beautifully said. Exactly. To find out what that. What that person might wish that they had a chance to do that right now is just a hobby. And if it were a chance, they had a chance to do it at work. Fabulous. And it might even turn into a we strength. I know someone who is very confident and that confidence. And she enjoys being persuasive. And it's both a me strength. Like, she enjoys persuading people and kind of bringing them onto her side. And it's also a we strength. Like they happen to be one and the same. So. Because it really helps the team that she can persuade, like she's the person to put in a tough negotiation. So it was really interesting because they can be the same, but they're often different. And I love your thought of asking someone, you know, what's one of your me strengths that I don't know about? Maybe. Maybe we can find room for it here.

Yeah. And the best thing about all of this, anything where you get a common language that you can be looking to.

That makes it easy for someone to.

Say, oh, hey, I realized this was such a me strength. I've never tried this before, but whatever. And it gives you the words to use and to communicate, you know, in a way that then helps people to have those conversations where when you don't know if anybody cares, you know, then sort of like, well, I guess I. That was fun. And then it just goes off into the ether. Right. But if you're able to have the conversation, say, thank you so much for giving me this project. I hope it was also a we strength and we would need it. But it was such a me strength for me. I really enjoyed X. And that's something that can just help as a way, again, to facilitate the conversation that I think would be really powerful.

Exactly. So both sides can use the language is what I hear you saying. Not just the manager, but the employee can bring it up. I love that.

Yeah.

So we've talked about now some of that evaluative feedback. We've talked about our appreciation.

And then there's the other stuff.

Yeah.

And so the coaching. I know that there can be some opportunities where this gets a little bit scary for people maybe sometimes to give some of that feedback, especially where it feels like it's something to improve upon, something you might need to change. Change. This is not quite into our moment of choose your own adventure, but I do have A couple avenues I think that I'm thinking of with this and things I know I wanted to talk with you about. So one is, and it might be part of a different area of feedback, but I'm really interested in, you know, how we side with the person and not the problem. I love, love the way you talked about that in the book. And then also I'm hoping we will have time to talk about how we cannot just give lots of advice and tell someone how to do something, especially when we see from a distance, like in the hotel example you give in the book. So potentially they just sort of flow together. But those are the two things I really want to make sure we don't.

Miss in the conversation. Very nice. So thank you. Thanks for cueing both of those up. So first, let's talk about siding with the person, not the problem, because that's one of my mottos and it's easiest if I had a diagram, but I can kind of explain it. So in most feedback conversations, there's three entities in the room. Let's say there's you, the feedback giver, let's assume you're the feedback giver. There's whatever the issue is, let's say there's a problem that you want to raise and then there's the feedback recipient. So the feedback giver, the feedback recipient, and whatever the issue in this case, let's assume there's a problem that you want to raise with the person. All too often people don't mean it, but as a feedback giver, they side with the problem. Especially people who are conflict avoidant. They'll think so much they, you know, they won't raise the problem and they won't raise the problem, but they're thinking about it and they're thinking about it and by the time they raise it, they are so cuddled up with that problem. Like, because in their mind it's now, you know, you've done the, you've done the frustrating thing 12 times, they've seen it happen that many times. They, they now feel justified in bringing it up, but they have really aligned themselves with the problem such that they are now, they don't mean to be, but they are kind of in attack mode and they're giving the long list of the times you've done this and all these different meetings and why it's damaging to the team and it's hurting their reputation and all kinds of things like that. So all too often people will inadvertently get so wrapped up in the problem, they're kind of siding with the problem. As a result, the other person, the feedback recipient, feels very much on their own. What I recommend is, whenever possible, side with the person, not the problem, side with the person. And this can become a nice little mantra so that if you're in a tough meeting and you're trying to figure out what to say, say to yourself, what would it mean if I sided with the person here? And the notion is, if you can imagine yourself kind of swinging around to their side of the table and the problem is now on the other side of the table, and the two of you are looking at it from the same vantage point, you're both sitting back with your arms crossed, being like, yeah, that is a real problem. All right, so what are some options here? Like, what. What's. What's up? What's on the table and what's off the table? What would you consider? What would. What's totally not. Not an option as an approach to solving that problem? The other person's going to feel so much more supported. Because you've also said that the problem isn't intrinsically woven into who they are. Right? You're like, the problem's over there. I know you can fix this. The question is, how do you want to fix it? And how can I support you in fixing it? Is there anything that I could do? Can I unblock you in some ways or something? I could move out of the way for you so you could solve that problem and the other person will feel so supported, just that your tone will change. We're in this together. I know you can solve this. And they'll feel like you're on their side. And if you can make that switch of, how could I side with the person right now? And the important part here is some people hear this, Melina, and they'll think, oh, you're saying I, you know, I. I need to be indirect or I need to kind of sugarcoat. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying you're still like, hey, that's. We can. I can see it's a problem. You can see it's a problem. Maybe they don't see it yet, but by the time you explain, like, hey, look, you know, in. In. In meetings, you're showing up 10 minutes late. I. I've noticed. So the way I would bring it up is like, so I've noticed that this morning's meeting, you were attending minutes late. And I'm concerned about that because I've noticed it's become a pattern on. On our Tuesday morning meetings. And have you noticed that? And the other person might be like, yes. Oh, this is so awkward. Yes, I have noticed. Okay, let me explain. Let me explain. Great, no problem. They explain. And they're like, okay, so I'm glad to know why it's happening. I'd love to help you think of how you can make sure, because that is important for you to be there on time. Everybody else kind of takes it as a cue. They're turning to you as the most senior person in the room besides me. And if you're late, they're thinking, well, maybe I can be late. Right, so you're helping them potentially see the impact. Now, what would be, you know, what's getting in your way and what strategies might work and to ask them questions? And this takes. Leads us into your second issue of, rather than saying, well, okay, here's what I need you to do. I just need you to be on time, right? Instead, like, what would help? What would help? What would help get you there? You know what, what strategies are you willing to try and what are you not willing to try? And often people will want to go first to like, well, here's what I can't do. I can't leave for work any earlier, or they're going to list their reasons of things that can't budge. That's fine. Let them get that off the table. Once they've exhausted that, then they're ready to, like, okay, well, now I'm just making excuses. All right, now let me move into problem solving mode with you. And, and to stay in that mode of kind of asking questions like, okay, great. All right, so I hear you saying you can't leave any earlier, but you're thinking that if you could catch an earlier bus, you know, if you, you didn't dawdle, if you, if you could get faster to the bus stop, that. That might help. Okay, great. So that, you know, it would. Is there, is there more to talk about there? And they're probably like, no, no, no, I'll figure that out. I'm like, okay, great. So that's one strategy. Are there other strategies that might work? But you're in the asking questions mode, because if they can articulate the solutions themselves, they're going to feel much more ownership over them than if you give it. Like, here's what I want you to try. If you can just help pull it out of them, right? Help them. And if, if they get stuck, then you can say, well, here's one thing I was thinking. Do you think this could work? Could you See, some way you could do something like that, or is that at all useful? But. But don't assume that you know the solution, because if your solution doesn't work, it becomes really quick for that other person to feel like you just don't understand the problem. Right. You don't understand them or you don't understand the problem. Whereas by asking questions, you help that person feel seen. Plus, you're going to learn a lot more about what they've already tried. Right. Chances are they've tried a couple of different things to make that Tuesday meeting on time that you don't know about. And so if you suggest one of those, they're going to be frustrated, like, well, of course I tried that. Right. You know, then they feel insulted because of course you've done whatever the obvious thing is. So asking questions is a much better way to go than to jump into. And the temptation. I think we get into recommendation mode because we're trying to solve the problem quickly, but we're actually going to. That other person's likely to put up barriers. We're going to solve the problem more quickly. If they articulate the solution themselves, it may take that conversation may take a little longer, but you're more likely to get behavior change faster if they articulate it, and they're more likely to stick with whatever they try.

Yeah, I'm definitely linking. And I know I mentioned to you that the IKEA effect was something I was thinking about constantly while reading the book and with the tips and everything in it. So I'm linking to that episode in the show notes and essentially for. For everyone that's not familiar with it yet, you know, that is, we like things more when we've had a hand in making them.

Yes. Right.

My wonky table is way better than what everything you put together, even if you're a professional. Right. And so when we're able to be a part of crafting that solution and coming up with the idea ourselves, then you feel, you know, I pitched it, it's on me if it does. You know, you're gonna try a little bit harder. Like in this sort of conversation that. That you're talking about. So that episode is linked for everyone in the show notes to check out. And I also. And oh, I made it. So it was the refresh right before this one. So that makes it real easy. So with this, you gave an example in the book that had to do that was at a hotel that was talking about this. And I hope it's like in there enough in a way that you spent enough time crafting it or remember the story that you can share. But I think it really shows how easy, easy it is to give the advice in, in a way that then is totally missing the mark and we don't necessarily realize it. Can you share that story a little bit?

I forget the pseudonyms I use because these are people that I interviewed and so we all just make up new pseudonyms. I just won't use their real names. So I'm going to call him Pablo. Pablo's working for a major HR firm and he's sitting in the lobby of really expensive hotel. It's evening, you know the kind of. The lobby's quiet because it's getting close to 10pm and he's having drinks with the manager of the general manager of the hotel and they're. Pablo's gonna run a workshop for them the next morning he's flown in from out of town so he's staying at the hotel. And anyway they're just having a nice chat about how the last workshops went and how tomorrow's is going to go. And this guest comes in, a woman comes in in a huge rush, a business. She's in a business suit and she's kind of juggling her wallet and her phone and her bag. And she gets to the front desk and they're far enough away from the front desk that Pablo and the general manager can't quite hear the conversation, but kind of there's the exchange of cards, there's the fluster of getting the hotel room key and suddenly the guest is off and she's on her phone and she's gone. And the general manager goes over, he's just like, hey, I'm gonna go check and see what happened because there was clearly some tension there. And the general manager goes over to talk with the. I forget the rest of the story. Do you want to help me with the key details? Because it's been too long.

Oh yeah.

So it was the person at the desk. And then since I read it yesterday on a plane. Fun enough, you know.

Thank you.

It's here.

And the manager then goes up and gives all the like advice about how she could have been more courteous and given examples of things and walked her through the stuff of the hotel and all these like best practices of this way to make and asking for details about her day and how her flight was and like asking a bunch of questions to help have this, this moment of engagement with the guest. And then the general manager walks away feeling like haha, I've done It, you know, and the employee looks very. We'll say despondent. Right? They were frustrated.

Yes. Okay, Can I. I can pick it up from there. Thank you so much. Yes. General manager even, like, looks over at Pablo and, like. Like, does the thumbs up. Like, look, look what a great job I just did. And Pablo's like, yeah, I think. I'm not sure about that. So he goes up to talk to, let's say, Camille, the person who just handled this guest. And he's like, how's it going? And Camille's like, oh, fine. You know, she just immediately goes into her, like, happy mode. Like, I'm in my professional mode. And Pablo's like, no, really, how are you doing? He's like, I just saw that. What just happened? She's just like, oh, it's okay. You know, the guest was very frustrated, but, you know, I should have made a personal connection. You know, I should have. I should have asked her. Asked her about her day and asked her some questions. You know, I should have done that. That might have helped. And he's like, talk to me, talk to me. What? What really? What just really happened? Right? Because she's basically parroting back to Pablo what the general manager said she should have done, right? To ask about her day. And, like. And Pablo's like, hey, come on, talk to me. Talk to me. You can talk to me. What happened? Because he recognizes Camille from the last workshop that he did. He's like, what really happened? And then the desk attendant kind of breaks, and she was like, okay, well, so she, you know, she just got in from a late flight. She said she's supposed to be on the phone with Asia. Like, her phone. Her meeting has already started. But because her flight was late, she missed the beginning of this important call that took weeks for her to schedule. And so I thought the most important thing I could do was just, like, get her to her room as fast as possible. But, you know, I. I should have formed a connection, and my opportunity is lost because now she's already in her meeting. And Pablo's like, what else could you do? What could you still do now? And she's like, well, nothing. You know, her meeting has started. She's in her room. She's in for the night. Pablo's like, let's think about it. Talk to me. What else could you still do? How could you still form a personal connection? So he's asking questions, right? He's not giving any advice. He just keeps asking questions. And she goes through a couple of different thoughts, and then she it dawns on her, she's like, like I could put a note under her door. I could put a note under her door that says something like, you know, if you need anything from me, I'm at the desk until 6:00am you know, my name is Camille and if there's any way that I hope, I hope you got your 30 year call to Asia. I hope you made it on time. I'm here for you if you need anything. So she decided this is what she's going to do. She goes, she writes the note, she slips it under the desk and Pablo's feeling like, good job, good job. She's going the extra mile to make that personal connection. And a couple of days later there was a five star review posted by that guest naming Camille by name on the review site for the hotel. So it's just a beautiful illustration that if Pablo had jumped in with his advice giving just like the general manager did, he wouldn't have gotten all the details of why this was so hard. Plus, if he had suggested something to Camille, she might have seen problems with it. But instead, because he kept asking like, what could you do? You know, it's not too late, she's here till morning, what could you do? She was able to come up with something that she was proud of and then got her a five, you know, got the hotel a five star review. Whereas, you know, maybe this client or this hotel guest wouldn't have left a single review. I don't leave most, I don't leave five star reviews even if I have a good experience most places. But she helped her come up with her own solution. She owned it. She had a proud moment and the guest had a great experience.

I love it.

And what I really love about that is it also helps to showcase something you talk about, you know, quite a lot in the book that there are so many opportunities to be giving feedback. It's not just the like, well, it's your annual review and it's time, right? So in this case we can ask.

A thoughtful question here.

We can be suggest making a kind comment there. It doesn't have to be formal to be giving feedback. And I think the perfect thing to close on before, before we have, you know, contact info and people to reach out is the ratio of praise to other types of feedback. Because I'm betting that our listeners are going to be surprised by what the research shows as far as how much praise we should be giving for, to balance out that, you know, kind of more constructive feedback.

I, you're absolutely right. Most people Think it's going to be like a two to one ratio. Like the best performers get two pieces of praise to every piece of criticism. University of Michigan research shows it's way different than that. It's about 5.6 pieces of praise. The top performers in real companies get 5.6 pieces of praise to every one piece of criticism. And the reason you might think, well, they're the best performers. That's why they get the praise. But actually the research shows often the praise comes first. So it's like applause and then great performance. Because when you get the applause, you know that like somebody's paying attention and my work will go recognized. And so people raise their effort when they know that they've already been seen and thanked for the great work. So up your praise and even give it before the great work has been done.

Love it.

Such great feedback to be able to give there. And I'm, I'm guessing too, as people are listening, they went wait 2 to 1. Like I was maybe thinking 1 to 1 or like I don't do I give good positive feedback at all. Right. So just the we can't over praise I think is. And like going out of our way to make those positive comments. You know, you can practice. There are so many things we think all the time that seem like simple little throwaway comments and we think the other person won't care or they don't need to hear it or they probably know it. And whatever it is, assume that they don't just say it, just say it, practice saying it. And it can definitely have such a positive impact for sure. So as we close out the show, for everyone who is excited to connect and learn more and get to know you a little bit better, what is their best path to do so.

So you can find my book. Let's talk how to make effective feedback your superpower anywhere you like to buy books, whether that's online or in a brick and mortar store, it's available everywhere. And you can also reach out to me on my website, Therese Houston.com so that's T H E R E S E H U s t o n.com so Therese Houston.com I'd love to hear from you. And I, I'm just such a treat to be here. Molina, thank you.

Oh, of course.

Thanks so much for joining me and so everyone knows we will of course put those links in the show notes to make it nice and easy for you. So thank you again for joining me for this talk.

I look forward to the next one.

Likewise. Thanks so much. Marina, have a great day. You too.

Thank you again to Dr. Therese Houston for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I'm such a fan of anything that's using science based insights to have better conversations with team members, helping with their development and growth. Even such a simple shift of not siding with the problem that reframe. It's so small but so impactful for the employee and for yourself.

And what I really love about that.

Is that anyone can do it immediately.

Whether you're a brand new manager or.

You'Ve been doing this for decades. This is a simple mental reframe that you can implement easily and it has some physicality to it that helps make it sticky. What I mean by that is so many concepts in business and behavioral science are super abstract and hard to imagine and relate to and therefore you're less likely to remember them. This is why I give so many examples where you imagine yourself in a scenario. It helps it feel real, and you're more likely to remember that story when you're in the moment and need the insight. In this case, you can imagine yourself buddied up with the problem, siding with it, and pointing at the employee to focus on all the things they're doing wrong. You can then imagine yourself stepping away from the problem, turning around, putting your metaphorical arm around your employee to look at the problem. Then from this perspective, you can ask a reframing question like am I siding with the problem right now? Or how might this feel different if I were on the same side as my employee? You get the idea. But this can be implemented with so many of the other pieces of advice in Teresa's Reese's Book and from our conversation today.

I can't wait to hear how you.

Implement the ideas and what stuck with you the most. So please do come find us on social media links in the show notes and know that I'm the brainy biz pretty much everywhere. Melina Palmer on LinkedIn as always, there are details and links in the show notes for everything, including my top related past episodes, articles and books, including Less Lets Talk, Ways to Connect with Therese, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 381 and thank you again to Dr. Terese Houston for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit the brainybusiness.com.