06. Leadership: Constructive Criticism?

Hey, my friend, welcome back to Leadership in a Nutshell where we are cracking the code of the driven mind. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman and I want to jump into episode six straight away. This is something that is near and dear to my heart and I hear it from clients, I hear it from followers that, you know, I've spent a lot of my career being challenged in this capacity. Today we're here to talk about constructive criticism. Now I just, before we get into this, think about that for a minute, put those two words together. Well, on one hand I'm going to be constructive with you, and on the other hand, I'm going to literally criticize you as a human being in your performance, what you do. But I'm going to frame this around being constructive. Come on, what are we talking about here in Mindful Leadership? When we think about, you know, Leadership in a Nutshell is about breaking down certain things. And we go, what are some of the words that I'm saying? Because I was taught those words. Because in the 80s management movement, this might have been something that worked. And we rather than, you know, back in the day, it was like, hey, you suck at this and here's why. Stop it or I'll fire you. Right? If you come up through the 50s, 60s, 70s, whatever. And then all of a sudden in the 80s, it's like people's feelings matter. Maybe we better frame this a little bit differently. Maybe we better talk about their feelings, therefore, hey, by the way, Johnny, I'm going to criticize you, but I'm going to do it. Construct. Stop the madness, right? I'm not telling you what to call your write up forms or your team member feedback forms. And in the service business that I owned started ran for 24 years, it was, we had what we turned involved into what we called a team member communication form. And that's all it is, right? So here's the thing. Whether it's something that I want to capture that we've had a change, whether it's something that you're maybe not getting done, whether it's something that is completely not acceptable, that has happened a couple of times. And perhaps as a leader, I can speak frankly to you here today. It's why we're doing this work together in these episodes together. Here's the reality. You might need to be building that file if you know that you might need to depart from this team member, depending on state law, depending on different things. Take note, if you're in California, right? I mean, sorry, a lot of our clients operate in that amazing state. I was born in San Diego. I don't operate a business there other than our clients that we help and serve there. But the reality is sometimes I do need to build my war chest a little bit in case I'm going to decide to part ways with this team member. Right. So when this takes place, I know that I've got to have some things, but what I want to really dive into and just get on the table here with our short time together today. Remember we do ten 15 minute episodes shot in the arm. Something to quick think about today's topic. I want you to think about how do you feel about it? Not so much that team member even or the conversation that you're about to have, but I want you to think about when you're getting ready to have what I'll put in air quotes here. The difficult conversation. If I know I've got to have the difficult conversation with a team member if I know that I've got to lay their performance on the line, I know that they may take things personally. Right? One of the greatest books written on human behavior and peace and understanding and being clear with yourself and your mind. I've mentioned it before, the Four Agreements. Don Miguel Ruiz. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Phenomenal book. And One of the Four Agreements is not taking things personally. As leaders, you and I struggle with it. Our frontline team really struggles with it. If I get get called into the office, how about this? I go back to my service business days. How many, how many of you have had an experience where you have somebody, you text them now or you shoot a message out or tell dispatch, hey, when, when Joey gets here, have him come to my office and Joey walks in and sits down. And I had a team member named Jack for some period of time that would literally he'd come in and be like, you know, all nervous and whatnot and go, what's going on boss? And I'm like, hey, you know, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Am I losing my job? Am I getting fired? What I do? Or the people that walk into your office joking go, well, it's been a good run, but I guess we've come to an end here. Think about what's going on. You know, I've always talked about the question behind the question. Where are these team members minds at when they're thinking, oh my gosh, I'm getting called in to communicate with my boss, that means I must be getting fired now. They say it jokingly and off the cuff because they want to create a little bit of, you know, laughter. And guess what? People say things like that because why? They're uncomfortable. People don't like to be uncomfortable. There's a thing in speaking where we talk about uncomfortable silence. If I really want to make a point, if I really want you to just think about something I said, and right now it would be about how sometimes silence makes people uncomfortable, right? And you're like, wait a minute, let's keep going, man. Come on. What happened? Did the recording die? What's. What's the deal? Right? And so we just think about these things and we go, holy cow. Sometimes, you know, people get uncomfortable for different reasons. But I want you to. I got a couple takeaways for you at the end of our time here together. But the first thing is really constructive criticism. What does that mean to you? I don't like the word criticism. I don't believe in failure. I think, you know, I write in my change books and the training that I do and the speaking that I do, just like this here with you today. I don't believe in failure. I only believe in results. I don't believe in criticism. I believe in feedback. You might want to write that down. If you're driving, don't write it down. If you're in a place where you can write it down, make sure that you do that or come back and listen to this episode again. Make sure that, you know, that's why we called it a team member communication form. All I'm doing is communicating some feedback right now. And sometimes it might be about the result that you're getting that I really love. And it might be about a result that I really think you can bring a little another level, another, higher part of your best self to the game. Right? And sometimes it's straight up going to be, look, we've had this conversation time and time again. I don't want to have this conversation any longer. I don't want to be back here in a week talking about this. You keep on elevating the bar, but it's still just feedback and communication. It doesn't have to be criticism. When you, when you go to a place. Check this out. When you go to a place of criticism. Now, I'm creating you and me. I'm creating that division. I'm creating this place where I'm against you. If we were to drop on a, on a, you know, in a ping pong table environment, I'm on one side of the court, you're on the other side of the court. And now we're going to volley back and forth. I don't believe in communication like that. I believe that we could play handball on a team together where there's the wall and we're both going against our opponent, which in this case is the behavior that we're not getting, that maybe you want to get and you're not capable to, or that I want you to get and you don't have any desire to get. Right. So as leaders, we just need to look at all the things we do, all the things we say, all the things we feel, all the things we communicate, all the things we influence and yes, that's right. There's a lot of things right. Here's the reality. Your team is watching everything that you do, every single thing that you do, as well as everything that you don't do. And going back to this, if I have a negative connotation, I know early in my career I didn't want constructive criticism. I came out of the Army. In the army, you flew under the radar, right. I learned early on, don't volunteer for anything. Don't be the best at anything, don't be the worst. If we're going on a five mile post run, don't be at the front of the pack and by God, don't be at the back of the pack with Specialist. What was his name? Calabresi. Right. With Private Calabresi. I guess in boot camp when I was really learning these lessons, he was my battle buddy and Calabresi was from the Bronx in New York, and boy, he was going to fight with those drill instructors because he came from the city and he had something to say. And my little tale coming from small town Colorado went, you fight your battle brother. I'm going to be right in here in the middle of the pack. Right? But as leaders, we don't. That's not where we roll. Right. We've got to make a point. But I know that if I feel negative about how I communicate, if I need to have a conversation with you, but I feel like I need to criticize. It's not in my DNA. I've got my team now. I've got a team of coaches and speakers and frontline team. And if there's behavior that doesn't align with some way, shape or form, we do feedback after every single event. We do every session that we do live as the trainers, we give each other feedback. I don't attack my team and go, hey, you did this or you. I wouldn't do that. It's like, hey, here's some perspective, here's some thought, here's how the audience might have taken that or heard that. Maybe you can kick it up a notch here or there. Think about it for yourself. Couple takeaways today. I want you to write down what you currently call your write up form. I'll put that in air quotes, your constructive criticism feedback form, your team member communication form. Just think about some transformational vocabulary. Is there a way that you might want to name that if somebody's coming in and you're going, yep, I'm here to write you up. They might have a little different communication thought. If they're coming in and they're having a conversation about communication in order to get better, the second thing I want you to think about today is, is how do you feel? I'm going to go to my gut here. How do you feel when you are getting ready for one of these meetings? The next time you get ready to have communication with a team member where you got to coach them up to a higher level of behavior, knowing they've got more. Check your gut. How do you feel? If it doesn't feel good, you might be wanting to change your perspective and change your mindset. I want to thank you for your time. Please, if you're enjoying what we're doing here, please give us a rate. Give us a review. All of you on the line know how important reviews are. Really appreciate you playing full out with us. Keep it growing. Keep the communication going. I'm working on building this community together so we can take a few times a week where we just get together, have a little shot of confidence. That's what it's about. And when I look at constructive criticism, I might want to put that on the table and change it. This has been episode 6 of Leadership in a Nutshell, Cracking the code of the Driven Mind. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. I'll see you real soon.