Creating a Culture of Friendly Feedback

Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. Feedback gets a bad rap. It really, really does. But you know what? It can be really, really helpful with your team, in your business, whatever it is that you're doing, if you use it the right way. As a TV producer for many, many years, we used feedback regularly after every single thing that we did, right? If we had a piece we put together or a show that was going on, we gave each other feedback. We had a postmortem discussion about what went well, what did not go well, and what we could change or not change in the future. And literally the future was the next day, 'cause we were doing it all over again. Now I know not every business works that way, but I have a couple of tips for you about how to use feedback in your own company to be able to not only get people involved and allow them to have their voice be heard, but to also make sure that you're putting out the very best product, no matter what that is possible. Okay. And create an environment and a culture of friendly feedback. Because if we start to, you know, go down this, this road, we can really make things a lot easier on both sides, both for management and also for employees for sure. But first, I have a free resource for you. It is my free list-making starter kit, which you can grab at paularizzo.com/list. I'm also a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and I have a whole bunch of courses that can help you in all areas of your life to be more productive. There's one called Enhanced Productivity in a Hybrid Work Environment that I think you'll really like. And if you have any questions while you're watching the video or watching the replay, please leave them below and tag a friend if you know somebody who might be interested in this content. Okay, so feedback styles. Are not one size fits all. So that's what we need to remember here, right? Everybody is a little bit different. Everybody does things differently. And so if, you know, you need to, to have a way of giving negative and positive feedback, sometimes circumstances demand giving feedback in the moment, but not always. So to be able to come up with a system, you know, for your team to be able to say, okay, how are we going to do feedback? Are we going to do it right now in the moment in real time? Or are we going to save it for, you know, a meeting at the end of the week. And also, how do you personally like to receive feedback? Are you a public person? Are you a private person? You know, if you do something really well, do you not want your boss to mention it to you in front of everybody because you'll be embarrassed? These things matter. So, you know, make sure that you have these conversations with your team because it makes all the difference. If you're, you know, giving feedback or telling somebody what a great job or not so great job they did in front of other people, and that's not how they they want to get feedback, it can be a real riff. So make sure that you have that conversation early. You know, reviews don't need to be once a year. I hope you at least have a review once a year. That would be the minimum that you do. And in fact, the producer of this show, Allie Keller, who was on the other end of this production, mentioned to me that she had never had a review ever in any of her jobs except for working with me. And I found that nuts. I was like, what? How does that work? So, You know, Ali is not alone, I'm hearing, right? There's a lot of other people who maybe, maybe you included, have not had an annual review. I think that's crazy because you want to be able to take time, not annually, maybe it could be monthly or quarterly, to check in with your staff and see, okay, how's it going? How's the job that you're doing? Are you enjoying it? Do you like these things? What are the things that you thought you would like and you don't? And sometimes we can take it off your plate and sometimes we can't, you know, but as a manager, to be able to say, what are the other things in my business that you're not necessarily doing that maybe you would like to do, because that's how you get people who want to stay with you. You look at them as a person and you say, what are you interested in? What are the things that, that really light you up, that make you excited? Maybe we can experiment some new projects for you and see how that goes. This is an open communication that should happen more than once a year, for sure. Listening is one of the biggest and best things that you can do when creating this friendly environment for feedback. If someone tells you something, Listen to them. And then if you can make a change, do it. And if you can't make a change, tell them why you can't. Okay? Because that's really important because that way you'll be able to say like, I've heard you. I understand that that's important, but we can't have a 2-day work week because it's just not going to work for me, you know, for whatever reason. So to be able to give that information back to that person is really, it's key. And, you know, try it out. Make sure that you start to do this and open it up. And I think the best way to do it is just say to people, look, I'm trying to be better at giving and receiving feedback. How do you like to receive feedback? And just start there. Before I go, I have a free gift for you. It's my list-making starter kit that you can grab at paularizzo.com/list. If you have any questions about this, please leave them in the chat boxes below, and I'll see you soon.