113: MMM - On Feedback, Part One: Give Them an A!

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world, and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh, so we're waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey movers, it's Friday, which means it is Mini Moved Me Day, and today, as I teased in the last episode, today and for the next few Fridays, we're gonna be talking about feedback, the concept of feedback. And here's the deal. After I get done working with somebody, I always ask them for feedback for myself on my coaching, the speaking, the trainings, partly because I want to be sure that what I'm doing is working and I want to know ways that I can get better, of course, but also because I, as a part of my job, give so much feedback. It's only right to offer people a chance to give some to me. And one of the things that I hear again and again is that I have a way of giving candid feedback in a loving way, in a way that people appreciate and hear and can learn from. And honestly, it's one of the highest compliments that I have received in my work, and I appreciate it greatly, not only because it makes me an effective coach, but because That's how I want to do business. I want to help people be better speakers, but I also want to hold people up and celebrate them. That is really important to me as a person because I love people and I want them— I do want— I want them to feel good as well as do good work. And there was a time in my work when I wondered, can you do both? Can you 'Celebrate people and be honest with them?' And me wondering that, I think, is a really old paradigm of thinking. So I am so glad today to debunk that for you. You can do both. In fact, I think all things work best when you do do both. So, not that there aren't times when you're giving a hard message that isn't welcome. That happens a lot. It's part of the job, and I'm often hired to do exactly that, to give a tough message. But who cares, and does it even matter if the people that I'm giving the feedback to end up feeling deflated and defeated after that message? Because then it doesn't. It doesn't matter. So as I start the series on feedback for the next few Fridays, I wanted to share with you, uh, for the next 4 Fridays, 4 key ideas that are essential in giving and receiving feedback in a way makes us better all the way around. So today we're gonna start with part 1, and that is this idea: when you are giving feedback, start with an A. And this— not all of these parts are just aimed at feedback givers, but today part 1 is aimed at feedback givers. And this idea of starting with an A came from when I got to see Ben Zander speak last year Xander, and I wrote about it on the blog. I'll include a link in the notes so you can go check it out. He is a really fairly famous TED speaker, and he's truly one of my most favorite speakers I've ever seen live, and that is saying something. And if you've seen his TED Talk, you know what I'm talking about. He's brilliant, creative, joyous. I felt so wowed by his insight and his presence. But okay, this isn't really about Ben Xander. Is about something Ben Zander articulated, which really captures an essential element to giving feedback. Ben talked about, as a teacher and a guide for his students, he starts by giving them an A. They don't have to prove themselves to him before he says, "You're great." They don't have to impress him. They don't have to do anything but show up and know that they are already awesome in his eyes. Because if you're a good coach and you give helpful and honest feedback and you invest in the relationship and you believe that people are capable of learning and that your insight can help, and this person decides to work for it, of course, well then indeed it will become a worthy. And I saw it happen when I was there at the Benzander event. He invited this young student who was in high school up to play in front of him. I mean, can you imagine the pressure that this young man was facing because he was playing in front of this world-famous conductor and how scary that could be. But Ben Zander's whole spirit told this young man he already has an A, he's already got it. And it put the pressure more on Ben than it does on the student. The pressure should be on the feedback giver more than the feedback receiver. Giving him an A for the sheer courage of stepping up there and sharing his talent allows the performer to let go, get creative, access their true abilities, cooperate, and— and this is no small thing— enjoy the experience, which is so essential in speaking. After all, if the speaker's having fun, so will the audience. And this is something I hadn't articulated like that before, but that's something that I have always done with my speakers. And I worried early on in my career that I wasn't being tough enough, that my desire to please and make sure these lovely people understood that I loved them would get in the way of me also telling them the truth. But here's what I've learned and what Ben Zander was talking about. I do actually love them. You need to love the precious people who have so bravely stood up in front of you and who, with the power of that love and that connection and that A that you've given them, that they are capable of big things. And I'm not talking about giving a fake feedback sandwich, you know, like the positive, negative, positive. Though truly, if you've got to give somebody a big bite of a negative, it doesn't hurt to remind them what they do well too, okay? But I'm talking about Starting with love, just start with the A, believing people are capable of doing great things and that the next phase in better is in there, and it is simply up to you to show it to them and help them see it for themselves. Well, what better way to do that than to let them know that you believe it? I mean, sometimes we have to believe it for them before they can believe it themselves. Start with an A. That is your first part, the first lesson in this feedback series. I'm really, really excited to dive into this stuff because I think it's so essential. I do it really great in, in my professional life. I'm, I'm, I feel like I I've mastered the feedback thing in my professional life, but of course in our personal lives it's never that easy. And so it's good for all of us to be reminded of these things because giving and receiving feedback is just a huge life lesson. And so regardless of whether this applies to you as a speaker or a changemaker, it applies to— it applies to us as humans too. So I hope this is valuable for you. Thanks so much for joining me on today's mini Moved Me. I'll see you next Friday for the part 2 on the feedback series where we're going to be talking about legoing your ego. Lego of your ego. Cute little play on words there. So yeah, that's next Friday. But next week on the show, I'll be talking to Vanessa Van Edwards, who is so Duh! Duh duh duh duh—