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Hey, everyone, this is Chris
with Hacking your Leadership. On today's discussion

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on employee engagement. I want to
talk about feedback because I think a feedback

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rhythm and a feedback cycle is one
of the key things that will lead to

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better employee engagement. Employees who don't
receive feedback regularly are typically far less engaged

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because of feedback is what we use
to kind of level set where we are

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in our work. Feedback has had
a kind of negative connotation. It's like

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you get feedback when you've done something
wrong. But feedback is much more than

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that. And where in places where
feedback is a natural part of the culture

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and done well, not just said
that it's a natural part of the culture,

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but it actually is a natural part
of the culture, you will have

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higher employee engagement. And I think
it is it's one of the key things

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that will let employees understand where they
sit with their teams and with their leaders,

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and it will allow them to be
more confident in the decisions they're making

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going forward. It's like it's like
the occasional speed limit signed on the side

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of the road. If they just
went away. People have a harder time

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figuring out how fast to drive.
These the feedback that employees get daily and

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weekly and monthly, those are the
road signs that will help them kind of

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navigate the waters and kind of figure
out where they can do the best work.

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Yeah, exactly. I think that
people say feedback is a gift,

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and it's in the context of when
somebody is giving you something to help you

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be more successful, to help you
learn, to help you grow. It's

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coming from a place of genuine like
help, Like these are things that can

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help to shape us and make us
better people, make us better leaders.

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But to your point, I think
that sometimes you hear the word feedback and

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instead of like thinking about it as
a as a positive means of learning to

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moving forward, you think of like
the feedback you get when you put a

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microphone next to a speaker, and
it's just negative and it hurts and you

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don't want to hear it. But
it's also always about how it's also delivered

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and the consistency of it being delivered
and how it's being delivered, Like these

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things matter so much to be able
to get people to appreciate it and to

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value it. Then I think that
that's something that from a leadership standpoint,

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you really have to think about how
is feedback delivered? Is what is the

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context, when is it delivered,
how is delivered, who delivers it?

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Like, those things really really matter, especially when you lead a team of

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leaders, when you have multiple leaders
that may approach it differently, have different

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ways of talking about it, have
different ways of delivering it. If you've

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not spent the time to observe that, to listen, to be involved in

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it, then you can just assume
that they all do it the same and

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what you'll find out is there's a
very different experience of feedback when it comes

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to your larger teams. When I
think about where this is done right or

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how it's done right, there are
two things that I think are the most

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important. One is that it has
to be scheduled regularly, like on a

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rhythm on an interval. It's not
feedback is given when it's needed. It's

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feedback is given at this interval and
whatever is needed at the time gets discussed

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at that time along with if nothing
specific is needed, then it's feedback on

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what is being done correctly, what
can be done to tweak things that you

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wouldn't necessarily you know, schedule time
to go over with an employee. But

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because you have the time already scheduled, it's a great time to go over

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these little things, the things that
that wouldn't rise to the occasion of needing

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a one on one or a sit
down, but you have it anyway,

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so absolutely go over it. These
are these are the places where you can

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remove the negative connotation from feedback because
it's unlikely that they're all going to be

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negative. If they are, then
that that employe probably needs to go.

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But if you have things scheduled regularly, weekly, bi weekly and you're actually

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following through with them, you're not
going to have, you know, feedback

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on what they can be doing better. You know, from a critical standpoint,

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every single one of those meetings you're
gonna it's going to be mostly positive

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feedback or level setting or or things
they can take on that they want to.

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That's the whole point is that you
get the employee to a rhythm where

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they feel good about this process,
and then when it has to be critical,

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then it is absorbed better than if
the only time you have feedback with

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them is when it is critical,
and then you try to sandwich that criticism

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with the positive things they're doing well
with the you know, the the bad

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sandwich between the good, in the
hopes that you will kind of dilute it

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a little bit. That doesn't work
anymore. The only way to dilute it

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is to make sure that the rhythm
of feedback is so natural and so a

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part of their their their daily work
life, that the critiques are absorbed in

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the exact same way. The other
thing that I think is really important to

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do, and it's just as important
as having a rhythm, is the feedback

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has to not just be void of
a personal motive, but void of the

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perception of a personal motive, and
so on a very you know, basic

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level. I think back to when
I was in college and you get the

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end of semester thing where you can
give the professor feedback on the class,

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and the questions were all very good
questions like you know, what, what

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could this? What could you do
better? What did I not like about

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it? What did I like about
it? And the professors that wanted those

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things done before the grades were issued, I, you know, they definitely

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did not get honest feedback from me
because they were still they still had my

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grade in their hands. Now would
they have ever done anything with that?

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I don't know, but it was
enough of a of a of a of

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a detractor for me to not want
to give them on his feedback. Then

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they're the professors who said, I'm
giving you the link to do this,

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Please don't do it until after the
grade is in the system. You can

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do it up until you know,
two weeks after the course ends. Wait

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till you get the grade, then
do it. And it's like, oh,

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this person actually wants wants on his
feedback. They want to be able

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to get better at the things they're
not doing. If you're if you were

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giving feedback from a standpoint of this
is what this person can do to make

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my life easier, you've already failed. If you're giving feedback from the standpoint

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of I really want to see this
person succeed and these are the roadblocks that

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are getting in the way, then
you are at least approaching it from the

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right standpoint. But if you're already
in the mindset of this person has done

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something that is that is annoying to
you, or that is hurting your productivity

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or your work, that can be
when it is most natural to want to

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give somebody feedback and you need to
take a step back and figure out how

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best to approach this, because if
it's truly rooted in something they've done to

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you, you may be the wrong
person to give that feedback, or it

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may be the wrong time to give
that feedback until you kind of think through

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what the you know, kind of
the right way to approach it is.

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I want to go over some advice
to leaders here and what to do to

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best do this if you're not used
to this, But first I want to

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give it toward to one of our
sponsors. All right, if you're a

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leader and you're trying to figure out
how to get a good feedback rhythm in

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place, the best thing to do
is to start with scheduling it, meet

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with each person individually and find a
rhythm that works best for them. There

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are some employees who would look at
weekly feedback meetings as micromanaging and they don't

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want that. There are some employees
who would look at bi weekly meetings as

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not often enough because they really want
that constant feedback. If you schedule it

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on an interval that works for the
relationship you have with that individual person,

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you can't go wrong as long as
you also give them, you know,

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kind of open the door to let
them say, Hey, if after a

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month or two, this rhythm isn't
working for you, let me know and

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we'll change it up because I want
to make sure that it works best for

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you. This is very important to
do because the regularly scheduled feedback is where

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you again, you can kind of
get this person comfortable with the bi directional

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feedback so that when the critiquing comes
it is much easier to handle. Yeah.

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I also think too, you know, it's asking people, you know

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what I mean, like like specifically
saying like how do you want to get

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feedback? Like they're going to be
there going to be times when looking at

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the work that you're doing. There
will be times when I'm going to see

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that the things could maybe be different
or more efficient, or maybe there was

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a mistake that was made, Like
we all make mistakes, Like what is

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the best way for me to deliver
that feedback? And how do you want

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that to deliver that? I think
sometimes the answer is there. Some people

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are just like you know, I
could just tell me like, hey,

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I need to give you some feedback
on that last project, right like I

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need to give you some feed Hey, there's some things that I've observed I

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need to give you some feedback on
when is a good time sitting and to

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give you that. Like I think
sometimes if we ask people and we find

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out what their preference is, it
does make it easier to have those conversations

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where a lot of times we never
ask and we just say like, well,

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this is this is the way that
you give feedback and here's how you

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have a conversation with someone, and
we we kind of allow those, you

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know, those assumptions to be the
driving force on how we deliver something without

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really asking, or we do it
and then we say, okay, well,

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how how was that or what you
know, what feedback do you have

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for me, versus starting the conversation
with like, we know we're going to

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have those we know we're gonna have
these moments, so so how do you

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want maybe approach these moments when they
happen. What's the best way for me

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to do that so that you know, we know that this is something that's

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being done to help you and not
something that's being done to attack. Right.

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So this whole idea of prescriptive feedback, I think is kind of what

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you're touching on here, and that
in the lack of a feedback environment.

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Having prescriptive feedback is better than no
feedback, right, Like, you have

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to start somewhere when the relationship is
good between two people. The feedback doesn't

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have to be prescriptive. It can
be just a conversation, but it's important

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to have it be prescriptive. If
there's nothing and the leader isn't really sure

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how to move forward with this,
it's just important to call out that it

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is. So if a leader,
if you're sitting down with somebody and you

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don't have a regular feedback rhythm with
them and you don't have a relationship with

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them, you can say, as
the leader, now this is what the

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organization is telling me how I should
go about having this feedback conversation with you.

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And that's fine. We can go
through the motions and do these.

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If it doesn't feel right or natural, we can discuss how to change it

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up to make this better for us, because at the end of the day,

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what I want is a positive relationship
where we can give bi directional feedback.

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If this is a starting point,
so be it. But I don't

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want you to think that this is
what we have to do every time.

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We can go through this in a
way that is best for you if you,

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as a leader go through a prescriptive
feedback process and don't call that out

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as prescriptive. It can look like
you have no desire to have a relationship

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with that person. It can look
like what you want to do is go

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through the prescriptive process. Again,
it's a starting point and it should only

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be used when either you're starting out
a relationship with somebody or when it is

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progressed to the point where the feedback
has to be you really have to dot

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your eyes and cross your t's because
you want to make sure that employee understands

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the gravity of the situation and what
must be done in order to you know,

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potentially affect you know, job altering
changes. And so those are the

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really only two situations where you really
have to you know, follow a prescriptive

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guide. Usually this should be a
conversation amongst between a leader and an individual

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where it's bi directional and it feels
natural and it feels like you accomplish something

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as a team of two people.
I appreciate you listening to this conversation on

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employee engagement. Join us again next
Thursday for another one. Have a great day,