Inside Out Culture
Cath Bishop and Colin Ellis - two people who have been at the heart of workplace culture for over 3 decades host a regular podcast that offers an insider’s view on culture and provides tangible actions that you can take on the outside.
As best-selling authors and consultants who work with cultures around the world, they not only talk about what's happening in the world of work right now, but also provide evidence and commentary to help you change the way you do things too.
From kindness to toxicity, from values to high-performance, Cath and Colin discuss a breadth of topics relevant to the way work gets done. Both are keen to help leaders, managers and colleagues gain competence and confidence to contribute more positively and proactively to their workplace environments.
Please do send in your questions for Cath and Colin to answer. You can email them at insideoutculture@gmail.com or message them on LinkedIn.
Sign up for the Culture Leaders Action Sheet: bit.ly/iocpmail
Instagram: @insideoutculture
Inside Out Culture
Why is feedback essential in building and maintaining a great culture?
The ability to provide honest, in-the-moment feedback to each other is a hallmark of great team and organisation cultures, yet many in the corporate world struggle to do this once a year!
On this week’s episode we talk about why feedback is important and also provide some tips on how you and your teams can do it well.
---
Join us as we reveal strategies to close the gap and craft a workplace where values are not just spoken, but lived and breathed, paving the way for a more authentic and engaging organisational culture.
Instagram: @insideoutculture
Email your questions to: insideoutculture@gmail.com
Receive the Culture Leaders Action Sheet: bit.ly/iocpmail
Welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast, where we look at insides of working culture and provide ideas, insights and actions for you to take on the outside. I'm Colin Ellis and I'm Cath.
Cath:Bishop, and in each episode we'll examine a different question or a different organization, and we'll use case studies, research and our own insights and experiences to help you change the way things get done in your world.
Colin:We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please like, subscribe and, of course, let us know what you think.
Colin:Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Inside Out Culture podcast, and today we are talking about feedback.
Cath:So feedback is one of those topics that we get a lot of questions about. It's definitely up there when I do talks, because I often mention feedback, particularly when I'm talking about Olympic environments. It's one of those worlds where, oh everybody finds feedback difficult, so I find it really fascinating. I think it comes up a lot in your world too.
Colin:Yeah, it does, Cath, it does. But I feel like we should start with sports, and particularly with your experience, Because I think and correct me if I'm wrong but I think sport does feedback really really well. Is that fair?
Cath:Yeah, I agree, it feels so natural, it feels so obvious to do feedback in a sports environment. To do feedback in a sports environment the idea that you would do a training session, play a match, do a rowing race and then not debrief it afterwards and say, what was good, what do we want to do better next time the idea it just would be incomplete. It's such a part of the culture at all levels and it feels so easy. And I always found that such a contrast then when I came into the civil service, when I was working as a diplomat, when I've gone into organizations where people struggle and it's so difficult and it feels so counter, so uncomfortable to do, and so I think this is one space where there is really a lot to learn from the rowing world or from the sports world more generally. It's something that we talk about. A lot to learn from the rowing world and or from the sports world more generally. It's something that we talk about a lot, and in the book Will it Make the Boat Go Faster, which my rowing friend Ben Hunt-Davis wrote with Harriet Beveridge and he has a company of that name they talk a lot about feedback there and I think one of the really clear factors in that sports environment is that from the start, it's part of what you do, so it doesn't matter whether you're a novice and it doesn't matter whether you're really really good or make loads of mistakes. Everybody gets feedback, seeks feedback, gives feedback, is asked for feedback. So it just is something that becomes quite natural.
Cath:And in that lovely question, will it make the boat go faster? It's sort of known to be encapsulating what we were trying to do each day. It's make improvements, it's find ways for us to go faster in order to win a gold medal. But the question we asked each day wasn't will this help us win a gold medal? Because that's quite set a long way in the future. It's out of our control.
Cath:Most people in that environment the equipment manager, the nutritionist, the coach they'll never win a gold medal, but what we're all in the business of is making boats go faster. And because we all knew that, we all connected with that mission, it then becomes easier to give feedback. So I think one of the critical things is are you all signed up to a shared mission which is in itself got learning, which has got learning at the heart of it? Because that is a really important precondition. We were all there to learn every day new ways in which we could make boats go faster, and that was the case when I learned as a student, and that was the case when I learned as an Olympian slightly more intense, slightly more focused. But it's part of success, it's part of what you do, it's part of just the DNA of that world and that's perhaps what isn't there in the organizational world so strongly.
Colin:Yeah, I always think with feedback that high performers want it and low performers need it.
Colin:And yet, in the kind of corporate world that I worked in, I can only recall one company where it was part of the culture to provide immediate feedback, certainly for my teams, even in government, it's something that I did.
Colin:You know we had these regular feedback sessions, but more often than not, Cath, what would happen is and you'll have seen this in the civil service as well is this wait, wait, wait till the end of six months, till the end of 12 months, to actually provide feedback, and often that was part of a cycle of a performance management review which nobody seemed to want to do anyway. It seemed to be a bit of a form-filling chore, when the reality is, you know, as you just made the point is, feedback is absolutely crucial, and it's crucial in the moment in order to keep performance where it needs to be, such that you can maintain that forward momentum. I think that, you know, for me, feedback has become, certainly in the corporate world, feedback has become part of a performance management process rather than a necessary skill required to maintain high levels of motivation such that goals can be achieved.
Cath:Yeah. So I definitely agree that appraisals have killed feedback, killed it dead, have put the fear of God into so many people and, as you say, there's a delay because the feedback is stored up. And again, this is exactly what I found. I was waiting for feedback when I joined the civil service. I was like, where is the feedback? I'm asking for it? No one's really giving it. And then, oh, oh, and suddenly they're giving it this afternoon about things I've forgotten about.
Cath:It feels really awkward. There's a slight sort of emotional overlay or underlay to it and it slightly feels it feels a little bit personal. I feel it's been presented as a sort of critique of me, rather than is this you know, these are the things that would help you become an even better civil servant or diplomat, in my case. So, going back to that, will it make the boat go faster? This is about you being an even better rower. Great, this is why you're not good enough, or this is the stuff that we're judging you with. And that's where, again, it goes wrong, because then, of course, we feel very unsafe, we feel very threatened, and the moment we feel threatened, we stop listening, we stop being able to really take it on board and have a relaxed conversation where we can learn. Yeah, everybody's defenses go up and we start justifying things that are usually too far in the past at that point for anyone to quite know the full story. So appraisals have definitely killed feedback and this sense of letting them become personal. It's not a judgment on your value as a human being. This is all about and it's important they're quite future focused how we become even better, whether it's our first day at work or whether we're the CEO. It's about how we become better tomorrow.
Cath:But that only works if you have that learning mindset in the culture. That we're here to get better each day and again, I think that's one of the differences is actually a humility in a performance in sports environment that we're all trying to get better and we're aiming to be better than anyone in the world. I mean, that's not easy. We're not going to do that unless we're working hard every day to improve. Not easy. We're not going to do that unless we're working hard every day to improve, where somehow, I think in the corporate world, we stop thinking about improving and are trying to prove ourselves.
Cath:I'm trying to prove I'm the best. I'm trying to prove I can do my job, and that again then means we're not open to learning. We're not seeing that and we see it as well. Maybe I'm not doing my job well enough I can't do my job. We get into that fixed mindset thinking. So I think you know it gets too personal, then it doesn't work, if it's just not in the moment. But, as you say, those are two factors that are really important to set up feedback. Well, what other factors do you think help us?
Colin:Well, I think for me, one of the biggest issues and I recognised quite a few years ago is that managers aren't very good at setting expectations, or coaches aren't very good at setting expectations, particularly around behavior, particularly around performance, and what that then does is that feedback almost feels unnatural, it doesn't feel like it's connected to anything, and I think that this is often why people take feedback personally is there hasn't been enough work done at the start to set really clear expectations about what's required in terms of performance and behavior, so that when feedback is provided, it almost feels like you're you know. The person almost feels attacked, like why are you telling me this? And so you know. I think it's one of the things that organizations should seek to correct. You know, I'm doing a program next week and it's a core part of the program and these manager skills is well, how do you set expectations? I think it's one of those skills that's assumed when there's a real process to set in expectations. If you want to be able to give feedback in the right way and if you want it to be received in the right way, then people have got to be crystal clear about well, what do you need from me? When do you need it by? Who do I need to work with in terms of my behavior? What do I have latitude over you know, or agency over you know? What's the expectation of me in presenting the information back? And these sound like all very basic things, Cath, but if you sit down with anyone and say, okay, well, when was the last time someone set expectation with you in a really structured way, you know, people say, well, I got an email telling me what to do and it's like, well, that's not. It really you know. Expectation is best set face to face, because then I can give you feedback face to face, to say, hey, you know that thing, that you know that thing that we talked about on Monday, and I said this is going to be done by Wednesday and you need to check in with these people. Where are you up to? I haven't started yet. Hey, well, listen, what we said was and I think it's very cyclical feedback, but too often it feels like a gotcha moment and I think it was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his book Flow, who talked about feedback, and he said almost any kind of feedback can.
Colin:Then, paraphrasing it almost any kind of feedback can be enjoyable, providing that it's logically related to the goals and the expectations that were set around that, and I think this is why people often have a problem with feedback. It feels disconnected, or else someone's telling them to be positive about something. The feedback is oh, you need to book your ideas, oh, you just need to be positive. Thank God, you told me that I've been negative for 20 years. I just need someone to tell me to be positive. So I think, when it comes to feedback, we have to set, set the environment up in the right way, so that people want the feedback and it's done in a logical way, rather than it feel like a well, why are you telling me this now?
Cath:kind of approach yeah, and I think you know that reminds me about the importance of role modeling. That. So, again, if you're the line manager or a leader, to be out there seeking feedback is really important. For me this is one of the really helpful not tricks but we often get sort of sucked into giving feedback, receiving feedback, how I give it, how I receive it, and we can definitely develop our skills and we should constantly develop our skills and interestingly, we work really hard at that in the learning environment. Our psychologist, our coach, would help us to get better at giving each other feedback, because it's tricky, we don't want to piss each other off but we also want to make sure we're really extracting the feedback, because in that ways to get faster. But one of the ways to sort of get out of that stickiness is for us to be proactive about seeking feedback. And in fact, when they wired people up, the neuroscientists and wired our brains up, you know, when people sort of came up and said I've got feedback for you, colin, immediately the brain registers a threat.
Cath:Often in our organisations, partly because of this wider environment where you know we feel actually I don't know that you've got my best interests and are really caring for me, and so at that point, because you're just not listening as much, it's really difficult for you to take it on board. It also means I might come with feedback to you. I don't even know if it's something you're aware of or working on. Potentially I come at a time when you might be busy or tired or distracted or dealing with something else, and so that whole scenario is quite tricky. For it to go out Well, it needs a lot of preparation, whereas actually, if you come seeking feedback from me, you reverse all those dynamics because you're in control of the process. You're coming to ask about something you're interested in, you've identified as important. You want to get better in this area, yeah, so you're driving that process, you're owning your own learning and I feel at ease because I'm no longer worried about are you even thinking about developing in this area if we haven't had a previous conversation or clarified it. So you know and I feel valued because you're asking me for my opinion. So seeking feedback is really important and to ask people who do you want feedback from? Who are you going to go and get feedback from this year or this next month or during this project? And I think that's a really helpful trick to try and help us get out of this threat state waiting for it to be delivered. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to listen, I'm going to take it on board without getting emotional or without getting defensive into. No, I'm going to go and find feedback Because you know what?
Cath:There is so much useful information sitting in our organizations. There is no need to go on courses. There are people in your organizations with all kinds of gems that you could unlock and nearly always I want to say always people will want to help you and want to share their views and their advice and their expertise. They may just say I can't do it now, come back at another time, but 99.9% of the time they want to. They feel valued that you're asking for their view.
Cath:So start getting better at seeking feedback and setting yourself some goals around that and thinking this week I'm going to get some feedback here. I'm going to ask you before I go in to do a talk or before I go in to chair this meeting. I'll say to you I'm really working on this today. I'm really working on, you know, making sure we stay to time and but everyone has a voice and I'd like some feedback on that. So then you're ready and looking and helping and know I want to work on that and afterwards we can have that conversation. So that dynamic of switching much more to seeking feedback is for me something that can really help us unlock it.
Cath:And again, in that rich feedback environment in the sports world where people are giving it to you all the time, we still asked a lot. We were hungry for it. We're seeking out what else is there that I could work on? Or there's another athlete here who's got some experience that's similar to mine. What else could I learn from them? I came into sport really late so I looked outside of rowing other athletes who'd come to sport late in life. What could I learn from them on the sort of psychology side? So it's really getting into that proactive mode that can get rid of a lot of the threat and the stress and the waiting and the delaying, unlock the learning.
Colin:I got into the process, probably in my early thirties, of asking what's one thing. So I had very specific what's one thing you know you can tell me about the way that I did this, what's one thing that you would share with me about some knowledge that you feel that I would need. And then I added that to my team meeting agendas, where we gave permission for anybody to ask for any feedback on anything. So it was called what's one thing and we added it to the bottom of the agenda.
Colin:In the beginning, Cath, when I first introduced these things, it is people feel felt really reticent to ask for feedback. Is that something that you've caught? And again, it doesn't. I don't think it really happens in the in the sporting world as much. Do you think there's like a block that we have? It's really, it's really interesting. I didn't know about the neuroscience that really shows how the brain reacts when it comes to feedback. Again, I'm just interested in your experience from a sports, sports perspective. I don't get the sense that people are like actually I don't want that feedback right now, Whereas sometimes I feel like in the corporate world that is the case. People are like listen, I just want to come here, do my job go home. I don't want to get any feedback on whether I'm doing it well or not. I'm just wondering why that is.
Cath:I think it comes back to this inherent sense of are you here to learn and get better, or are you here to show us how good you are? And you know, we come into the working world proving how good we are and I can do the job better than anyone else, almost and I think we see some of that behavior displayed and therefore it just isn't underpinning everything we do. That language, you know, is about have we got it right or wrong? We don't talk about getting stuff right or wrong, we just talk about always getting better, and so I think things are framed too much in that it's right, it's wrong and therefore you as a person, you're right, you're wrong rather than this language of how are we going to do this even better. So, when we do a great pitch, that's great. What are the stuff we could do even better? And when we do a poor pitch, it's the same conversation. What are the things we can do that help us to be even better?
Cath:And that reviewing that comes with feedback is something, again in sport we do, because actually the race unless it's the last race of your entire career or life it's basically fulfilling the main purpose of helping you learn ways to go faster in the race that follows. And so, even when I win, I want feedback on the things I haven't done so well and the things I've done well, that I can continue. And when I lose, do you know what I want? Exactly the same, I want feedback on the stuff that I need to improve and the things I haven't done so well, and so it's having this sense of constant learning, constant improvement, that we will always ask that question. It's also framed in a sort of constant improvement is mastery. We want to get better, whereas I think sometimes in the workplace there is quite a culture that I'm trying to show I know it all or I'm the best in my field, somehow.
Cath:So I really think it's about switching into more of a learning mindset. If you're in a learning mindset, it's the most natural thing in the world to receive feedback. But if you're not, if you're somehow and it comes in the difference between gross mindset thinking and fixed mindset thinking and a gross mindset again, I want feedback because I'm here to learn and that's what I'm open to. But in the fixed mindset, I'm afraid of feedback because it's criticism. It's telling me I'm not good enough and I'm here to get 10 out of 10. The growth mindset is going. I'm just looking to get better. So I really think it comes down to whether learning is embedded or not, and I think that sometimes organizations talk about a learning culture but it isn't there, and you can see it very quickly when you see about the problems they might have with feedback. Well, clearly it's not a learning culture if people aren't comfortable having feedback conversations and they're rare and they don't happen very often and we haven't built up the skills.
Cath:Well, that's a really big sign that this is not a learning culture. And if it's not a learning culture, it is usually because other people, the leaders in that organization, are signaling that this is about getting things right, that we don't want to be looking. You know, I don't want someone to tell me I can do a better job. I want to show I've got the answers, and I think that kind of heroic model of leadership and management that still exists quite a lot in organizations is, you know, really kills off feedback as well, and that's still very dominant in organizations yeah is netflix's culture is is much talked about and much written about.
Colin:Uh, reed hastings in his book in his book no rules rules talks about feedback and the fact that they have a no holds barred approach to feedback, which I kind of really like he said again I'm paraphrasing he said it's tantamount to being disloyal to the company if you withhold feedback or you disagree. You have feedback that could be helpful. But I think, just to echo your point there, what they've done there is really set up the culture to say we're a culture that really values feedback. As you come into the organization it's something that you can expect. There's an employee listening to a company called Culture Amp. Culture Amp are based here in Melbourne and they have a value of learn faster through feedback. Now I met Didier Elzinga, who's the founder of the company. I met him when I was writing Culture Fix some years ago and he talked about the fact that if they don't give feedback in the moment, then an opportunity for learning is missed.
Colin:And I think quite often one of the things that I hear a lot is that managers feel like they have to give praise before they provide some kind of negativity or constructive feedback. That doesn't really happen in the high performance cultures. In the high performance cultures, what you get is managers who are ready with the praise, and it's usually around behavior, because what they want is more of the behavior. Any parent will know that. But also with that comes the fact that, hey, here's one thing that you need to think about. I don't have to dress it, I don't have to build you up to let you down. That's a phrase that I, it's in the moment, it's honest, it's without apology and it's a classic British thing. We do, the British, do this all the time. It's like oh, I'm sorry, can I just tell you this? You know what you're doing then is really saying you know, oh, it's on me, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but when actually sometimes you just need to be told.
Colin:You know, I had a boss who read me the riot act when I was in my late 30s and he was absolutely right in what he'd said, because you know, I've been a bit liberal with the truth about something that I'd done and he absolutely tore a strip off me and he did it in such a highly emotionally intelligent way and like I just sat there, took it, made some notes and he said all right. He said so do you understand? I was like yeah. He said do you know what you need to do differently next time? I was like yeah. He's like okay, great, so let's move on. He's like what are you doing at the weekend? And the feedback was so well delivered? I remember coming back my little black notebook. I'm like it's okay to be direct, it's okay to be honest. You don't have to pussyfoot around it or dress it up. Sometimes the best feedback is in the moment. It's direct, you land the point but then you move on, rather than then keep laboring the point over and over again for 15, 20 minutes afterwards.
Cath:Yeah, I think actually we struggle. I think the Brits are possibly kind of really struggle with this direct feedback thing because I've had lots of, you know, other nationalities Dutch, germans, who are maybe Americans who are naturally a little more direct, naturally, and it's actually great. I find it brilliant because they're not pussyfitting around, but I know they can feel, oh my goodness, that's suddenly seen as intimidating or bullying or something like that. It's brilliant to just be direct, but of course you need to set those ground rules. First of all. I think you're right that the Netflix example with lots of things they try and invert this kind of constrained, strangling culture to free up, actually again very much, a learning culture. Are you part of trying to get better or maybe you're not in the right place? And that's exactly the language that comes from sport, and Ben Hunt-Davies talks in his book about the rowing crew that completely turned around their performance from, you know, not even making finals to winning in the Sydney Olympics. And you know again, they found feedback really awkward and difficult at first but actually through working with a coach and a psychologist, they realised that if you know a way in which we could do something better and you don't say it. You're slowing the crew down. I mean, how mad is that? That's the exact parallel of that comment that you pulled out from Reed Hastings there, and I think that's helpful in that moment. When you go, I think it could be a little uncomfortable and so of course we pull back at that moment. If you have that in your mind now I need to do this because I'm committed to this crew. I don't want to hold back on a piece of information. It could come down to milliseconds in the end. So if you know a way we could do something better, then it's part of your responsibility to share it. But of course those need to be really talked through and lived rules.
Cath:I've found there's quite a common theme sometimes in leadership teams where there's decent levels of trust, where there seems to be a kind of respect for everyone in their own area having their functional expertise. There then becomes this stickiness where somebody in another area feels they can't ask a question or offer a suggestion or give some feedback because that's not respecting that somebody else is the expert or that person then feels, oh my goodness, well, I can't have you, you know, kind of telling what to do in my area because you know I don't come and poke my nose in your area. So I think it's quite an interesting leadership team challenge as well. That means trust has probably got stuck at a certain level and we've lost sense again of that team being a place of collective learning from each other. And somehow we're coming and we're all proving well, my team are holding up, and I've got to defend the marketing team and over here I've got to defend the IT team, and if you criticize them then that's criticizing me.
Cath:And so I think it's a real challenge in leadership teams and we seem to have got stuck in some cultures and it's something for chief executives to think about where somehow you know the whole purpose of that team, the rules of that team, the you know, one of the ways in which that team can help the organization to become more effective is for there to be feedback feeding and flowing really freely across the team. So I think that's quite an interesting scenario where often it's more difficult than I'd expect it to be, and then you have to come back and start creating, in a way, that shared identity that we're a collective as a leadership team not I've got my functional hat on'm here to sort of defend us to the hilt. So you know that's another place in which organizations.
Colin:Of course, if there isn't feedback happening there, that's also going to probably make it harder for it to happen and flow across the organization lower down yes, I feel like we could talk about this for for a long, long time, kat, but before we get to our our three things, I just want to remind people out there, because, you mentioned at the start, it is a question that we get asked, and if you have a question that you would like us to answer, or if there's a particular show that you'd be interested in hearing, you can drop us an email at insideoutcultureatgmailcom for one of our questions episodes. But let's wrap this episode up, Cath, and with our three takeaways. So what? What should people do?
Cath:so I'm going to go back to that. What I think that best proactive step is seek feedback on the things that you want to get better at. Go out there, work out. Who's got some of the answers to help you. Go and get the feedback, don't wait for it. So that's the action, that's the do, and the second thing is what we should get curious about.
Colin:Yeah, I think well, you know, I kind of alluded to it. You know what's blocking you from asking for feedback, from giving feedback, as you know, kind of receiving it on a daily basis. I mentioned the what's one thing it became relatively easy for me to do after a little bit of practice. So what's blocking you from asking that same question? And then what to uncover, Cath.
Cath:Yeah. So uncover where in the organization you might find some lovely pools of support, feedback, insight. So yeah, uncover where there is feedback inside your organization waiting for you to unlock it. That will help you become the best you can be.
Colin:Excellent I also think that we alluded to it as well is don't wait for the six 12-month cycle. Exactly right. Where is that feedback? Don't wait for that. Too many organizations, too many individuals get stuck in that six 12-month cycle when there's so much you can learn ahead of that time. Fascinating feedback. I feel like we could do another one on this at some stage.
Cath:Be proactive. But it'd be good to get some other questions, other angles on feedback. We haven't addressed Because it is such a sticking point and people kind of I think when they hear especially some of those sporting stories, they're like I want to be part of this, it feels good feedback feels good in that environment. It's what makes you feel you've had a really useful session. So, um, you know, really want to help others unlock that fantastic, well, great chat, as ever, Cath.
Colin:I look forward to the next episode great conversation, thank you.
Cath:Thanks for listening to today's inside out culture podcast.
Colin:Well, great chat, as ever, Cath. I look forward to the next episode. Great conversation, thank you. Thanks for listening to today's Inside Out Culture Podcast. Please remember to like, subscribe and, of course, share with others who you think may be interested.
