The Art of Feedback: A Journey Toward Career Success

Unlock the secrets to effective workplace coaching as we explore the critical facets of leadership interaction. What truly holds more value in career development: a clear path to success or a hefty paycheck? We tackle this compelling question and challenge the conventional wisdom around professional growth. Join us as we dissect the complex emotional journey of receiving feedback and uncover why many of us instinctively resist it. Through engaging anecdotes, we reveal the overlooked importance of self-awareness and how our educational systems fail to equip us with the necessary tools to accept feedback gracefully.

In this episode, we delve into the triple-layered approach to coaching that every leader should master, ensuring their team not only excels at their current roles but also journeys toward their ultimate career aspirations. Learn how to build a culture of openness and gratitude, transforming the dreaded feedback process into a valuable growth experience. We explore why leaders often shy away from giving feedback and how strategic communication can bridge this gap. Whether you're steering a team or navigating your own career path, these insights will empower you to motivate and lead with confidence, paving the way for everyone to achieve their ideal version of career success.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

You know, when we're coaching people, especially in the workplace, I think about three levels of interaction. When you think about the present state, you know we have to coach the person, right. We have to coach the person as it relates to the job. And then I think about the future state. Where does somebody want to go? And I just read a report that career coaching. You know people having a career path was more valuable than having a high salary. So it begs the question you know what's the inhibitor here, what's the challenge that we have? So we have our present state. We have to coach them to do the job. We have to coach the person doing the job, and then we also have to coach so they can reach their destination. But then there's a third level and I call this the foundational level.

Speaker 1: 1:28

I think we do not address the number one challenge we have with people in coaching, especially in the workplace. When you think about somebody, when you think about somebody's resistance to coaching or mentoring or feedback or leadership, what comes to mind? Resistance to feedback, self-awareness, self-regulation, looking in the mirror are typical things that we hear. So it begs the question why do we have this problem? Well, the challenge that we have is in our traditional school systems, we typically do not have training. We do not have education as it relates to seeking and accepting feedback professionally and thoughtfully. So think about that. What we typically do is we accept or dismiss feedback based on agreement or disagreement.

Speaker 1: 2:27

So I was talking to someone the other day and this is a pretty typical conversation. Well, my boss gave me this feedback and I just disagreed with it and I got really angry. And I said why did you get angry? The person goes well, I just disagreed with the feedback. I go no, I get that you disagreed. I said why are you angry? He said I just told you. I said no, no, no, I get. You disagreed with it, yet you're angry. So what can I put some words in your mouth? And he said sure, I said so. Everybody's got to be exactly in alignment with you and say exactly everything right, or you get angry. He said no, that's not what I'm saying. I said so why did you get angry? He said yeah, okay, I get your point.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I said look, do you think he wants to give you feedback again? What do you mean? I said well, according to you, you got angry. Oh, I didn't show him. I got angry. I go. Sure you did. Don't tell me you think you didn't show it. Of course you did. We're emotional creatures. We reveal ourselves. I said let me ask you something Honestly how often do you seek feedback and just say thank you?

Speaker 1: 3:37

Strategically, anyone and everyone listening to this podcast right now you know the answer. There was no answer. So I looked at him and I said look, giving feedback is tough. Giving feedback is really really tough.

Speaker 1: 3:57

And so when you sit there and you think about it and you think about feedback, it's not something that we normally just go and do. It's not something that we normally just think about. It's typically something we reactively deal with. And so when you think about it, we have to, more than anything, be in a state of mind that we've got to make it easy for the other person right. Giving someone feedback who's resistant is no fun. You know, I often tell this to individual contributors, employees. Do you know? Leaders don't want to give feedback, and people will look at you stunned what do you mean? I go, would you want to give you feedback? And all of a sudden, you get this look of oh yeah, well, I don't know, and I think it's something that we all need to really be conscientious of, and I think it's something that we have an opportunity to think about. And so, when we're working with people, we have to understand, as leaders, we're coaching the person in their present state to do a good job, but also coaching the person to feel good about getting better, and then we're coaching them to their ideal state, their career aspiration and goals, if they have them.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yet we also have to deal with these foundational things like feedback, motivation, attitude, leadership, latitude. The foundational stuff is where people typically spend most of their time when dealing with employees. Okay, so what do we do about it? Number one I wish our school systems did a good job of this, and they don't, because they have a lot on their plates, but if we taught people how to seek and accept feedback, I'm telling you, the workplace would be 100% better. Number two if we taught people leadership, latitude meaning we're not here to judge our leaders. Our job is to follow our leaders in what they think we should do.

Speaker 1: 6:01

You know, I think the military's got it right. When a colonel says we're going up that hill, everybody goes up the hill, without question. There's absolute synchronization, uniformity. Can you imagine if we went into war and somebody says no, I don't feel like fighting today. You'd be scared, wouldn't you? So the fact of the matter is, foundationally, feedback, motivation, attitude being a great teammate. They are not at the forefront of people's minds, yet they are the things brought up the most by leaders in terms of what are the roadblocks, what are the inhibitors to someone's career or development. So we have an opportunity everybody.

Speaker 1: 6:43

And where do we start? Number one get people practicing the acceptance of feedback, asking for it and saying thank you. And someone says what if I disagree? I said don't bring it up right, then Bring it up later. Make it easy for people to approach and coach you. So this is why I brought this all up. It falls under the guise of approachability coachability. We all have an opportunity to become coachable and to become approachable. If we do that, we're easier to work with, we're easier to coach, we're easier to promote, we're easier to give salaries. To Find your approachability coachability Now, if this intrigues you, we have actually built out our own AI approachability coachability assessment tool measure people's approachability coachability in your workplace. Send me an email at tim at progresscoachingleadercom, and put right on the subject line approachability coachability assessment tool and we'll actually send you a sample.