Practices to give and get VALUABLE insights - Defining Leaders

Soliciting Guidance and Feedback 

- Prove you can take it before dishing it.

In general, we have two guidelines for how to get others to criticize you: 

1. Be persistent. Convince your team you really do want to hear what they really think. Show them that your requests for criticism are genuine and that you sincerely appreciate it when they say what they think. Keep asking for criticism regularly. Try different approaches, venues, and situations. Whatever you do, don’t accept an environment where you aren’t getting the feedback you need to be successful.   
2. Reward the candor. It’s not enough to appreciate critique from your team, or not to get defensive. You have to reward the candor. People need to see and feel that there is a benefit to criticizing you.

• Examples of what you could ask: “Give me some advice.” Here are a few more variations: • “How can I support you on this project?” • “What’s bothering you?” • “What’s the one thing you’ve been wanting to tell me but have been holding back?”
• Embrace the Discomfort!  After asking for feedback, stop talking and embrace the discomfort. People will feel uncomfortable about answering your question and giving you feedback. Don’t let them off the hook to try to make them feel better. Instead, count to 7 and commit to allowing the other person to speak first.

Giving Guidance and Feedback

Being kind means caring about what’s best for the person long term, not just what feels easiest right now. Being clear means leaving no room for interpretation about what you really think — while also being open to the possibility that your opinion is wrong. 

Think of great feedback as HIP. 

• Humble: It is important to walk into a feedback conversation with a sense of humility, knowing that your point of view is an important piece of a larger puzzle. Speak from your point of view, but leave space for them as well. 
• Helpful: Consider the goal of the conversation. Are you having it to win, or are you having it to help? Make sure your goal is to help the other person succeed. Otherwise, it’s not helpful.
• Immediate: Give feedback immediately, or as close to immediately as possible. When you wait too long, you can get caught up in debating details versus immediately nipping something in the bud. 
• In Person (or video) If you have feedback conversations over the phone or email, you lose much if not all of your ability to get a sense of how your words are landing, as well as an opportunity to hear the full extent of the other person’s experience.
• Not Personal: Make sure to focus on the behavior, not the person. For example, would you respond better to someone giving you feedback about the need to show up to work on time, or would you prefer that they give you the feedback by calling you lazy?

Extra Help - Direct from Radical Candor

11 ways for managers to GET feedback from their teams:

https://www.radicalcandor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/11-Ways-to-Get-Feedback-from-Others.pdf

6 steps for rolling our radical candor

https://www.radicalcandor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/6_Steps_Radical-Candor_v2.pdf

Core Feedback method

https://www.radicalcandor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Radical-Candor_CORE_Feedback.pdf