A transcript of Episode 218 of UX Podcast. Claire Lew joins us to share how we can be great a culture of feedback. We learn how you can ask for feedback, how to be better at giving and receiving feedback, and how to make sure that the giver doesn’t feel it’s pointless.
This transcript has been machine generated and checked by a human.
Transcript
Per Axbom
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Computer voice
UX podcast, Episode 218.
James Royal-Lawson
I’m James Roy Lawson.
Per Axbom
And I’m Per Axbom.
James Royal-Lawson
And this is UX podcast, balancing business technology and people every other Friday from Stockholm, Sweden, with listeners in 188 countries around the world, from Paraguay to the Republic of Ireland.
Per Axbom
Our guest this episode is Claire Lew. Claire is the CEO of Know your team, speaker, teacher and host of The Heartbeat, a podcast about leadership.
James Royal-Lawson
We met up with Claire earlier in 2019 at UXLx, in Lisbon, Portugal was she had a workshop about feedback, the feedback loop, how to create a culture of feedback.
Per Axbom
And so we learned from Claire about giving and receiving feedback from the position as a leader but also a peer, colleague, or in all aspects of life.
James Royal-Lawson
So Claire, I think, well, personally anyway, I think you’re always wanting to receive feedback. But what’s the – Can you give me a bit more about – What’s the benefit of feedback?
Claire Lew
Sure. Well, I think even the assumption that, you know, you’re wanting to receive feedback. First of all, I think that’s great, but also feel like even you know, starting there, that’s not always true, I think, you know, there’s so much research that’s been done about how we don’t like to hear the things that we don’t like to hear. So Harvard Business Review actually published this amazing study about how leaders will actually only surround themselves, people who reaffirm their viewpoints and the likelihood that they will actually actively promote and surround themselves with people who have differing viewpoints is much lower. So anyhoo, just I just wanted to sort of assert even there like, it’s amazing that you you feel that way.
James Royal-Lawson
I complete agree and I know what you mean. I think you want to, I mean, personally, I like to receive feedback, right? Yeah, I’m scared. Of course, the feedback might not be…
Claire Lew
Yeah, we’re always scared of the things we don’t know. Yeah, it’s easy to you know, it’s human. But to your point, right. So why is it important, right to be on with So first and foremost, is blind spots. So, so often, for many of us, whether we are running a company, whether we are manager, whether we’re an individual contributor, the things that hurt us the most are the things we don’t know. It’s when we find out unexpectedly, that someone thanks a project is going terribly. And you’re just about to either ship the code or maybe present it to the client, and you’re like, wait, what do you think this is bad, you disagree. It’s like that caught me off guard.
Or it could be that because of the lack of feedback, you have no idea that a key person on your team is about totally, that’s actually one of the most sort of heart wrenching, gut wrenching situations is to be blindsided in that case, and then it can be even on a more personal side of not understanding that you actually come off in a certain way or affect the people you work with in a certain way. And so you might realise unexpectedly that you are overbearing, and you come off as controlling to your team. And that’s, you know, that can sort of knock the wind out of you, if you’ve always considered yourself to be a kind and very sort of regimented leader, and in fact, oh, wow, I have a really heavy hand, people think I’m micromanaging them, I had no idea. So these blind spots, you know, obviously sort of taken emotional toll. It’s never fun, again, to be surprised.
Per Axbom
But from a very practical sense, it just means that you as a leader, or as an individual contributor, can actually operate and lead or do your work as well as you could if you don’t have this feedback, and because of these blind spots, or Secondly, the team actually suffers, and there’s worse results, because you didn’t know about certain decisions or the way people are feeling, or people actually leaving, and you had no idea that people were feeling a certain way. So just big mistakes, and, and errors. And, and and heard that happens because of it. But it’s really the blind spots that cause it. So that’s the importance of feedback in a word: blind spots.
That actually made me think of an experience I had this was like 15 years ago, or something where I went to a meeting with a colleague, and after the meeting, this colleague of mine told me that they had felt undermined by how I behaved in the meeting, because I hadn’t agreed with them with everything they said,
Claire Lew
Sure.
Per Axbom
And I was so thankful that they had felt that they actually could give that feedback to me. But how do you actually then make sure that people feel confident enough or trust you enough to provide you with that feedback?
Claire Lew
Absolutely. I mean, that’s the hardest thing, right is once you find out that there was something that you didn’t know, the big question is, how did I not know earlier? Yeah. Right. And if this person feels this way, how many other people feel this way? And so to your point, then naturally, you know, you try to figure out, how do you actually create an environment for people to feel open and honest about this? And James, I know you sat through the workshop. So yeah, you know, you may be re-hearing some of some of the points I made there. But there are two key reasons for why people don’t tend to speak up at work. So the first is pretty obvious and natural is fear. So often times, and especially a work dynamic, there’s some sort of power at play, right? So you have someone who is paying another person get worked on, as a result, the likelihood that someone is going to speak up to that person who is paying them. Um,
Per Axbom
yeah,
Claire Lew
the trade off doesn’t really seem worth it all the time. You feel like you are having to speak truth to power, which is really intimidating, you don’t really see the immediate benefit, you know, you don’t sort of bite the hand that feeds you, right. So fear is definitely at play. But most interestingly, the second reason, and this is actually the biggest reason for why people don’t speak up that work is futility. So this feeling that even if I were to speak up, nothing’s going to happen, nothing’s gonna change. So maybe that person in the meeting never said anything earlier, because the parents aren’t really receptive to, like, he’s not going to do anything different. Or maybe he’ll blow up or, you know, it’s not going to change the situation.
So futility in studies has been shown to be 1.8 times more powerful than fear as an obstacle to feedback. So yeah, which is surprising, because most leaders actually assume Okay, you know, my team’s not speaking up, because they’re a little scared of me, or they’re scared that they’re all going to get fired, perhaps, right. However, it’s almost twice the magnitude, right? futility is as a barrier to feedback, meaning that it’s not just that people are scared, necessarily, they actually might not even be scared, but they actually aren’t speaking up because they don’t think you’re going to do anything with their feedback, which goes to show
James Royal-Lawson
because of the cultural side of it too. So if you’ve, you’ve got management leaders that are surrounding themselves with people who agree with them. And then you then maybe have tried to express some feedback, but they’re not open to receiving it.
Claire Lew
Right.
James Royal-Lawson
So you feel frustrated, because you’ve already tried to do this
Claire Lew
exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
It’s not working? There’s no point in trying again,
Claire Lew
right? And it just reinforces that echo chamber. So leaders wonder, why do I you know, why am I, you know, I tried to not surround myself with people who are just just telling you the things that I want to hear. But what they don’t realise is, well, if you aren’t, in some way, overcoming the sense of futility, which by the way doesn’t mean that you implement every single persons suggestion.
A lot of leaders think, oh, if I try to overcome futility, then as an obstacle feedback, this means I need to give everyone you know, a million dollars and just do every little suggestion that people make even when it’s a bad idea. And it’s like no, no, that’s not really what acting on feedback means. That’s not what actually listening to feedback means. And that’s not what overcoming futility is about. And, you know, I covered this in the workshop it can be actually as simple as thanking someone, right for their feedback. That’s a form of acting on the back. That’s a form of overcoming futility. So I think also, the interesting point about, you know, this sort of examination, that futility is the real driver for why people don’t speak up is that it goes to show that the reason for why people give feedback in the first place, is because they want something to be different. We forget that.
We forget that feedback is not just about venting, it’s not just about get this off my chest, I just want to complain, I just feel like I have to say something, it’s not about that. It’s like people actually are giving feedback or want to feel give feedback because they want something different to happen. And that’s actually, that’s pretty special to capture. And as a leader, we or as leaders, we should be a little bit I think more genuinely curious about figuring out what those things are. If people think things should be different. Wouldn’t you want to know?
Per Axbom
Yeah,
James Royal-Lawson
And harness the enthusiasm. Yeah.
Claire Lew
Yeah. So yeah, I find that to be I find that to be an important reminder, because I think in a day and age where feedback is such a cliched word, you know, there’s all these feedback surveys. And I mean, and you know, myself running a software company, you know, called Know Your Team. And we have, you know, feedback features right? In the software can be easy just to see it as this thing you check off the box, because it is popular, but I feel like, it is always important for us, as leaders and as teammates to just remember it. We’re doing this because people want things to be better. They want things to be different some way.
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, it’s a risk, it becomes a metric. Yes. Rather than a actual tool for change,
Claire Lew
Right. And, you know, a badge to wear, right, for companies to say, oh, we’re open to feedback. What does that really mean? And why? Right?
James Royal-Lawson
Or, you said, we’re getting or leaders are getting 4.7 right now on some kind of on annual survey scale or something.
Claire Lew
I mean, it makes a mockery of the whole thing.
Per Axbom
So but so part of listening to that feedback is interpreting it as well, I guess because yes, someone wants change. But it’s not always the case that they know themselves, what change they want, but they’re expressing some they’re not satisfied with something that they wanted. So how do you become a better listener?
Claire Lew
Yes. A lifelong pursuit for all of us. Absolutely, no, but you’re right. I think, oftentimes, you know, the frustration for many of us who receive feedback is you hear the feedback, and you go, Well, this person is saying this based off incomplete information. This person is saying this because they have their own interests in mind, because they’re not seeing the bigger picture.
And I think the first part of becoming a better listener to see that bigger picture to understand that this person even has incomplete information, right, is to recognise that when you’re listening, that you’re just trying to understand, you’re not trying to find a, which by the way, you know, it sounds so obvious. It’s like, yeah, that’s the point of listening. But we, we often think of listening as simply the closing of the mouth. Instead of the sort of worrying of the mind. It’s like when we, when we often quote unquote, listen, we close the mouth, and then our mind just goes in a million places. We go, Wow, how could they say that I’m thinking about, you know, what I need to do later today, I’m thinking about what I’m going to say I’m trying to end this conversation quickly. I’m just trying to figure out what the to do’s like, and that’s not really that’s not listening.
So listening is first, truly seeing your time with that person. And that time to listen, as, you know, seeking to understand. So, you know, that’s, that’s the first step. The second is to assume positive intent in, in actually trying to understand, because and the reason for this is, is it’s difficult to really assess what pieces of information people are missing, or what or why someone might be coming from a different place. And you are, if you are assuming the worst,
James Royal-Lawson
if you were to be defensive from the start.
Claire Lew
Exactly. Like, it’s interesting. defensiveness is truly the result of misconstruing someone’s intent. That is where that is the root of all defensiveness, it’s believing that someone has a different purpose than you do. And so if you assume positive intent, if you assume that they have some sort of good purpose behind what they’re saying, then so much clarity is revealed. And from there, then you can ask a bunch of questions around, okay, well, tell me, tell me, you know, what information you feel like you don’t have? Or can you explain why, you know, this made you feel this way, and then you gain more understanding. But I think the first two things of really choosing to, you know, I call I say often, you know, making empathy your mission, right, this being the first step, and then assuming, assuming positive intent is a second and then, and then I guess the last thing I’ll add is, I think a huge part of listening is just and listening well is resisting your own reaction to say something more, and just actually talking less.
Per Axbom
Yeah.
Claire Lew
You can’t be a good listener, if you’re talking. It’s that simple. So just finding ways to talk less. And, and yeah, and that allows the other person to share more of what’s in their mind.
Per Axbom
So would you consider it important for everyone in a company or an art team to learn about these skills? Because sometimes I can feel like, yeah, somebody learns the skills the other person doesn’t. Like, it’s sort of like you’re gaming the other person, because there’s an imbalance in power. There’s an imbalance and the communication power. Yeah,
Claire Lew
yeah. You know? Absolutely. Right. I mean, it goes for anything skill set, whether you’re teaching decision making, whether you’re teaching collaboration, right? It’s not useful for just sort of one person. Doesn’t really work either, right? If one person is only one sort of equipped with, with knowledge, or tactics, etc. However, what I will say is, I do think, you know, and it’s funny, like we, you know, I run a software company that is all about teaching leaders to be better. And I give workshops to leaders and individual contributors all over the world on this topic.
But I also believe as much as sort of that those steps of, you know, education are important that people learn by example. Yes, right. Like, if you sort of reflect on your most favourite boss, or mentor or person you look up to, you notice, probably likely this is true for myself, and for a lot of leaders that we work with yourself, emulating the things that you really appreciate it about what they did.
You know, for example, I have an amazing mentor who’s you know, a CEO of 600, plus, you know, software company, and she, she could not be a more direct human being, my goodness, and the best way, just like, no bullshit, like, so refreshing. And I try hard to emulate that, right? I draw a lot of inspiration from like, she didn’t set sit me down and go, okay, Claire, here’s, you know, here’s the manual on straight talker, I’m going to go send you to a coach on communication skills, or you should take this workshop, or read this book, it’s like, I think there’s a huge sort of opportunity and, and almost an obligation we have as leaders to remember that our actions speak louder than words, yes, cliche there, but But truly, and that people are going to emulate and look to us for what we see as acceptable behaviour. And what we see is sort of it also ideal behaviour.
So I think, you know, how do you sort of teach people, right? If you know, let’s say, you came out of my workshop, and you’re like, Oh, you know, you have the packet and you have the slides, and like, Hey, this is great. You know, how do I get my team to do this? Like, yes, of course, you can bring us in, do a workshop, etc. You can use our tool, all that good stuff. But I think even more just demonstrating that you know, the kinds of questions you ask the way you actually act on feedback, the way you’ve been talking about feedback says a lot.
James Royal-Lawson
So that’s probably a good point to then ask is like, how, how do I ask for feedback?
Claire Lew
Right.
James Royal-Lawson
We’re coming from that, I guess that’s the natural starting point that if people aren’t giving or aren’t trained to give good feedback, then you are the one who’s now got this ability to elicitate feedback. So asking is going to be the first step?
Claire Lew
Yes, asking is is the first step. And there are several, several techniques, right, that are really effective for asking for feedback. Well, the first is around around what I like to call going first. And it’s this idea that if fear is a big obstacle to why people don’t speak up, you have to create a safe space for them to speak a lot of studies done on the importance of psychological safety in the workplace.
Google, most famously, with their I believe, Project Aristotle that they did, maybe five plus years ago around psychological safety being the most sort of definitive aspect of successful teams, right? So as a leader, Okay, I gotta make the environment safe. But how do you do that with questions? So how do you do that and asking for feedback. So like I was saying is, I like to call it going first, which is, as a leader, you simply have to go first and reveal more if you want others to reveal something to you. So a way to do that and to create this vulnerability is to ask for advice. Instead of for feedback, right? advice, so much more inviting.
Everyone loves giving advice, feedback, that word, people sort of cringe, they assume it’s negative, no one likes to give feedback. So you make things vulnerable by saying, hey, I want your advice. I’m seeking your opinion, you’re the expert here changes the power dynamic changes the element of fear, all in that one word, advice, right. Another way to go first is to simply admit what you’re struggling with. It’s amazing as a leader, how much feedback you’ll get when you just say to someone, actually just having a hard time figuring this out. Can you help me? What’s your opinion? How would you do this? Right? Just need some help. And so just admitting what you’re struggling with is is key.
And then another way of other than going first of, of asking for specific feedback is to ask specific questions, right? So a lot of times the reason the feedback that we don’t or that we get is not very helpful, or super, super vague, and generalised just because the questions that we’re asking are also quite vague generalised. So sort of favourite all time questions, I think for most people is, you know, you sit down with your one-on-one, and it’s natural, you should say, how’s it going? We’ve all asked that.
James Royal-Lawson
the vague broad. Opening questions – “how’s it going?” Yeah.
Claire Lew
Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
Okay.
Claire Lew
Do we ever answer anything other than fine or Okay, or good? Like, rarely, sometimes you’ll get a good answer.
Per Axbom
Got a lot on my plate right now.
Claire Lew
Yeah.
Per Axbom
That’s the standard response.
Claire Lew
Exactly. Like, really, like, no one’s gonna tell you, how’s it going? Oh, well, it’s going pretty well. But I’m actually really, you know, stuck on this particular issue. And I would love your help and feedback on on, you know, getting into this decision. And it’s like, no one’s ever going to say that. So instead of asking, you know, how’s it going, you can ask so many more specific questions.
And one way to do this is to simply ask about one thing, instead of just saying, how’s it going? So for example, you know, what’s, you know, one thing that could have been better in the past month? What’s one thing that you would have liked to see different in the past meeting? One thing. It’s an easy way to make the question more specific. Another way to make questions more specific, is to do what I call time boxing. So another sort of really vague general question that a lot of people like to ask is, what can we improve? What are what would you like to see different? It’s like a, like, when, like, when regards to what right? And so instead, you could say, is there anything in the last or what in the last, you know, month, do you think could have been better? Right?
Or, you know, what, in the past two weeks, would you have liked to seen different right, so time boxing the question, and then the last way that I always recommend around asking better questions to get good feedback, is to ask questions around moments of tension, and moments of energy. So what this means is that people feel tense, or they feel upset, or they feel frustrated, right about past things, but we often don’t know zone in on what those moments are.
So we never really know what it is that’s making someone stressed out. We never really know why someone doesn’t feel motivated. And the same thing for positive sensation. So it’s like, okay, someone’s feeling happier, proud. Great. But like, is that just sort of how they’re feeling like today on a Tuesday? Or because they had a really good lunch? Or was it like because of the specific projects? So ask questions about this specific moment. So instead of just asking, Are you motivated to ask, When have you been motivated in the past year? Huge difference. in those two questions, you ask? Are you motivated? And people just can easily say yes, no. And then some vague reason as to why you ask someone when they were motivated, and they go, Hmm. You know, there was this project I was working on six months ago, and it was this person. And it was because it was around this topic, that’s such a much, more rich, interesting answer that you’re going to learn from.
So you know, just asking when specific moments of tension energy. So when have you been frustrated? What have you been annoyed? When have you been bored? In your work? And then moments of energy? When have you been excited? When have you felt proud of the work that you’ve done?
Per Axbom
And then you’re actually helping that person find the response?
Claire Lew
Exactly.
Per Axbom
Which instantly makes them feel better, right? Just by being able to articulate it? Yes. It’s not even that you have to fix it. It’s just, I helped you understand something about yourself,
Claire Lew
Right. And it’s literal and concrete, it’s not just this, like, sort of, because sometimes we feel a certain way about work, you’re just kind of like, just kind of flat and stuck. And so if you’re talking to your boss about that, or they’re like, oh, How’s work, and they’re like, you know, things are pretty, okay. It’s like, Well, okay, why is that? Well, I don’t really I don’t, you know, you’re not helping that person figure out what what sort of that root causes. But if you ask when, well, why, when, when is the time when you when you really felt this? Why, haha. You know, what it was when we had this meeting with the client, and they kind of blew up at us and etc. Right. So it’s amazing what the power of a of a really well done question can do.
James Royal-Lawson
I was wondering though, I mean, a lot of us may be aren’t leaders, we don’t have kind of responsibility of over colleagues. But instead, we you know, we we work with peers, and we work in teams. So what what can I do as a as a team member or one amongst peers to do to elicit feedback and give feedback?
Claire Lew
Absolutely. So the the power of asking, you know, these vulnerable questions, right, and going first, the power of specific questions and questions around specific moments, attention and energy, the definitely still stands. The most important thing, though, from an individual contributor perspective to share, though, is, and this is the thing that gets most sort of lost in the weeds, either when you’re giving feedback, or asking for feedback is to explain your intention behind it. So you know, we’ve been talking a lot about intention today.
But a lot of miscommunication or misconstruing of why teammates give feedback in a certain way, or why they’re asking certain questions happens, because we don’t really understand why people are asking or why people are giving this feedback. And so especially as an individual contributor, if you’re giving feedback upwards, or you’re asking for feedback from your boss, it’s to explain why, here’s why I’m giving. It’s because I want to progress in my career. And I’m trying to learn as much about how I can improve my own skill set. Or I’m asking this because I think our team could be better. And I really want to get those varied perspectives.
So we can we can make progress or I’m giving this feedback because I really care about the team’s culture. And when everyone to have as great of an experience as I did, right, so I think it’s, it’s easy just to assume that that comes through. But I think sort of the greatest advice I have for individual contributors around feedback is Don’t forget to explain why you want it or why you’re giving it or why you’re asking for it.
Per Axbom
I’m actually working on a tool for evaluating someone’s health online, somebody’s looking at different tools. And the best one I found is NHS in the UK, because their tool actually explains why they’re asking that particular question.
James Royal-Lawson
Right,
Per Axbom
Then then I understand why they’re asking it. So I understand why I’ve have to respond to, but a barrage of questions. There’s so many questions, why are they even asking this?
Claire Lew
Right?
Per Axbom
And they start to question the validity of the tool.
Claire Lew
Right.
Per Axbom
And I don’t trust it as much.
James Royal-Lawson
Or even trying to work out what you’re trying, you know, the hidden hidden reason? Yeah, you see a question. Oh right. I know what they’re getting at trying to figure it out.
Per Axbom
Yes, exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
I’m going to give that answer.
Per Axbom
I’m trying to game the systems.
James Royal-Lawson
Yes.
Claire Lew
Absolutely. I think that is so true. And, you know, I share this and then I think, well, it’s likely almost equally important from from sort of a leadership side, it doesn’t mean that you never, you know, as leaders that we never should explain why we’re asking for feedback. I mean, to your point, people like to know why things are happening. I’m mean that that cannot be one more sort of baseline sort of human instinct that we have is we like things to make sense. Things don’t make sense unless we explained things.
Per Axbom
Yes. Exactly.
Claire Lew
Yeah, it’s funny, it’s funny how that that happens.
James Royal-Lawson
So yeah, all of this then we can use to, to create a culture of feedback. Not, well, in our teams, upwards and downwards, I’m mean it’s really universally applicable, even in our non-work lives.
Claire Lew
Oh, absolutely. I mean, it’s funny, because, you know, the software company that I run is, you know, it’s called know your team. But will we will literally get emails people saying, Do you have a know your spouse?
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. Know your wife!
Claire Lew
Know your, know your family. And it’s true, it’s because it feedback is simply about sharing what we would like to see that’s better or different. That applicator, Yeah, that application is true in not just work teams, but in our communities, and our government, our social lives and our romantic lives. It’s sort of ever, ever present. I also think, and this is the reason I’ve always been so passionate about this topic, I think so deeply.
And the reason why I’ve chosen to focus specifically on in our work lives, is because the amount of frustration that happens, and the amount of costs that happens in our workplaces, because we don’t know how to give this feedback well, or ask for it well, sort of reverberates outward, it’s like, if you’re less happy at work, and if the company isn’t, so that you’re working for performing well, it’s like, okay, your livelihood, you know, the the sort of positive potential there it goes down, and then just how you’re able to go about your life, right? Like, you come home, you talk to your family, and you’re in a miserable sort of state of mind, because, like, my boss will listen to me. And here’s the thing that that was me.
Eight, nine years ago, you know, I started this company, because I had a boss and worked in a company, where I felt like, wow, there’s no culture of feedback. And you know, the CEO of the time great person, but has no idea what his employees actually think. And it blew my mind. It was a very small company, too. And so that’s what inspired you know, this, this whole, whole journey. But yeah, it’s, it’s it’s true in so many different aspects of life in general.
Per Axbom
So can benefit your complete life. wonderful message, listeners. Thank you, Claire, for sitting down with us.
James Royal-Lawson
Thank you Claire.
Claire Lew
Thank you so much for having me.
Per Axbom
For me, this was a hugely important show to listen back to, because it has all these good techniques and tips for just reminding yourself on how to give feedback, how to receive feedback, things that you tend to forget, because you may know that it’s really important, but it’s always so easy to go like it except, for example, if someone wants to give you feedback, it’s so easy to go into defensive mode. And not think that the person who is giving you feedback has positive intent, you think they’re sort of undermining you. That’s the sort of feeling you get.
But you always have to remind yourself that people give feedback because they want to change something, they want something to be different and, hopefully better as well. And so there’s always, always something to learn from the feedback. And you just need to be vulnerable enough and show yourself vulnerable enough to actually receive it in a good way. I think, learn how to listen,
James Royal-Lawson
Exactly. I think we’ve all been in those situations where a person of authority has closed us down, when we’ve tried expressing something, also giving some feedback.
Per Axbom
Which means that it’s so much harder for them to get feedback at a point in the future, because you will just give up
James Royal-Lawson
’cause you’ll think it’s futile.
Per Axbom
Yeah exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
you’ve not been heard you’ve not been listened to. So your enthusiasm to actually try diminishes.
Per Axbom
Yeah, definitely
James Royal-Lawson
You reinforce a culture.
Per Axbom
I mean, that has to be one of the biggest problems in big corporations today is that people don’t dare speak up, they don’t dare voice their concerns, raise their hand and say that I think something is off here. I would like it to be different. And sometimes they need help. I mean, because that’s also another problem I just thought about is that people try to give feedback, but they’re not. They’re not sure what that the feedback they want to give is they just have a bad feeling. And then the person listening thinks, oh, well, you can’t specify be specific about what you feedback, then I will listen to it. But instead, you should be digging further and helping them to express themselves. And all the wonderful techniques that Claire gave us with specifying when in time. Did you have this feeling? What’s one thing that could be better? So all those techniques for asking specific questions? Really, really good.
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, make sure you’ve got those exploratory tools, to dig deeper to continue the conversation.
Per Axbom
Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
Because it’s is a conversation is giving and receiving feedback,
Claire Lew
Exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
She, we, we covered a lot of aspects in in, in Claire’s workshop. Then it was split into four parts, asking, acting, giving and receiving. And I think we did cover asking, we covered acting, and we also covered receiving in the podcast now.
Per Axbom
Yeah, there was a sort of like creating the culture for getting feedback, asking for advice, advice, admitting what you’re struggling with. But I’m sure there are some aspects of how to be better at not jumping to conclusions about the feedback, but actually, just instead of responding, asking further questions to get to the bottom of what that person is trying to express
James Royal-Lawson
yet also aspects of receiving is Claire gave a tip during the workshop about, not only the silence, making sure you are listening, she also recommended that you write things down. Because that helps you be silence but also helps you take on board the feedback that you’re receiving.
Per Axbom
That’s, that’s really interesting, because that’s something that we practised during, when I study coaching is not to write things down. Because it shows the person that you’re paying attention to something else. So get it maintaining a relationship and that rapport with the person. Eye contact is really important to you mustn’t forget that either.
James Royal-Lawson
What is, the, the advice there then is I supposed for coaching is that you would you would write down directly after, wouldn’t you?
Per Axbom
Exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
Okay. Interesting. So I mean, yeah, it’s interesting, your reflection, like silence is good. Writing down as a tool for silence, maybe perhaps not always recommended, but writing down definitely. But choose choose the right time.
Per Axbom
Because there are things you could miss in the other person’s expression or body language, if you’re paying attention to something
James Royal-Lawson
Completely true. And then giving feedback, that’s definitely an area we didn’t cover so much in the podcast, I think. But during Claire’s workshop, she, she had four techniques, which are quite useful. One of them in particular, the first one she mentioned was, make sure you come from a place of care. So she, she recommended, highlighted, that you need to make your intentions clear that, you know, I’m saying this because I care, basically.
So you’re, you’re fronting the conversation with something that shows that you’re not doing this to kind of get them fired, or to kind of like, you know, irritate them get revenge or whatever. I mean, I don’t know, pick your pick your crazy reason you’re doing it because you actually want to make a positive difference. So like you said, about positive intent for receiving the positive intent has to be there for for giving as well.
Per Axbom
Exactly.
James Royal-Lawson
There’s also like the observation that you you’ve you’ve spotted this, be clear that it’s it’s what you’ve noticed. So you might be wrong. And then asking them what they think when you’ve when you’ve given that kind of single-sourced observational feedback? And what does the person who you’re given the feedback to think, how did they respond? So you, you have a conversation about it? And that’s the feedback loop I guess!
Per Axbom
Probably yes. I mean, again, we always talk about the many skills that we as UXers have to have. But I’d argue that this is certainly one of the most important skills, because you’re getting feedback and giving feedback all the time. It’s I mean, it’s a core part of your job. The problem, of course, is and I think you touched upon it, during the interview is, how do you make sure the culture is there? Because I mean, if the company or the leaders or the managers aren’t even willing to confess that this is really important, or acknowledge that it’s important, the culture is never going to grow.
I mean, is there any Is there even a possibility for you to lead by example, from below and make sure that Yeah, people love giving and receiving feedback and this team, but if it’s not part of the culture of the company, how do you get there?
James Royal-Lawson
I mean, it’s just, it’s a spiral in both ways, isn’t it? I mean, if you can, if you don’t have this feedback, culture, and you, you do have situations where you close people down or you don’t listen, then it’s a it’s a spiral. Because the futility increases, people don’t want to give feedback.
So I suppose, no matter what level, you’re opening yourself, open feedback and sharing feedback, you’re going to start a positive spiral of feedback, perhaps within a culture that isn’t so used to feedback. And that’s a good thing.
I mean, I know that many of us work with, you know, teams, or Scrum teams, or agile teams of some kind. And one of the tools in that is, of course, retrospectives where in the end of each sprint, you, you know, reflect on the previous sprint and see what could be, what worked well, and what could be changed for the better next time. And I’ve reflected on that, too, that that’s, that’s a good, that is a good tool. But it’s very, it’s very team based. It’s focusing on the team and the sprint. Yeah. And it lacks individual feedback. It’s rare that individual feedback comes up in those kind of, oh sometimes you get kind of praise for like, You know, Per did a really good job with that. Excellent. But I was thinking about kind of like regular one-on-one feedback is something that’s that’s I feel anyway, missing those kind of environments often.
Per Axbom
I’ve worked in one, one project my whole life where the product owner actually had regular one-to-one meetings with team members.
James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.
Per Axbom
And that was one of the best projects, obviously.
James Royal-Lawson
I mean, I couldn’t stand the wall. That’s difficult, because this is the time investment for that. You know, you’ve got to convince yourself is a good thing might be a difficult step to take. But I know one thing I was going to try, I’ve been trying to kind of do but you know, the summer’s got in the way for us. But I am going to try and more often with my team members and and peers. Just ask them maybe every now and then how it’s been to work with me during a certain period of time.
Per Axbom
That’s a good one, I like that. Yeah.
James Royal-Lawson
You know, to open up that possibility for them to say, watch me. Yeah, I just wish you wouldn’t talk all the time. For example.
Per Axbom
Why are you always putting on UX podcast when we’re working?
James Royal-Lawson
Loud speaker system across the entire building. Yep. Okay. Thank you Per.
Per Axbom
Thanks for listening. Always a pleasure. And a quick reminder, you can contribute to funding UX podcast by visiting UXpodcast.com/support.
James Royal-Lawson
Yep. And recommended listening after this. We’re gonna go for Episode 110. UX coaching with the wonderful Whitney Hess.
Per Axbom
Nice. I haven’t thought about that one for a while. Remember to keep moving.
James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side.
[Music]
This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-Lawson, Per Axbom, and Claire Lew originally recorded in May 2019 and published as Episode 217 of UX Podcast.
This transcript has been machine generated.