by Aaron Levy
WHAT’S THE POINT?
Over time, live feedback becomes infectious, and the more you do it, the more others will adopt your model of open, honest, and direct feedback. The result is the creation of a learning culture within your organization, one in which people give and receive feedback in the moment, and it’s often the feedback they need most in order to best support their growth and the company’s success.
Your biggest barrier to making these steps work with your team is consistency. In business and in life, we are often willing to try a strategy out for a few weeks before we either forget about it or deem it unsuccessful. I see this all too often with leaders. If you think this will provide a quick fix to your team dynamic issues, it won’t.
To create an open, honest, and direct team, you must commit to your agreements and consistently uphold them on a daily basis. It will likely take months of consistency for your team to truly understand that these agreements are here to stay and for them to fully get on board with operating by them. Nevertheless, be patient and consistent.
TOP TAKEAWAYS
• Team performance is more under your control as a leader than you may have previously thought. It’s not simply about who you have on the team; rather, a large part of your team’s performance is dependent on the clarity and psychological safety you create.
• When we don’t know what’s acceptable to say or to do with each other, when we are confused about what we are doing or how we are doing it, it brings our actions to a halt and makes it hard to get our work done—let alone to collaborate with each other. Clarity about expectations and goals is essential for a team to perform at the highest level.
• Lack of psychological safety and the energy we spend trying to tiptoe around one another’s assumed land mines is what drives ineffectiveness and inefficiency on your team.
• Creating the space for open, honest, and direct communication to occur starts with establishing team agreements.
• When you clarify who you are as a business and team, there will be people who either can’t or don’t want to make the transition to the new way of work as a team. Expect this to come, and when it’s time, be ready to do the next hard thing. It will show the power of your words, that these new agreements really matter, and will make your team and business stronger as a result.
• Agreements are not just words that go up on a wall in your office, on your website careers page, or in your employee handbook. To really stick, they need to be ingrained in the actions your people take on a daily basis. This happens only when you incorporate them into your team’s everyday practices.
• After you have alignment on your agreements, you can start to make them a part of everyday life. They are now the foundation for the type of culture you want to create, and you’ll be able to tell your employees, unapologetically, what it means to work together here.
ACTION ITEMS
• Create your initial draft of team agreements.
• Hold your first meeting to make deals on your drafted agreements with your team.
REFLECTION
• What’s been the impact of rolling out the agreements with your team?
• What are you doing to ensure these agreements stay top of mind with your team?
Chapter 7
HOLD CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.”
—James Neil Hollingworth, American poet and writer
Intention: Feedback is a gift. Without it, people don’t grow.
I still regret the way I managed in my first attempt at leading a team. There was one employee in particular, Jess, with whom I wish I’d had more courage. Jess was underperforming in the most basic sense. She’d not follow through on an agreed-upon deliverable and would miss key assignments. She was good at her job when she did it, but there were many times when she failed to do the necessary work. I would deliberate with myself each time a deliverable was missed.
Should I bring this up to her? I’d ask myself. But she did this other thing well. Her colleagues had positive feedback about her. Then again, she missed this deadline after I clearly stated when it was due.
I was afraid to give her feedback. I thought if I gave her critical feedback, she would not be able to bounce back and go out and deliver. I sugarcoated my feedback to Jess, starting and ending each conversation with a positive—dulling the message. I realize now, though, that by not sharing real, honest, and direct feedback with Jess, I was robbing her of an opportunity to see the areas of potential growth she was missing. The more you hold back on sharing feedback and the more protection you give your employee, the more you rob them of their growth. Whether they acknowledge your honesty in the moment or five years later or never, by sharing the harsh truths, you allow someone else the opportunity to learn and to grow. You help not just yourself and the person in question but your other team members and the company, who all stand to benefit from this growth.
Imagine trying to get better at shooting a basketball if you only ever practice in the dark. Without the ability to see where the ball goes—whether it goes in or hits the rim or bounces off the backboard—how would you be able to know the proper adjustments to make? Your work as a leader is to shine the light on the situation so your employees can see the impact of their actions—so they can learn, grow, and get better.
Just because you shine the light doesn’t mean your employee will appreciate the light being shined on an area of their work. Receiving feedback isn’t easy to do. In developing our training model, I had a good sense of how I wanted the program to look and flow, and I knew it needed feedback and various other perspectives outside of mine to be better. I engaged a colleague, Carolina, to help map out and design our leadership bootcamp course. Throughout the course of our work, I’d ask her for feedback on what we needed to do differently, on what would make the training even more impactful for the leaders we worked with. Each time Carolina shared feedback that forced me to rethink a whole section, rather than make a simple edit, I cringed. Her feedback was valid, and it still hit me like a punch in the chest. Feedback, even when requested, can be hard to receive.
The way I receive feedback is a growth area for me as a leader. I now often follow up a piece of feedback with a thank you, because it not only reminds me that it’s a gift someone has given me but also because it lets the other person know I appreciate the gift and want more to come. It doesn’t mean I always take it well.
Even when we ask for feedback, the idea of hearing what could be done better in our work or life usually drives defensiveness. If you know your own reaction would be defensive, think about how the idea of feedback, especially critical or negative feedback, might feel to your employees when you deliver it to them. Since we often avoid giving critical feedback, we miss the mark when we do have to have a critical conversation. By establishing a clear set of team agreements, you’ll be better equipped to share feedback in the moment. Yet, there are times when feedback is more than sharing what didn’t work in the moment, when it requires a conversation.
What’s the difference between sharing feedback and having a critical conversation? When you share feedback, it’s direct: You share what didn’t work and what needs to change next time; usually, the behavior or action desired is fairly black and white. Let’s say, for example, an employee schedules a meeting with you and comes in with no set agenda. The direct feedback is, for any future meeting you set, to come prepared with an agenda, because it helps ensure a productive meeting for all involved. That’s what giving direct feedback looks like. Now, if the employee continues to show up to meetings without an agenda prepared after you repeatedly set the expectation of coming with one, this is where the situation may transition from feedback to a critical conversation.
WHAT MAKES A CONVERSATION CRITICAL?
How do you know when something an employee did requires more than just sharing what didn’t work, when it requires
a deeper dive with the employee, a critical conversation? Remember that by critical, I mean both vitally important and involving a critique of behavior.
There are four key elements to look for when determining if you need to have a conversation with the employee instead of giving them direct feedback.
Something is at stake
Critical conversations are necessary when the stakes are high for you, the employee, the company, or all of the above. This is when there is a risk of losing a client, missing a major deadline, of delivering low-quality work—when there is some serious risk that needs to be addressed.
There’s an impact if nothing changes
What will happen if things keep going the way they are going? If something needs to change, that’s when a conversation becomes critical. With my previous example, if the employee keeps coming to meetings with no set agenda, the impact is that we continue to have meetings that aren’t productive. More important, it sends a signal that, as a leader, I really don’t hold people accountable.
Action is required of both parties
If you’re the one holding a critical conversation, you’re likely asking someone else to change something. Although this is often the case, change coming from a critical conversation is not one-sided. This one is usually harder for people to understand. If you are asking someone to change something about the way they work, treat you, or interact with a fellow employee or client, something is required of you as well. It might be the way you support your employee in making the change, or it could be how you hold the employee accountable when he or she doesn’t make the agreed-upon change. Either way, there is something required of both parties involved in the critical conversation.
It’s a conversation
A critical conversation is not a demand, it’s not an admonishment of the other person, and it’s not an ultimatum. It’s a conversation between two people; this means it’s two-sided. It means it’s not just about sharing your perspective on what didn’t work, but it’s also about listening to the other person’s perspective, about hearing their point of view, and about coming to agreement together. That’s why it’s called a critical conversation, not a warning meeting or a reprimand or negotiation.
Here is a quick set of questions to ask in helping you determine if you need to have a critical conversation.
ACTIVITY: CRITICAL CONVERSATION CHECKLIST
□ Is something at stake?
□ What’s the impact if nothing changes?
□ Is action needed from both parties?
□ Is it a conversation or ultimatum?
We rarely notice the impact of not having a critical conversation immediately, although the repercussions of avoiding it can haunt us for weeks or months. A client of mine—let’s call her Emma for the sake of anonymity—hired her first chief sales officer, Jake, to help her team grow to the next level. Jake was the highest-paid employee on the team, he had experience, and Emma was excited to have him as a part of the team. In the first few months, Emma started to notice in meetings how Jake would not listen to the client’s ideas but would deliver what he thought was best. This went against Emma’s philosophy of listening to clients and serving their needs. She was irked by these meetings but said nothing. Over the next several months, she continued to notice instances where Jake was not communicating well with the other departments, taking a me-first approach, and taking credit for work his team delivered without recognizing the team. Emma was furious with the way Jake, her top hire, was acting as a leader for the organization.
When I asked Emma if she’d shared this feedback with Jake, she paused, blushed, and doggedly admitted she’d not shared any of it. Instead, she moved Jake off their biggest clients and tried to protect the team from his interactions. She’d been watching from the sidelines as Jake was unknowingly dismantling the culture she had worked so hard to create, too afraid to speak up until, now, she started to see her executive team look at her in a different way. They were all complaining about Jake and wondering why she kept someone on the team who clearly wasn’t a fit. Emma finally realized the error of her ways and held a critical conversation with Jake—six months too late. The result of the conversation led to Jake and Emma agreeing on action items to take and, a month later, after he didn’t meet any of them, they parted ways.
What was the impact of Emma waiting six months to have a critical conversation? In the immediate term, she paid six months of top salary to an employee whose value didn’t match the pay. She had to stretch her other employees to compensate for Jake’s limitations, and she denigrated her values by not taking action when Jake violated those values. It wasn’t until after she let Jake go that she felt the difference. Immediately, the productivity of her sales team exploded, landing new client deals and delivering great work. She promoted Ranelle, the employee below Jake, to a director-level position and noticed that she didn’t need a chief sales officer at all; Ranelle could do all of Jake’s work and more.
It wasn’t until two months later, though, that Emma took the ultimate blow for her lack of urgency in having a critical conversation. Two months into her new role, Ranelle put in her notice. She was leaving, and when Emma asked why, she said she’d been in talks with a competitor for the past four months. She’d had enough of working for Jake and an organization that promoted selfishness, and she had decided to look elsewhere. Emma not only lost six months of her team producing at a high level, but she now lost a key employee, all because she didn’t have the conversation she knew in her gut she needed to have.
What critical conversation have you been putting off?
In this chapter, we are going to walk through the science of human behavior and how the brain reacts to feedback and events. Then, I’ll share a nine-step process you can use in order to hold more productive critical conversations. Once you’ve walked through the process, you’ll have the tools, language, and confidence to hold the critical conversation now instead of putting it off. The goal is not only to have the conversation but also to make it as productive as possible—to put you in a position to have a successful conversation. Although I can’t guarantee the outcome of the conversation, I can give you tools to achieve the best possible outcome.
ACTIVITY: PICK A CRITICAL CONVERSATION
What critical conversation do you need to have? Write down one critical conversation you need to have or have been putting off. Write down the situation and players involved in a brief paragraph for yourself.
Use this situation as your example to follow for the rest of this chapter. It will make the steps in the process more real for you, making it easier to take action and learn the skill. In short, you’ll be strengthening your neural pathway for holding critical conversations.
As we walk through each step, I’ll share a story about a critical conversation I needed to have but had trouble preparing for. It’s actually the situation that drove me to realize there’s a better way to communicate challenges with others.
One incident happened during an account review meeting with Kevin, the director of accounts, and me, the operations director. We were walking through a problem with one of our clients, ABC Corp, who was not happy with what we were doing. Kevin wanted me to change our processes and operations to serve the client’s complaints, and I didn’t want to. This wasn’t the first time Kevin asked me to make client changes that I pushed back on. I didn’t see the reason for the change; instead I saw it as more work for our team with no better outcome for the client.
Kevin naturally became frustrated and focused on telling me what we needed to do and how to do it. I suggested we set a meeting with the client to get to the root of their issue, because I didn’t think Kevin’s suggested change would solve their underlying complaint, causing us more work only to have to change course again. At that point, Kevin’s frustration boiled over and he yelled at me, “Do you even care about this business?”
In response, an immediate rush of self-doubt and anger toward Kevin ran through my head. Why doesn’t he respe
ct me? Why doesn’t he trust my ideas or opinions? Why is he so stubborn? He just wants to make sure things go his way. Why doesn’t he understand that I’m not just trying to take the easy route? Unsure of how to respond, I remained silent, and he stormed out.
Account teams and operations teams tend not to get along so well. While the account team is focused on satisfying the client, the operations team is focused on delivering the best product to the client as efficiently as possible. Though these objectives sound the same, they are frequently at odds with each other, leading to a natural tension between the two teams. In our situation, both Kevin and I were trying to set up our company for success yet had different opinions for how to make it happen.
It’s clear there needed to be a critical conversation. As the heads of our respective departments, the way we worked together was critical to the success and future of our business. We needed to be able to disagree and move forward from it better. But I wasn’t sure where to start. How could I go about having a critical conversation so Kevin would hear me? How could I let go of my biases about Kevin and how I expected him to respond? How could I put myself in the best position to have a productive critical conversation? To do this, I first needed to understand how the human brain works, how we react to situations and to receiving feedback.
THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN REACTIONS
The way we think human behavior works is quite different from how it actually works. For the sake of this discussion, we are going to look at how humans react to a specific event.