Coaching- Putting Effort into Giving Critical and Positive Feedback (2-6-19)

Last week was about showing yourself the same level of coaching compassion as you show others. This week’s entry is about putting in equal effort to providing positive and critical feedback to individuals.

I have two girls, Violet (5) and Alice (almost 7). As a parent I feel the majority of my job is coaching them in some way, shape, or form. When my kid does something small that’s wrong I usually respond with a quick, “Hey, are you supposed to be doing that?” When it is something more serious, I call them over to me. I crouch down to their level and look them right in the eyes as I talk with them. Then the conversation usually goes something like, “Violet, are you supposed to hit your sister with your ninja turtle sword? Why did you hit her? Why shouldn’t we hit each other? What will happen if you continue to behave in this way?” The reason why I call them over and then crouch down is because I want them to know I take them and their behavior very seriously, and you can see from the look on their faces that when I stop and do this the message usually sinks in..

I more or less do the same thing if they are exhibiting positive behavior. The small good things they do get a quick, “Good job!” and a high five. However, there are times when their positive behavior deserves more than a quick “good job!” and high five. When this occurs, I call them over, get down on their level, and talk to them. These conversations usually go like this, “Violet, I saw that you were getting frustrated, but you managed to calm down and then solve your problem. Good job being able to calm down. I know that’s incredibly hard, but look at how you were able to do it after you took time to breathe and calm down. You did so great, and I’m so proud of you. Keep it up.” Just like in the other example, slowing down, getting on their level, and having a deeper conversation helps the message sink in.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work and giving feedback. Do you give the same intention and effort into giving positive feedback that you put into giving critical feedback? In my experiences, most people don’t. In my experience, people are often apt to give critical feedback on a more regular basis and tend to have a little more thought behind it. However, when it comes to giving positive feedback it is often sparse and consists of a generic, “Good job!” Some positive feedback is better than never receiving positive feedback. However, putting a little extra time and effort into sitting down with someone and giving them more specific reasons on why something was good is more motivating and impactful than generic comments.

The challenge: Can you give the same intention and effort into giving critical and positive feedback?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Coaching and Giving Feedback that Matters (1-23-19)

Last week was about understanding the situation before providing feedback. This week is about focusing and giving feedback on things that matter. A little while ago I saw someone give a presentation. After they were done I dropped them a line telling them I felt they did a good job because they got the main idea across in a clear, concise, and engaging manner. That should be the goal for any presentation, right? Later on the person saw me, said thanks, and then said, “Feel free to give me constructive feedback too on what I should have done better.” This caused me to pause and ask myself, “At what point should I give constructive criticism and at what point should I just leave well enough alone?”

In the this example, I didn’t feel I had anything of substantial value to add on the constructive front, because she had accomplished the goal of getting the main idea across in a clear, concise, and engaging manner. If I would have been pushed I could have found flaws to talk about regarding her presentation. The person’s body language wasn’t perfect, the slides could have been better, and there were a few places that could have been smoothed over. However, I don’t know if fixing these things would have really elevated things that much. The bottom line is that this person accomplished their goals with the presentation and communicated a clear message. If the presentation was an 8 out of 10 before, maybe fixing that stuff would have made it an 8.3. Most of the audience wouldn’t have even known the difference.

Your next question might be, “Well, shouldn’t the person shoot for a 10?” Not necessarily. A 10 presentation requires a lot of additional effort and work. Most of the time you just need a solid 8, so it is clear enough to move an audience. Now, if the person would have delivered a 3 or 4, then the person would have missed their objective of getting their point across. At this point, the issue would have been large enough to talk about. At this point, the gaps would have been substantial enough that I would talk to them about filling them. It’s kind of like working on a road. You fill giant potholes before you think of filling surface level cracks in concrete. See the picture to the upper right of a small crack with a circle around it. Are you going to fill that crack or are you going to focus on fixing the hole at the bottom of this email?

More work connections. It’s easy to give feedback about every little flaw, mistake, and area that could be improved. However, just because something is a flaw or it could be improved doesn’t mean that it SHOULD be improved. For example, how many times in meetings have you been trying to get thoughts on an idea and people start talking to you about the font and colors on the slide you are showing instead of the key message you are trying to communicate? I don’t know about you, but I see this happen far more than I’d care to admit. #sadbuttrue How many times have you received feedback on stuff that really doesn’t matter? I feel when we give feedback on every small little thing, we actually give feedback on nothing, because we’ve given them so many things to think about they can’t take action. Additionally, every ounce of energy a person puts forward to fix a “meaningless” issue is an ounce of energy they are unable to put toward making meaningful change. Instead of giving feedback on every little thing, can we work on doing a better job of focusing on the things that will truly move the needle with each other?

The challenge: Are you focused on giving/seeking feedback that will truly make a difference?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Coaching and Taking the Time to Understand the Situation (1-16-19)

Last week was about making your intentions known before providing feedback. This week we are going to focus on understanding the situation before giving feedback.

Pretend for a moment that you are a coach for a football team. The kicker just missed a field goal. You saw it hit the uprights and the crossbar. What coaching do you give the kicker? Maybe you would give the kicker coaching on kicking the ball harder, changing footwork, etc. What I would hope you’d do is first ask the kicker what they think happened. I hope you’d say, “From here it looked like X happened. What was going on for you?” The reason this is important is because the kicker’s response will influence what you talk about. Maybe the kicker didn’t take the wind into consideration. Maybe he slipped. Maybe he was trying to kick too high to get it over the linemen. Maybe everything was fine until someone from the other team partially blocked it. These are all different problems with different root causes that require different coaching interventions and different solutions.

Connections to work. How often do we seek to understand the situation before we give feedback? How often do we find the root cause of the problem, before we offer to solve it? If we don’t know the root cause, it’s likely we will attempt to solve the wrong problem.

Have you ever had someone give you feedback on something that ended up being really off base, because they didn’t actually understand the situation? How did it make you feel when they did that? I’ve had that happen to me before, and I’ve felt frustrated that the person wasn’t even trying to understand the situation before blindly giving me coaching. This led me to wondering if the person even wanted to understand my perspective in the situation, which led me to wonder if I really wanted to work for someone who didn’t even want to attempt to understand me. On the flip side, have you ever had people take the time to understand the situation before providing feedback? I’ve had this happen, and when it does I’m always appreciative of the fact that they took time to understand the situation and I’m more prone to take the feedback to heart.

The challenge: Are you understanding the situation before you give feedback?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Coaching and Sharing your Intentions (1-9-19)

Last week we started a series on coaching, and one of the most important aspects of being a coach is giving feedback. This week I want us to think about communicating our intentions as we share feedback. I’d like to do this by sharing an Andrew Embry failure story.

Embry failure story. I mentioned before that a couple of summers ago I had an intern that I coached named Kristine. She was a few weeks into her internship and she had hit a little snag in her project. We had a 1 on 1 and she asked me what I thought she should do. Rather than give her an answer I started asking her questions. “What do you think the problem is? Why do you think the problem exists? What do you think you should do? Why do you think you should do that? What other angles are you thinking about? Who else should you talk to?” I’m on a complete roll and notice that she is starting to have the “deer trapped in headlights” look. That’s when I realize that she now thinks she’s stuck in some kind of FBI investigation.

I stop asking her questions and I say, “Whoa, that’s a lot of questions. It probably feels like I’m interrogating you. My bad and my apologies. I want you to know that I don’t expect you to have answers to most of the questions I ask you during your time here. My goal for this summer is to help you become a better thinker, and the only way I know how is to ask you questions to stretch your thinking. I’m going to ask you a barrage of questions until you either solve the problem or we figure out what you need to know to solve the problem. Then after we figure out what you need to know, we can talk about how you might get that information and I’ll be more than happy to give you more direct guidance as you need it.” After I said all that, I could see the switch her in body language. Now that she understood my intent, she was okay with me asking away.

Connections to work. How many times have you been like me in that situation? How many times have you been like Kristine in a situation? How did it feel? I remember being in a situation with the roles reversed once. This person was asking me all kinds of questions and my thought process was, “This person believes I am entirely incompetent,” so I was worried every time I spoke. Then one day the person was like, “Yeah, I like to ask a lot of questions so I’m up to speed on everything and can talk about work and connect dots as appropriate.” That one simple sentence completely changed the way I viewed and experienced our conversations. As a coach/colleague/leader, one of the most important things we can do is share and demonstrate our intentions. Demonstrating the right intentions goes a long way to building trust and enabling you to give meaningful feedback.

The challenge: Are you demonstrating your intentions when communicating with individuals?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Coach Yourself as You would Coach Others (1-30-19)

Last week was about giving meaningful feedback. This week is about showing yourself the same level of coaching compassion as you do others. What you are about ready to read is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

A few months ago, Bob and I were talking. Bob is brand new to his role and feeling overwhelmed. He’s used to being in a role where he was competent and knew what he was doing, and now he’s playing an entirely different ball game. Bob is concerned, anxious, excited, feeling incompetent, full of doubt, etc. When I talk to Bob, I listen to him, try to understand him, and show empathy. Then, I say something along the lines of, “I have a lot of love for you Bob. You’re brand new. Everything you’re feeling is exactly what you should be feeling right now. You’re not going to get good overnight. It’s going to take a few months. In fact, I’m proud of you, because I’ve seen that you have already started to pick up on a few things. You’re making great progress and are already starting to make an impact. If you want to continue to grow, here are a few things to think about. In the meantime, keep being you and adding value where you can, because that’s what this team needs you to do right now.” From there I share a few other thoughts and considerations with Bob, and I can tell that he appreciates the conversation.

A few weeks ago, Joe and I were talking. Joe is brand new to his role, and was in a very similar situation to Bob with similar feelings and everything. I didn’t really make an effort to understand Joe or empathize with him. Instead, when I talked to Joe I said something along the lines of, “You’re kind of behind aren’t you? Shouldn’t you have started picking up on this stuff by now? What value are you even bringing to the team? Are you sure you can do this stuff? People told you that you’d be good at this role, so shouldn’t you be good by now?” This conversation doesn’t help Joe much.

At this point you’re probably saying, “Why were you so good to Bob and so bad to Joe?” It’s quite simple. Joe’s real name is Andrew Embry and Bob isn’t Andrew Embry. I’ve found throughout my career that when it comes to helping others I’m filled with patience, compassion, and a willingness to help. When it comes to helping others, I usually find some kind of perspective that is valuable to the person I’m assisting. I’ve found when it comes to myself, I lose this perspective and fall down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and having ridiculously high expectations. Do any of you do the same thing? Do any of you treat Bob better than “Joe” (aka yourself)?

With all that said, I’m making a concentrated effort to approach myself differently, by approaching myself like I would approach any other person. When I start to find myself stuck, frustrated, frozen, and filled with self-doubt, I ask myself, “What would I tell someone else who came to me with that problem? If ‘Pat’ came to me, what would I say? What would I ask? How would I empathize with them?” It’s amazing how much better perspective and how much more grace I give myself if I pretend I’m talking to someone else. As a result of all of this, I’m trying to take the advice I’m giving to other people. If I’m being entirely honest with myself, I’m not entirely competent right now in my newer role, and that’s okay. It’s okay for me to admit this and own this, because this is where I am right now. At the same time, while I may not be entirely competent in all of the technical ways I will need to be, there are still ways for me to add value, and that’s what I need to focus on while I continue to settle in and find where I belong on this team.

The challenge: Treat yourself as well as you’d treat others.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Inspector Gadget and Recognizing Others for their Contributions (11-28-18)

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Last week’s blog was about Ninja Turtles and evolving with changing context. This week is about Inspector Gadget, Penny, Brain, and lifting up those who contribute to the team’s success (because this what we need to do to ensure we can take over the world).

In case you aren’t familiar, the cartoon follows the adventures of Inspector Gadget, a sort of cyborg, as he works to thwart the evil Dr. Claw and his M.A.D. agents. Inspector Gadget’s body is filled with various inventions and enhancements from his infamous “go-go gadget arms” to his “gadget copter” and “gadget phone”. Always accompanying Inspector Gadget are his niece, Penny, and dog, Brain. Brain and Penny often work behind the scenes, unbeknownst to Gadget, in order to help him save the day. At the end of the adventure, they all save the day, Dr. Claw retreats, and Gadget is given the accolades for defeating Dr. Claw again.

You might be wondering where this is going. The problem I’ve always had with Inspector Gadget is that Penny and Brain don’t ever get the respect and recognition they deserve. Sure, Inspector Gadget has some pretty amazing abilities, and he does his part to help save the day. However, Penny and Brain are huge contributors too, and they are never seen for this. Inspector Gadget, the Chief, and the others are oblivious to their contributions.

This reminds me of work sometimes. Often, we applaud the “title character” in the form of the supervisor, project leader, etc. and we fail to recognize, appreciate, and value all of the people working outside of the spotlight. Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever thought to yourself, “Sure, they were the leader, but they didn’t get there on their own”? The fact is that without Penny and Brain, Inspector Gadget would fail miserably. In the same way, without all of the people working “behind” the scenes, the person in the spotlight wouldn’t get there either.

All of this doesn’t mean that Inspector Gadget is bad. It just means he can do better. We can do better. We can make the choice to elevate those people who need to be seen. It just takes us being intentional enough to do this, and being strong enough to lift them up. I try to remind myself that if my go-go gadget arms are large enough to wrap around a project and lead through it, then they are also strong enough to ensure I lift up the people who need to be recognized.

The challenge: Are you lifting up the people who need to be seen? Lift someone up today. Seriously, stop what you’re doing. Take a quick second and send an email to someone to lift them up. Then, go the extra step and forward that email to the person’s boss so the boss knows that person is awesome. It will take all of 5 minutes, and will make the week for the person.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Ironing, the Need for Heat, and Development (8-23-17)

This week I’d like to kick off a new series on lessons learned from doing things around the house. Sounds thrilling, right? This series is either going to be horrible or it will bring the heat. Speaking of bringing the heat, let’s kick this off by thinking about ironing and development. (In case you’re wondering, I’m always this smooth with my bad jokes).

About once a month I iron all my dress shirts, polos, dress pants, and anything else that needs to be ironed. Recently, I finished ironing a bunch of clothes, and had to take them upstairs so I momentarily unplugged the iron and took the shirts up to my closet. When I came back, I started using the iron and quickly realized it wasn’t working. At first I was confused, and then realized I never plugged the iron back in. No electricity meant no heat, which meant the iron couldn’t do its job. It was at this point I had a minor epiphany about how ironing is always a delicate balance. You need to have heat to smooth out wrinkles, but not too much heat or you’ll burn the garment.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work. Well, I think we could all use a little ironing sometimes. We could all use something to help us smooth out our wrinkles and make us a little sharper, a little better. Much like the iron, I think we need heat to do this. In this case, heat could be a challenge, positive tension, coaching, a difficult conversation, making mistakes, failing, etc. If you don’t have those things, you never have what you need to grow. The trick is to find the balance in the heat. Too little challenge/positive tension/coaching/mistakes and nothing gets smoothed out. Too much, and you get burned out, damaged, and worse off than you were before. It’s up to us to find the heat in our jobs that helps us go to the next level.

Embry example-> When I talk to people about what kind of work I like I say, “I like messy and muddy problems.” I don’t like those things because they are easy. I like those things because they force me to grow and smooth out some of my rough spots, and I know I have more than my fair share of rough spots. Over the past few months I’ve had a lot of things I’ve worked on for the first time. Whether it was running market research, learning about marketing processes, or adapting to a new team, I wasn’t immediately great at any of those things. In fact a week or two ago, I turned to a teammate and said something like, “These past few days have been a friendly reminder that I’m not great at my job yet and that I have a lot of room to grow.” It’s not that I think I’m an incompetent mess, well maybe I am depending on the day 😉 It’s just that I realize I can still be so much better. Over the past few months I’ve experienced some heat and as a result I’ve smoothed out some of my wrinkles and grown. I believe the Andrew Embry of today could run circles around the Andrew Embry of 7 months ago. My hope is that in a year that Andrew Embry will be so awesome that he will be running circles around my current self while doing backflips and yo-yo tricks.

The challenge: Are embracing the heat to iron out your wrinkles? How can you be a good iron for others to help them get the wrinkles out?

Bonus challenge: Think of someone who has grown in the past few months and give them a shout out and let them know you see their progress.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Feedback, Investments, and being a Good Stock (10-28-15)

Last week was about giving quality feedback when people do things well and not just when they make a mistake. This week we’ll wrap up this series by thinking about our role in receiving feedback.

Imagine for a moment that you are investing in 2 different stocks. The stocks have the same potential, you invest the same amount of money in them, but there are a couple of differences. Stock A never shows you any data to let you know how the stock is doing, so you have no idea what your return on investment is. Stock B gives you consistent updates and you realize that every time you invest money in Stock B the stock increases in value and you get a higher dividend. Which stock would you rather invest in?

Gut check question. Which stock are you? You’re probably wondering what that question even means and how it connects to us at work. Think about the last time you received quality feedback. What did you do to show the person you valued their feedback? What did you do to demonstrate you had actually changed? If you didn’t do anything, then you are Stock A. The person invested their time and effort in you, and they have no idea what happened as a result. If you demonstrated that their words were valuable to you and you changed as a result, then you are Stock B.

Do you think the person would rather invest their time and effort in a person like Stock A or a person like Stock B? In my experience, when I have given feedback to people and they have done something to show me that they value the input and time I gave them, it drives me to help them more. I end up spending more time doing whatever I can to help them reach their goals. If I don’t feel the person ever listens or changes as a result I begin to wonder if it’s even worth my time. Have you ever felt this way?

Over my career I’ve learned that when it comes to giving feedback it’s my job to give specific and constructive feedback. When it comes to receiving feedback, it’s my responsibility to show I’m open to receiving the feedback and that I’ll actually do something with it.

The challenge: Which stock will you be? Will you be a good investment?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Feedback on Mistakes vs. Successes: What’s the Difference? (10-21-15)

Last week we talked about giving feedback in the frame of personal preference and business necessity. This week I want us to think about the intent behind giving feedback and then look at something that has always boggled my mind.

The intent behind giving feedback is to get someone to do something in order to perform. At its simplest level, you either want the person to change what they are doing or to keep doing what they are doing in order to perform well. In order to do this, you need to give specific feedback on what they should change or what they are doing well so the person is clear about what you and the organization values about them and how they operate.

With that said, let’s look at something that I’ve experienced that has always confused me. Why do we often treat giving constructive criticism differently than giving positive feedback? Two quick examples. If I mess something up the feedback might be something like, “Andrew, this isn’t really what we are looking for. I think you should have asked more questions in the beginning to gain clarity, and then you could have used that information to shape this.” People usually tell me what I did wrong and at least one specific thing I could tweak. If I do well on something the feedback might be like, “Andrew, you did a great job on this!” I leave that conversation having no idea what they valued. Did they value the teamwork? Did they value the thinking behind it? Who knows?

Does this feel familiar to you? I feel that I get more specific feedback when I mess something up compared to the generic good job I get when things go well. This is important to understand, because as leaders it is our job to set direction and to help people develop. Part of this is giving feedback that helps them decide when they should keep doing what they are doing and when they need to adapt. If you aren’t giving specific feedback on both the good and the bad you are withholding information that can help them perform at their best.

The challenge for the week: Give someone some specific feedback about what they are doing WELL. It will make their day and your day.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Feedback- Personal Preference or Business Necessity (10-14-15)

Last week we talked about the need to stop and ask a few questions before giving someone feedback in order to ensure you are diagnosing and helping solve the right problem. This week’s blog is inspired by an email exchange I recently had with a colleague. The topic for this week is personal preference vs. business necessity.

There was a workshop I went to that described business necessity as, “You have to do this or you’ll get hurt/hurt the team.” Example, wearing steel toed boots on a construction site is a business necessity. Not using the right safety equipment puts the team at risk. Personal preference is what you would prefer people to do (Thanks Captain Obvious).

What does this have to do with giving feedback? We all have biases about which behaviors we prefer, but how many of them are true business necessities? As our work culture evolves, so does our understanding of what is a personal preference vs. a true business necessity. When we give feedback to others we have to first figure out if the behavior is a preference or necessity, and we need to be able to explain our rationale.

I was filming someone I didn’t know really well once, and when they spoke they were very formal. I have a bias against formal language, because I’m a casual person. The guy asked me how I thought he did. I replied, “I’m naturally more of a casual guy, and you sounded formal to me. I don’t know you well though. If you’re more of a formal guy, go for it, but if you were being formal because you thought you had to be that way we can adjust.” I found out he’s a formal guy and was doing what was comfortable to him, so we didn’t change anything. This was a matter of personal preference, so who was I to change it as long as it is effective and true to the person?

On the flip side, I had a friend in the field who received coaching about not being a “strong and direct” closer. The manager wanted him to ask for the business and the “next 5 patients”. This was not my friend’s style. He was subtle and more of a partner vs. a driver. My friend also happened to be a very successful sales representative. My friend received coaching because his behaviors did not match his manager’s preferences, and not because of a business necessity.

The challenge- Are we focusing our feedback on personal preferences or business necessities? Are we connecting the dots to help people understand how their behaviors are business necessities?

Bonus questions: Who decides what constitutes “a business necessity”? How has this definition changed over time?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry