[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jamie Cochran.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Life Babin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lead Wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Extreme Watership Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what we're talking about today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feedback and specifically critical feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: and helping people realize that feedback is not a threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it's actually a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens when people want feedback they ask for feedback and then they get the feedback they weren't expecting?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think what people are looking for is the good feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when they get the negative feedback, it stings a little and it changes our perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens when you get that negative feedback?
[SPEAKER_00]: no one likes feedback, no one likes negative feedback, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We all went affirmation of that we're awesome, that we're great, that we're smart, that we couldn't have done it better, but we are all allergic to negative feedback as Jocca often says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even for us, we teach this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We teach that humility is the most important corner leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: We teach that debrief and honest, realistic self-assessment is crucial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, we put on an event, and we run some training, and we ask for some feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when people give me some honest feedback, and it's, you know, hey, you know what, this could have been better.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could have fixed this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would have been better to emphasize this point of your spend more time on this thing here.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is my immediate reaction of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's instantly defensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I didn't have time for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you just didn't understand the genius that we were, you know, the genius of the instruction that we were putting out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So none of us like negative critical feedback, it's a problem for everyone and yet if you can open your mind and accept that there may be some valid points of that feedback, it will enable you to get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're totally right because we tell people the value of seeking feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we actually use the phrase, you have to take a brutally honest self assessment, which means we have to be open to the feedback we're getting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, it is easier for me to maybe do that for myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I ask people for feedback and I get feedback that doesn't feel good, it's very difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: Might you go as immediately engaged?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw this play out at the Women's Assembly because we ran the first ever event live event in person conference and so much went into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much of my time and my effort and my, you know, for lack of a better words, blood sweat and tears went into putting on this event and I cared so much about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do it, we do for everything that's shown from.
[SPEAKER_01]: We ask for feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I preach on stage about the value of feedback we need to get this feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we ask for feedback, we get the survey back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And amidst all the amazing comments of people that really found value in the event and got a lot out of it, there's some constructive things, which are good.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can take those and make improvements.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I appreciate those.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's standing out.
[SPEAKER_01]: this comment and it was biting and it was directed specifically to me and the perspective that I had given to this individual and I realized that despite teaching this and knowing it to be true, my instinct was exactly what everyone else is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got immediately defensive and
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost arguing with this person on the other end that I don't even know, I don't even know who wrote this, arguing with them for why they were wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why you're wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have no idea what we went through and feeling sort of immediately deflated and negating all the other amazing feedback and getting hung up on this one comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took for me to really detach after I think it was probably a couple days to be honest, to recognize that this is a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the information that I didn't previously have and despite how it feels,
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives me something that I can work on and it may be realized if I come across this way, if this is someone else's perspective, there's something I can actually do to change that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Despite the effort that that took to get there at the end of the day when I got through the sting of it, I felt really grateful that I had gotten that feedback because it opened my mind to the next event that we were doing on what I could do to make sure that that wasn't the way I came across to anyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what's so hard for people is putting our ego in check long enough to see the value in the feedback we're getting when it doesn't feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so hard to accept that feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really requires the attachment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to put your ego in check, because your ego instantly wants to push back, because this person doesn't know what they're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at all this other great feedback that I got.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think when you can consider like, are there things that you can do better?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there things that you can improve?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and if there's someone who took something in the wrong way or took it out of context, like, could you, could you rephrase what you're saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that wouldn't be the case to make sure that people, you know, don't misunderstand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We use three, sixty feedback surveys, and that's really important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think to give you some critical feedback from up a chain of command, from across the chain of command, from peers from below you in the chain of command, and that's been a really great tool for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the leaders and the companies that we work with to really assess people's performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you get feedback from below, you and the Cheney Command, from across the Cheney Command, from your peers, and also from above you in the Cheney Command, from your boss and your senior leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a really powerful tool, oftentimes, because we use anonymous surveys, you can get some pretty critical and biting feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when that comes in, it's hard to accept.
[SPEAKER_00]: what you have to do though when that does come into is recognize that there may be some things that you can actually take on board and there's I got some feedback from one that we ran on me personally as a leader that was that I wasn't contributing to the strategic success of the company I wasn't doing enough and and that was something that initially I'm like what are you talking about this is crazy like can you believe this person wrote this stuff down
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt uncomfortable when I ran, it was like, oh boy, that one was rough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, it looked people over the boom sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes maybe kind of like social media, people will say things that they probably wouldn't say to someone in person, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so there's on our anonymous survey, people tend to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can be, they can be pretty harsh sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way human beings are.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: I could get super defensive about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how dare someone write something.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't see what's actually happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I launched this company as an LLC and we grew this company and for so long, it was me and Jaco and then it was me and Jaco for for so long before we grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I thought about that, I'm like, hey,
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I do more to expand the reach and growth of the company?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I do more to talk about what we do and how we do it and that to help people understand that all of their problems in life are actually leadership problems?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I help them realize that they're even a problem that they think is an impossible problem that they don't have a solution to?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I help them better understand that there is actually
[SPEAKER_00]: a leadership solution to that problem that they can get solved and they can move forward in a positive direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what this whole podcast is about, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's talking about how you can take these principles, apply them to lead so that you and your team can win.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that applies to business, that applies to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as I thought about that, I'm like, oh, absolutely, there's so much more that I can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much more that I'm not doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think for any kind of feedback like that, as you said, it's a gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can get mad about it and get frustrated by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you can just allow it to, you can accept, okay, what might actually be accurate here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see what I can do moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can also let that motivate you to go out and do better as a result.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's extrapolating enough of the truth that you can act on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then putting aside the part that just hurts your feelings and saying, OK, what's the truth in here that I can focus on putting into action?
[SPEAKER_01]: But you've read something up that I hadn't considered until we were just talking today about the people around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I may comment that when you got that feedback, I read that feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I felt defensive of you because of our relationship and having worked with you for eleven years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's something that I think we also have to think about because
[SPEAKER_01]: When I got that comment on the feedback survey, you know, at my right hand, Jen Terrentino said to me, she got defensive and she validated the feelings that I was having in that moment of being defensive and saying, no, no, this person just hasn't wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's something to think about because while we want to be an ally and I want to be defensive of you and stand up for you in this comment and help people recognize the other side of it is like, when you have people around you getting that feedback, what do we do to actually help them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I want to help you,
[SPEAKER_01]: The best thing I can do when those things come up is figure out with you, the action plan for what we're going to do to solve it and not necessarily maybe lean in or help you go down the path of defensiveness and saying, nope, this person just doesn't understand what they're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So also choosing the people around you when that feedback comes and how are they going to help you navigate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: and are they just gonna have your back and be pushing back against it and maybe not allowing you to see the truth of the situation or are they gonna maybe reflect your emotions a little bit but then diminishing by saying okay this is information we now have what can we do to make this better and those are the people you want around you in that feedback comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the book that Academy of Leadership, that Jalkonai Road, as a follow-in-one to extreme ownership, we talk about a business leader that we were working with who had gotten some very negative feedback from his boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this, their evaluation for their team, their bonuses, their annual bonuses were based on this feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he thought it was overly harsh that it was not correct and he was very frustrated with his boss.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as we were working together and talking about,
[SPEAKER_00]: The feedback that he was getting, I just asked him the question, I was like, is there any truth in this feedback at all?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so initially it was, you know, how dare this guy?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's robbing my team when their bonus is and it was all of that defensiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we talked, me and this leader talked about the feedback that he got from his boss, I said, is there any truth this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he thought about it, he detached from his emotions, he put his ego in check and he said, there's definitely some things that we can prove on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as we talked about that, what I did was help him see that the things that were valid, his boss was talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if he felt like he was overly harsh, or overly unfair, he started to work to improve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we saw was that his boss observed that, he saw the improvement that was happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they got much better performance even though I was going forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you can get mad about things or you can actually take that on board, accept what's valid, and that requires putting your ego in check or requires putting your emotions in check.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're thinking about, you know, if you immediately get defensive, you should be thinking to yourself, like, is this just my ego talking?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this just my ego?
[SPEAKER_00]: No question.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is absolutely as you read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great question to ask yourself, but people will say that all the time when they ask us questions on events is, you know, is this my ego?
[SPEAKER_01]: My answer every time is of course it's your ego.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time it's your ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they say it's probably just my ego, like take probably out of it because it absolutely is your ego.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's the hardest piece for people to figure out is that it's actually as simple as just putting your ego in check.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really easy to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very, very hard to do in that moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the question I ask and how do I get better, how do people get better at accepting negative feedback?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some things that we can do to get better at it?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing is recognize when it's your ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you could put your ego in check, that's going to prevent, I think a lot of that defensiveness and push back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the next thing is the consider is invalid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything that's valid with the feedback that I'm getting?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if there is, then take that on board so that you can start to implement a solution to make some changes or make some enhancements or improvements.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that you can get better going forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those those two things are very crucial and obviously seeking feedback from from others so you can you can validate that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You talked about being cautious on that and I think that's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's also a dichotomy here too as well because I remember when Jock and I were working on the book Extreme Ownership.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had put the manuscript together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the first copy of the manuscript that you ever saw was was a word document that I went down at local like FedEx office and had printed out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I still had that somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put in a spiral mind or somewhere, you know, send it to you and you got a chance to look at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but we said that out to a whole lot of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, people would come back and they would say, you know, they would be like, this chapter about decentralized command is absolutely the best chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then someone else would say, this chapter about desiccualized command is absolutely the worst chapter you might think about switching it out or taking it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you do get different feedback, I think from different people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people like certain things that don't like certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think there is, if you're seeking feedback for improvement, I think you do have to kind of, you do have to see what's valid, what actually makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes there may be reasons why you don't want to actually accept that favor, or don't want to make some changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the person just wasn't,
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't understand strategically what you were trying to do or why you're trying to do that doesn't mean that it's not valid.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't make it better.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think if you're getting conflicting things where someone is saying, hey, you shouldn't do this and someone is saying you should.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to really take a step back from an attached perspective and decide, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the right assessment there?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're looking for that kind of feedback, I think, you know, if multiple people are saying, hey, this is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep it in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one person saying, like, hey, that's terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably should know where the mobile feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: a hundred percent agree and I think even before if you want to get better at accepting feedback before you make those efforts to go out and ask for feedback and work through your ego when you get that negative feedback is to start with the feedback you give yourself so we always say brutally on a self assessment if you want to get better if feedback be your own harshest critic and then when you get the negative feedback you're not surprised by it you're like yeah no I've already recognized that I do this and this and that I'm not good at this and I need to do a better job doing this
[SPEAKER_01]: So starting with yourself and get really good at doing your own debriefs, your own honest and critical feedback using, you know, we have our balance assessment, whatever assessment tools you have for that self assessment in spending time there, saying, okay, let's talk about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't go well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me think through what I could have done better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me think through what I can do better next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you are your biggest critic in that way, the feedback from others when it's
[SPEAKER_01]: Constructive or potentially negative or even critical, is it gonna sting that bad?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's gonna be things that you're not surprised by.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna say, yep, okay, I recognize that in myself and that's something I'm working on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to your point, when you do get that biting feedback, it doesn't mean that you have to throw everything out and start over.
[SPEAKER_01]: It means you extrapolate what little bits of truth in that that you can to make some adjustments so that you are perceived differently by other people and you can manage whatever feedback you're getting in an effective and reasonable way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a fantastic point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really what made Tascin bruiser, you know, the Tascin and Jalkonized Serbian together that made us effective because we were our own harshest critics all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, usually, my previous experience in my previous seal Tascin had been, you know, when the instructors came in and gave us some critical feedback, it was
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you know, I'd like to see them do better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, you know, that's, is that really valid?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or we'll just play the game and we'll just go through the motions and act like we're really taking that aboard and then we'll go overseas and we'll be awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, it wasn't really until I started working with Jocco and all the guys in task in a bruiser, where our performance started to take off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, that wasn't because we had more talent to guys that we had more experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, all those, all that was about the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, and, and for my previous sales task, and what made task in a loser exceptional was that we, we were our own harsh discredits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and when the, and training instructors had things to say, we took that feedback on board.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, we took ownership of problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of point fingers or cast some land, make excuses, or minimizing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was such an issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But more importantly, oftentimes when it was time to debrief, we got up to debrief ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, then the instructors get a chance to go and they didn't have a lot to say after because we had already torn ourselves apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not in a way that was just constant negativity or harping on each other in a way that was more outcrushing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in a way to help us get better.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to fix this, we need to work on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you've got a team that can really conduct that, brood the on a self-assessment and be their own harshest critic,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is how you're going to constantly improve all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the response when you get the negative feedback, the easy response, if you can put your ego in check, is extreme ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you approach the negative feedback with extreme ownership, you're likelihood of actually taking that feedback on board and making adjustments and finding a way through it is so much higher.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought about this because we run this muster event.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, we'll call it my baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: I care about this thing a lot, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We started this thing together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was one particular event.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was maybe, I don't know, six or seven masters ago, but somebody on their feedback survey had marked not like less worse than they expected.
[SPEAKER_01]: was the first time we have ever received like a worse than they expected.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was one person in thousands of people that had intended to muster.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you remember my response, I called you and I totally had that sense of defense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember trying so hard to take ownership of it, but fighting through the instinct of like, this guy's got it wrong because seven hundred and eighty other people said, no, this is the best event we've ever been to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I was trying to take ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was partial.
[SPEAKER_01]: My ego wasn't fully in check because I called you maybe a little frustrated and I was like, well, I think what we should do is we should give him a partial refund.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what we talked about is here's a chance for us to actually take ownership.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do you think that gives us the highest moral high ground from position of ownership?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hesitate to say this on a public setting because then I don't want a bunch of people to just start marking or something expected and expecting this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in that situation, this is the first time we adult with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of negative feedback for something that we care deeply about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got your feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: You helped me to touch and help me recognize that, hey, this is an opportunity for us to show what we really teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: I emailed that guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We gave him a full refund.
[SPEAKER_01]: I took ownership after detaching once I had the moment to get myself in the right mental state.
[SPEAKER_01]: We took ownership of that situation and we took ownership for his experience at our event and said, hey, if we failed, if you felt like this event didn't deliver on what you were hoping for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not expect to hear from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just figured he'd be like, cool, good to go and move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will never forget his email.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have it saved in my inbox because he responded back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the power of ownership that we teach and said, wow, I think I'm just now figured out what you guys are meaning by this idea of extreme ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he ended up donating the entire amount to America's mighty warriors.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if he'll ever come back to another event, but I know when he's at a dinner table with people, he's gonna talk about that experience and his recognition now of what extreme ownership actually looked like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we get that feedback despite how we feel about it, the only out in that situation is to take ownership of it for ourselves and for the people around us or the people giving us that feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what's great about that example to those is that this is, it's so hard to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so hard to do because you teach this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: You definitely, this is something that you understand the power of detachment, you understand how you go to meet obstacle that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeking feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: But from my perspective, like you have put in, you and your team have put in thousands of hours of preparation, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Musters are two-day leadership conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have hundreds of leaders that are coming to these events.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's being months and years of preparation to get ready for this thing and all the effort that goes into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we take pride in getting amazing feedback from all the leaders that come and be a part of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have one person who gives us negative feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's something to be aware of, too, is that you can, if someone's super emotionally attached to a certain thing or a project or whatever they're actually working on, you know, it's gonna be a harder for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was an easy thing, you know, for me to just ask some earnest questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just, assembly to ask the question, you're the one that came to conclusion to understand what the right thing would be in order to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: in order to do there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's, it was a real demonstration of the power of extreme ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also a good example of using a trusted agent when you're feeling like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get feedback, using someone and going to them and talking through it is what allows you to detach.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the other side of the coin that we should just touch on is recognizing that getting negative feedback or critical feedback is so difficult for people.
[SPEAKER_01]: How then should we think about giving feedback to other people
[SPEAKER_01]: knowing that they're likely to have those same reactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're definitely likely to have the same reactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know why we think that other people would be different because if you came up to me after, you know, I got off stage of the mustard jammy or like, lay that sucked.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: You screwed this up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You stuttered and stammered here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You spoke too fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said a bunch of times, I'm instantly going to get, I'm going to get defensive on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, that's how we often give feedback to other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just super direct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Jamie, you screwed that up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you need to fix this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, that was unsatisfactory.
[SPEAKER_00]: And knowing that how would we react to that same feedback?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what you really have to consider is how would you react to that feedback?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've often said this too from some of the companies that we get to work with.
[SPEAKER_00]: some of the leaders in particularly in the construction and like energy sector where people have come up to the ranks and they might be a little rough around the edges and you might have had a foreman or a supervisor or team there you were for who kind of you know spoke pretty harshly at you was pretty direct and you know we hear all the time for people that will say things like well you know the current generation you just can't talk to them the way that people talk to us back in the day
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, we'll say, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll, you know, if you yell at him, you raise your voice at him all.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think it's defensive, they get angry, you know, they just shut down, they don't listen to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the question we ask is, hey, did you like it when people yelled at you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And people will pause and reflect on that statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no one can honestly say, yes, I liked it when people yelled at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one likes it when someone yells at them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is not a good way to lead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can say what you want about differences in generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an effective way to lead and there's an ineffective lead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you're giving feedback to someone, you should start by using the indirect approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is to try to take the direct approach would be like, you're terrible, you need to fix yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the ultimate like head-on direct approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: The indirect approach would be trying to help them reveal the truth to themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: To say, hey, Jamie, do you think there's a better way that you could describe that when you're up on stage trying to make that point get that point across?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we could talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You start to reveal the truth to yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually asking an earnest question to help you see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're not getting it, I could escalate directness if I need to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to start with the most indirect route because it sent me bashing you over the head with the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my fair joccal quotes that I've earned him several last few years is, what good is the truth if no one will listen to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, even if I'm telling you the truth, I'm giving you some truthful honest feedback, if you're not when to listen to me, then what good is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't do many good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what I need to do is allow you to reveal the truth to yourself, and I can do that by asking Ernest questions, trying to get you see from the perspective of others, and that's gonna be a better way to get to the outcome of you accepting critical feedback to improve.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, another thing jogging says all the time is your intent has a smell.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think if you need to give feedback to someone, make sure that your intent is for the purpose of helping them and giving them the feedback because we know we want them to get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And do you have the foundation of a good relationship?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they understand that you care about them?
[SPEAKER_01]: And are they going to recognize that the feedback you're giving them is for their benefit?
[SPEAKER_01]: And to your point, the best way to do that is to ask those earnest questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I use this as my kids all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, well, what do you think they were thinking when that happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, hey, how would you feel if this happened to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, hey, what do you think you should have done in this situation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those types of things can show your intent is real, but also guide them to coming up with that action plan for themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then maybe you don't even have to be the one to give them the feedback, because they're recognizing it for themselves and saying, oh, yeah, I guess I could have handled that differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: But giving feedback is equally as important.
[SPEAKER_01]: The biggest thing that we can control is how we receive that feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we get negative feedback, when it's critical, when it stings detaching from our emotions and recognizing this isn't a threat, this is a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is information we didn't previously have.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little bit of the truth that allows us to recognize how people perceive us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can control that by taking ownership when we get that feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that's so hard to do, and you mention kids, and this is so hard to do with kids, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: As Jocco says, let your kids brush up against the Garb Reels of failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean let your kid run into the highway to learn to look both ways, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not gonna let him get run over and kill, they're seriously injured.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it does mean that, like I said, I remember arguing with my toddler about whether he should put his jacket on before he goes outside, because it's freezing cold outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going back and forth, I'm arguing with this one, just put a jacket on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized like, hey, it's not going to kill them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let him go outside with no jacket on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Two minutes later, he comes back and is like, hey, Daddy can you put my jacket on for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you do have to be a little smarter about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jocco did this for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for the Delta Baton commander, he's on the Baton commander, Seth Stone in task and bruiser.
[SPEAKER_00]: when we were out in the desert in our desert warfare, a training center, conducting what our immediate action drills, which is like a reactive contact.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're getting a simulated enemy shooting at us and we have to run a play.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's like a whole binder is like a three ring binder of like plays.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you played soccer or you played football or basketball, this is like running a play.
[SPEAKER_00]: We make a call.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knows what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, Seth and I had been through this training, you know, the year prior to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we felt like we kind of knew it was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, uh, Jaco Asos, hey, how are you guys doing with your media action drills?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we said, oh, we're good to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said we're going to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he could have said, you guys only have one but two under your belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've got years of experience in the sealed teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, your arrogance, this is harder than you think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's, and our minds would have been closed if he said that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've gotten defensive, but because Jack was a good leader, and he wanted to open our minds so that we would actually accept critical feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, Oh, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he let us go out on the training battlefield.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went out and ran a bunch of biofire media action drills and it did not go very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we fell apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we came back and instead of just, oh, the boss thinks he knows everything, he's trying to tell us what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually were like, hey, Jaco, let's go over those media action drills.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went on the whiteboard, we talked through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we learned a ton just in twenty or thirty minutes of just some informal training around the whiteboard talking about what to do in the event of enemy contact in certain scenarios.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a great example.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of letting people brush up against the guardrails of failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can allow people to humble themselves, allow them maybe to make some mistakes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now their mind is open and they're seeking that feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of you pushing the feedback on them, they're coming to you to seek that feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: and speaking of immediate action drills, this one's twofold.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing I want you to do is take it honest self-assessment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spend some time actually looking through what's going on in your life and taking that honest self-assessment of where you're failing and the things that you need to do to improve.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the second piece is to ask one specific person for some feedback and then don't defend it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just think them, think them and take that feedback for action and look for how you can implement that feedback in your day-to-day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take that one step further.
[SPEAKER_00]: If when you get that feedback, break out a note pad and take some notes because that shows that you're listening to that person and now you can actually write down what they're having to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can defeat all those defensive thoughts that are in your head and then you can look later after you can detach from that and put your ego and check and you can examine the feedback and see where it's valid and where you can improve.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do these things, if you
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of feedback as a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you take ownership when you get that feedback and you don't get defensive, set your ego, set your emotions aside, you can actually find ways to improve and get better and evolve, which is all the things that we need to be doing as a leader.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can start to look at critical feedback as a gift, not a threat, a gift, an opportunity for you to get better and you can accept that feedback and then take ownership of that feedback and actually make some changes in your life, that is how you will lead and win.
[SPEAKER_00]: So until next time, eat yourself, eat your team, and win.