Desire is the Lead for Great Feedback

A raging need, according to many organizations, is the ability for employees to give and to receive feedback. Consider just a handful of the recent headlines from major newspapers and magazines:

Teamwork Fosters Faster Solutions Than Going Solo
A Failure to Communicate: How to Talk to Employees
It’s All Your Fault: Why Americans Can’t Stop Playing the Blame Game
Golden Words Give Productive Glow (Positive Words Helps Profits)

Each headline reminds us that employees, up and down and across organizational structures, crave feedback that matters to performance. However, though many articles convey the need for feedback, though many business tools and conversations provide feedback, and though many of us claim that we want feedback, two stories with two clients remind me that feedback loses value unless the recipient truly has a desire to receive it.

Visit a couple of clients with me (names protected of course!); and you’ll see what I mean. Let’s first visit an office on a snowy day in the Midwest.

A senior bank officer, confident and well known in his market, expressed a need for presentation skills coaching. As part of our work together, he wanted to present five minutes of an upcoming presentation for my feedback.

When I arrived at his office, he told me that we would be working in their conference room. I followed this powerful man and walked in as he opened the heavy glass door for me to enter ahead of him. What an impressive sight the room was—it was large with a gleaming cherry conference table, sixteen plush leather chairs, rich wood paneling, deep pile carpet, and a wall of glass to separate us from those passing by. As I took my seat, this client took his usual place at the head of the table facing the wall of glass, intent on our work, focused on his goal and ignoring the traffic beyond the glass wall.

We agreed that he would speak for five minutes while I took notes, and then we would pause for feedback to be shared. He was ready. I was ready. He began to speak.

Right around the three minute mark, he paused, looked at me, and then blurted out, “I’m boring; I’m just boring” as he also burst into tears.

Within a split second, my mind whirred into action. What to do? Not a problem- I quickly formed a strategy. I scoped the room for a box of tissues to grab with a plan to leap across the table and give it to him as I also considered the need to drape my coat over some portion of the glass wall to keep others from walking past and seeing their senior vice president in such obvious distress. Just as I moved to take emergency and multiple action in this highly unusual situation to protect my client, my sanity returned with a suggestion that I ask my client what he most wanted me to do in the moment. Did he just want a tissue and go on? Or, did he want me to leave for a couple of minutes while he composed himself? Or, was there another action to take?

His response was swift and sure. “Stay. Just hand me the tissue. I want to keep going. I need this coaching.”

Desire for feedback. The man couldn’t have been clearer in his desire to hear feedback to make important improvements for his public speaking.

Despite personal discomfort, despite the risk of embarrassment, this client chose to invite feedback that would improve his performance. He chose to increase his personal power by accepting feedback to become even stronger in his skills.

Let’s move on to the southeast during more spring-like weather where there is another story to tell...

This client, influenced by his boss’ strong suggestion that he receive coaching for his interpersonal skills, contacted me and asked me to come to one of his conferences. This senior vice president of Information Technology for an international corporation invited me to work with him over a three day period as he conducted an annual conference with his senior direct reports. We agreed that I would shadow him to specifically observe and comment on his meeting skills, communication skills, and interpersonal skills with his group. When I arrived at the location, it was idyllic. What a welcome start to the three days of a clear and focused assignment.

The client and I had our final planning meeting on a Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. to clarify my role as he initiated his first meeting at 7:30 a.m. It was made clear, one more time, that I was hired to shadow him and to provide feedback about his communication skills, meeting skills and interpersonal skills at intermittent times throughout the three days. Our first brief feedback session would be at the first break.

We agreed that we both understood our roles. He was ready. I was ready. We approached the meeting room to begin.

At 10:00, he called for a break. Meeting attendees scattered for refreshments and the outdoors. My client and I found a quiet corner to begin the feedback process. Less than two minutes into my notes, my client, without a trace of a smile, reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and thrust it towards me saying, “Here’s a quarter; go call somebody who cares.”

Disdain. The man couldn’t have been clearer about his disdain for the feedback that could lead to important improvements for his performance.

Despite his personal invitation, despite the clear and focused assignment to address real needs, this client chose to deny the feedback that could improve his interpersonal relationships. Instead, he chose the arrogance and the defensiveness that had created the original need.

Are you and I so different from either of these men? Everyday, each one of us, has opportunities to invite feedback that make a situation or a relationship better. Some days, I’m the man with the tissue, insisting on the feedback despite personal discomfort, but with a real desire for improvement. Other days, I might as well have a couple of quarters handy as my words or actions clearly indicate, “no thank you, go call someone who cares” in response to someone’s offer of feedback.

Motivational speaker, Marcia Wieder says that, “Desire is a powerful force that can be used to make things happen.” Deciding to desire something that helps us achieve our goals can turn our defensiveness into willingness and our “won’t” into our “will”.

So, are you wondering what happened to the powerful, yet sometimes tearful bank executive who dried his eyes and insisted on the feedback? Or are you more curious about the outcome of that hard driving, cynical senior vice president who was running out of quarters?

The bank executive did not become a powerful public speaker who sold his bank and went on the speaking circuit with Anthony Robbins. Nor did the senior vice president get pummeled by his staff for his insensitivities to people and then run out of town. The truth is that both continued in their jobs for………………………well, let me share the rest of the story. You can shape your own conclusions.

The bank executive continued in his role for several more years, and then his family sold the bank. When I last talked with this man, he was excited about a new business venture, and his personable, authentic style reached across the miles as we spoke by telephone.

The senior vice president was released from his role in information technology some months after the experience. The “word” I received from a colleague is that he was “never able to work well with people”.

As I reflect on coming to the end of this article, it strikes me that though the “progress” in their stories is interesting, what about the “progress” in mine? Am I accepting the learning and the wisdom that is often so freely given and using it to grow? I want my answer to be, “Yes, most of the time.”

What about you? Are you interested in more specific information about the art of giving great feedback? Click the title to read one of our most popular past articles, Avoid Choking On Feedback.

Please join me in welcoming the start of a new season with a renewed commitment to gratefully receive valuable feedback and use it, like the spring flowers use the rains, to grow.

By Susan B. Wilson, President, Executive Strategies