The Best Feedback
Audio Transcript:
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where they're just going on and on and on, and you're like, dude, please, just chill.
Let me tell you what I'm thinking, or you need to hear this, you know, something like, you've got something to say, but you're just not hearing, or the noise of the day, all of the headlines and news, you see crazy stuff going on in the world, and
you're thinking, I have, you know, you just have a clear message you want someone to hear. And yeah, I think we all kind of have that.
And I think this week's challenge that I'll talk about at the end of this podcast, for those of you that were following along, quickly reminded me that there are two sides to feedback.
And as much as many of us, I think, you know, if you're listening to this, you're probably in a role somewhere in your life, and maybe everywhere in your life, where giving feedback is an important component. We talked about that in the last episode.
You know, it's just an important role. If you're a leader in a company or in your family and your community, feedback is important to give.
RECEIVING Feedback
But it's just as and maybe more as important.
I'm not trying to be silly here. It's more important to receive feedback. And that's not always so easy.
And I'll tell you, I consider myself a good listener. I consider myself someone who elicits feedback and wants feedback and acts on that feedback. And that all can be true.
But how I behave in a day in day out basis sends messages to others around me of, is that really true? And I'll give you an example. So now, granted, I'm going to talk at home, at my family.
Granted, some of this could be just kid drama and human drama and whatever else. It's fine.
But there's been, I'd like to say only once, but there's been a couple of moments, several moments maybe, not 50, but a few where in a maybe a heated moment with my kids or an emotional moment or something was there trying to sort out their
personality and their life. When I tell them to tell me what you're really thinking, they would come back with something of the ilk that, well, I would tell you but you're going to get mad, and I don't want to tell you, you don't really want to hear
what I think, blah, blah, blah. And again, I say blah, blah, blah, not being important. That kind of conversation, we've all had them if you're a parent.
And so, of course, I care what they think, and I do want to hear what they're really, I don't want to hear all the garbage BS that kids and people will tell you. I want to hear what you really think.
But they had some perception, some of that was self-induced. They created their own stuff. Maybe they just watched a TV show where the dad doesn't want to know anything.
Who knows, right? Whatever. It all goes into the potpourri of child-parent relationship.
But I had a part to play in there, and I had a responsibility to play in there. I may have reacted to something they've said in the past.
I may have been so strong about how I feel about something that if they feel differently, they may automatically feel like they can't share that with me. So there's all kinds of things that goes on there.
When that hits me, my first reaction is to get angry or to get upset with them. Well, of course, I want to hear, you know, but that's not helpful, right?
And I'm not saying I haven't done that, but I think the best reaction for me and what I've found that works is, is, okay, you know what?
Hey, maybe I've maybe I've said something, behaved in a way or otherwise led you to believe that that I'm not interested in what you're saying, but I am. But you know, in that moment, it's too late. It's not too late.
But, you know, we've already missed maybe some feedback throughout. And look, you don't cry over spilled milk at that point. You know, you adjust as best you can.
But I guess that's just one example where I wonder how much in our lives. And, you know, again, this podcast is based around the three roles I live, a founder, father, and a friend, to my friends in my community.
And I think you probably have some aspect of life in any one or all of those three. It's easy to just roll through and not recognize that maybe you're not putting the vibes out there that you want feedback, and maybe you're not getting the feedback.
Maybe you are. And I'm sure many of you are. And you're awesome at it.
And that's great. I really believe I am someone who thrives on feedback. And I ask it a lot.
I look for it a lot. I really try to value the input of those around me. But still, I'm sure there are people on the team that think they can't speak up to me or whatever, you know, for whatever reason, right?
Again, you can't own everybody's neurosis, right? A lot of people have their own stuff, and they come to this thing, and they are not willing to share. It doesn't matter what you say, do, or whatever.
That's their stuff. Well, that's on them. I can help them the best I can, but hey, man, if you're going to choose for the world to be all barbs and arrows coming at you, then I can't help you.
But if you're open to it, I want to hear what you're thinking. And so I guess this moment kind of after last week where we focused on feedback coming in, or going out, like for we're going out, I think it's worth talking about feedback coming in.
And for me, I found it to be super valuable when I can get that feedback. However, it's not always so easy depending on what role you're in.
I mean, I have a ton of examples where somebody at the company would share something with me at some point and say, you know, I was going to tell you this earlier, but I just wasn't sure, you know, whatever reasons they bring, right?
You know, certainly stuff that goes on in the community, there's lots of conversations between folks, but maybe they don't come directly to you, you know, with like maybe a project you're working on, or what your intent is, or whatever.
And so I mean, I think this is part of human nature. There's a fear, there's whatever. So you know, I think for me, I really try to have that bright light on that says, tell me what you're thinking, you know, could come to me with this feedback.
I mean, how many times have I asked on this podcast for you guys? Let me know how this is going. You know, it's almost, and it can become rote.
I get that. But there's just in every facet of my life, I'm looking for feedback. Feedback drives me, helps me be better, helps me be better for those around me, better for myself.
It just, so many things help me keep from hurting folks. You know, I mean, we can all inadvertently hurt folks by our actions. So I just, I think it's super important.
It's absolutely important to give feedback, and just as important as it is to give it, and again, I think maybe even more so, is to get it. So how do we do that?
Well, you know, there's always, depending on what social media platform you're looking at, or what influencer you're watching or listening to, or whatever else, there's several out there that say, you know, this one trick to do this.
And man, my stomach turns every time I see that kind of headline, like, here's this one trick, all employees, you know, to get what they're really thinking, or this is one trick to get your kids to tell you everything they're thinking, blah, blah,
blah, whatever, right? I think the one trick, honestly, is to care. That's the trick. Like, first, you got to really want to know.
I mean, people are smart, man. Having kids myself and watching them grow, they are incredibly intelligent and intuitive, and you can't really BS them generally. I mean, you can get away with things, of course, right?
I mean, how long does certain holiday celebrations go? I get it. But in terms of it, there's some desire to want to believe those things.
But when you're looking at something where you're trying to get feedback from a child or from an employee, that's the other thing, right? Employees are going to be very savvy, and they're going to know.
Do you care about what they're going to tell you, or are you just following the motions, checking the box, doing the corporate thing? You just read a new book, and it tells you to ask for feedback? You know, they're going to know.
And so I think you really... It all starts with absolutely caring, really wanting the feedback. So if you don't want the feedback, this is...
Don't do this. That's not who you are. Don't do it, man.
It's just that inauthenticity. People see right through that. Generally, I know you can bluff...
You can fool some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time, or I don't know, whatever it is. This is one of those things. I don't think you fool people very long.
They kind of catch on pretty quickly if you really care or not. So I think that's right off the bat. You got to care.
I think when we look at kind of how you set the stage for that, it's also being kind of being ready and humble to receive it, because you can care what people think. But then when they tell you what they think, for me anyway, sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes I don't want to hear that. Sometimes it's completely antithetical to who I think I am or how I think I'm behaving. And you know what?
Maybe they're wrong. That's OK, too. And I think that's part of what to realize.
Sometimes somebody's feedback is ill-informed, or it's a projection of their own experiences, their own ways of doing things. But you can't assess that in the moment. It's almost you got to kind of hear that out and let them give that feedback.
So you can begin to argue in the middle of feedback. It's not feedback anymore. Now it's an argument in your arguing positions.
And that's a surefire way to tell somebody you don't really care what they think. You just want to know, I mean, how much do we see that, right?
In the public discourse today, there's not really, I don't know how many times I've jumped into conversations. People I love and respect and who are super intelligent and awesome people, humans in the earth, they've got a position ready to fire.
Their guns are loaded. And there's not really a conversation to be had. There's not really a feedback loop you can have with folks, oftentimes, in the political discourse.
It's more just they're firing their guns and they're waiting for you to fire. And whatever you say, even if it's a real question about trying to understand their position, they think it's an attack. And you don't want to get into that.
I mean, I don't know. I don't anyway. But, you know, so again, be ready, be humble, but first care, but be ready, be humble.
But also, you know, when you get feedback, if you do nothing with it, you know, people give it to you for a while.
But if you don't do anything with it, you don't apply it in any visible way or any meaningful or demonstrable way, then, you know, why are people going to give it to you? So they stop. And I think that's what happens sometimes with kids.
Maybe as they're learning the world, they will give you feedback about something. And I'm the kind of parent that tries to explain what I'm doing or why. Not that I...
Look, you're a parent. Your job is to... At different stages of the kid's life, you know, your job is to sustain them and keep them alive and keep them safe and grow them, you know, all those things, right?
So sometimes it just is what it is. But I do try to explain those things. But so when my kids can bring feedback, sometimes I'll bring feedback, and they don't want to understand the context around it.
And so my behavior may not change. But if that's the case, I try to explain to them why. And I think that's helpful.
But generally, I think we need to be ready to take action on that feedback. I think the other thing is really important, and this goes at Mountain Leverage and my family.
This is a little harder in the community, I think, because let's face it, I mean, I have more control in my family and more influence and control at Mountain Leverage than I do in my community. Now, I have influence.
We all have influence at some levels, whatever, but we all have influence.
But to create a culture, to create a culture and really drive a culture of feedback and one of open communication, that takes a lot of work and it does take control and influence to a certain degree and a tribe.
So if you have several folks in your community that believe in this, then cool, you can get there. And it's just harder. It just takes more, it's more difficult in communities and really in a family, right?
So if you're a significant other, your partner who's helping you raise your family, if you've got one, that's, you know, they got to buy in on this, and they got to not only buy in on the philosophy, they have to buy in on the execution.
And that is difficult as well. As a company, if you are the founder and you're creating your company, well, make sure you hire people who buy into this. That's really important.
I think I've found it to be super important.
Every time we've made a hire, where it's been someone who is bounced against this kind of notion, like they are the stud, they're going to walk in and just, you know, crap all over everybody else, because they're the best at what they do.
Those people don't work with me. It doesn't work out, because it doesn't create an environment where there are great ideas from all angles of folks within a company, and you don't want to shut that down. So that's that whole feedback loop.
So yeah, be ready to have a culture that's going to support that. And if you don't, be ready to just not know what's going on. Then you got to snoop around.
You got to fight. It's just so tough. So anyway, again, I think care.
That's the first thing you really want. And that's not easy. If you're not that kind of person right off the bat, or if you're not had that experience in your upbringing or in your life or your professional, whatever it is, there's some work there.
And there's a ton of... I joke about books and influences and all that. There's some good ones out there.
There's some really great books about this in terms of listening and really caring. Don't go with like the tactic stuff. Covey would say the personality ethic versus the character ethic.
Go with that foundational stuff. The things that are out there, maybe there's some great books from certain practitioners and folks that are studying the field.
What really, to help you understand it and value it and change fundamentally as opposed to, here's this neat trick to show people you might be listening. I mean, okay, those things could be helpful, fine.
But if you really don't care, I don't care what tricks you show to somebody that looks like you're listening or they feel like you're listening. If you're not listening, it's worthless, and they'll know sooner or later. So that's it.
Be humble. Be ready to receive that feedback and take action when you get it, and create that culture of feedback so that it is one where folks feel comfortable generally offering feedback to you, whether that's at home or in your company.
Again, in your community, it's just harder that way. And the last thing I'd say is being proactive about it.
I've found through the years that if I don't make it a routine part of my proactivity and outreach to those folks for feedback, I'm not always going to get it. And I think, again, part of that is based on positional stuff.
I mean, we try really hard at, again, both at Mountain Leverage and at my home, that anyone can speak up at any time. Your thoughts are valuable. What do you've got?
What's going on? Because in an everyday basis, you're espousing a lot of feedback, and so they're taking it. So it creates kind of a normal pattern where they're not necessarily giving you feedback.
So I think that's where that proactive piece comes in. Even though it's open and you've got a culture there and all that, still having those proactive moments of seeking that feedback, I find that to be magic for me.
So, you know, your mileage may vary, as always. And my imposter syndrome, Frank, is telling me, what the heck do you even know about this? Why are you being so instructive here?
What do you know? Right? So I will tell you, hey, everybody's situation is different.
And the amount of feedback you want, the environment you want for that, that's fine. I'm just telling you what I have found.
I've found if I am constantly the megaphone shouting, I'm missing some really great moments and some magic and some great information and some great connections with those around me, those I love, those I'm working with, those at home, those that
have great ideas in the communities, if I am only just blasting my feedback. And again, it's not about being polite and just letting something talk. It's about truly caring about what they said.
I can learn something from anyone, anyone, anyone out there. I know. I know even even the people you look at and go, really?
You know, what's the phrase? Your mouth breathers and all that people? There are people everybody has some magic.
And I always try to find that. And you can't find it if you aren't if you don't care. You can't find it if you aren't humble and ready to hear it and to take action.
If you get that kind of feedback, you know, it's harder to find it if you are in your organization, whether it's a team or a company or whatever it is, that you haven't created a culture where that feedback is welcome.
And then ultimately, again, just the mess of the day, the noise of the day, the week, it goes by. And so I think, you know, for me to create, create proactive signposts along the way to stop and say, hey, I want, I need some feedback.
Need some feedback on this. That matters. So I hope this is valuable to you.
We're going to want to talk here in a minute about the challenge. If you're following along, great. We're going to catch up what just happened, as well as what's going to happen next week.
So I hope today's episode was helpful for you and gives you at least some value you can apply in your life to help you down that path for flourishment.
REFLECTING ON LAST WEEK’S CHALLENGE
Now I want to talk about the challenge we just ended or are ending right now, which is that whole feedback, giving feedback, how best to give feedback. And we, you know, we had kind of a quick setup, right?
It was opened up with that question, who needs to hear feedback from me today? Now again, you all may did whatever. You may have done something different, and that's all cool.
But I walk through each day. I asked myself, who needs to hear feedback from me today?
And as I mentioned in the previous episode that we released with a lot of Q&A on that, so if you haven't heard that and you're interested, you can certainly check that out.
But I found that had some unintended values, some unintended consequences that I didn't expect. It was cool.
And the main one was, in the busyness of the week of the day, sometimes messages come in that I'm like, oh, I want to take some time for that, and I don't get back to it. And I still remember it.
It creates an open loop, an open thread in my mind, but I didn't actually solve it. And when I asked myself that question, I thought of things from a couple months ago. I was like, I need to get back to that person.
That person deserves a response from me. And so that was really cool. And also, obviously, it's intended consequence of thinking through folks that might need to hear some feedback from me.
So it was cool. So I like that question. In fact, as you know, if you've been listening along, this was my People Week.
So I already had lots of one-on-one scheduled, and all that was cool. But I am going to, next People Week, keep that question front and center every day of the People Week.
Now, I'm not going to do it every day of all the month, every month, just because things can get stale. So the novelty of it, I think, is important.
So during my People Week, which is the first week of every month, I'm going to ask myself that question every day. Who needs to hear feedback from me today? So I think that would be cool.
And then at the end of the day was, who did I give feedback to, who didn't get feedback from me that maybe should have, and how can I be better at this tomorrow? Now, that question is a winner every day, if you ask it.
How can I be better at whatever tomorrow, right? How can I be better tomorrow is always a good one, but it's specifically around feedback. It was cool.
I found, when I look at what happened, I think it gave me a chance for giving feedback to people who I think needed it, wanted it, valued it. It also, I think a couple of my relationships got closer in those conversations. So I think that was cool.
And that often happens. I mean, again, it takes two to tango. So who knows what the other side's gonna, how they're gonna respond to that.
But yeah, I had a couple of relationships get closer, and it was cool.
And a buddy of mine who also follows along the podcast and whatnot, and a great leader in his life and family and all that, he reminded me kind of jokingly that, don't forget, we talk a lot about feedback on the podcast and such, but what I didn't
mention really is like the old adage of, I mean, you're not doing this out in front of everybody. I think he jokingly said, yeah, grab everybody in a room, berate them, get us in front of everybody else. Right?
Of course, that's not the feedback we want to give.
There is that old notion of if it's good, if it's great feedback, you want to give it publicly, and if it's private feedback, or I'm sorry, if it's constructive feedback, you want to give it in private.
I'll tell you, I've tested the boundaries on that some amount of leverage, because we've created such a culture for feedback.
And it can be valuable sometimes when you have people who trust each other and love each other and you're working on something together, that you can have open feedback dialogues in a group, and there's real value there. There's real value.
But generally, I think it is best to look at this stuff in a one-on-one type conversation. So anyway, hopefully it was valuable to you, it was valuable to me, but here we go.
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE
Now we're talking about this next level of challenge, and this is flipping feedback on its head. So now it's like getting it, the more important feedback, maybe I should say.
And in this case, when we look at the baseline for this challenge, again, just like I mentioned in the podcast just a moment ago, to get that feedback, I think you got to care, first of all. You can't fool anybody for very long. You got to care.
Then be ready to receive it. Be humble and take action with what you get. And then ultimately, make sure you're creating a culture of feedback, one that you're going to get.
And then lastly, being proactive. Even though you've created a culture, even though you're ready and you want it, if you aren't proactive, it's going to wane. You're not going to get what you need on an ongoing basis.
So this week's challenge, I want to focus, I'm going to focus on the proactivity piece of that. And I'm really only going to focus on my founder role and my father and husband role. Community feedback is different, and we've done some.
Maybe we'll talk to some about that in the future. But for this challenge for me this week, I'm going to focus on my role as a founder and a father.
And so right off the bat, one of the things that I do periodically, and I have always enjoyed what I get back from it, and sometimes it's not always good stuff, don't get me wrong, feedback can sometimes hurt, and I get all that, but I routinely, or
periodically, I should say, have sent out a survey. I don't know, it sounds thrilling to work with me in this regard, I get it. But a survey, an anonymous survey, in case people want to share more openly than they can.
And my philosophy on surveys, I cannot stand anonymous surveys because if I get data that I want to take action on, but it wasn't fully clear in the survey, I want to be able to reach out and say, hey, what were you thinking here?
But I know with sensitive things and I want to try to get as much feedback as I can, and I offer the chance for people to be anonymous. And then that allows them to share more openly maybe than they would if they pinned their name to it.
I got to tell you, over the years, most folks, when they fill out these surveys, they put their name on it anyway because they like, hey, if you need to follow up, because they know how I feel about it. And they also know they can trust me.
They can trust me with that. And so I think that's important, but I start with an anonymous survey. And periodically, I'll send it out.
And it just has a few simple questions on it. And again, I'm sending it out to people who I've worked with over that period of time most recently. And the questions are pretty simple.
It's, hey, what are some of my strengths? Or I use the phrase, what's working with Alex? The next question is, how or where do I need to improve?
The next question is, how could I better support you in your role and or contribute to the company's success? And that's a cool one because it brings this feedback to them. It's not all about me.
It's like, how can I help you be better? Again, these are people I'm working with. Maybe I'm supporting them.
They're supporting me. I don't know. And so I think that's a vital question just to help direct their thought process.
And then I also add this, are there any recurring habits or behaviors of mine that you find unhelpful or challenging? Do I chew with my mouth open? Do I say the same thing over and over again?
Do I habitually late to a meeting? Whatever it is, things like that, they can grate on a team when you're working side by side, doing hard things for long hours, whatever it is. I just want to know.
And sometimes that stuff will pop up there and can be valuable. And the last question, with any survey, I always open it because, hey, is there anything else you'd like to share?
And when you have great people around you and smart people, this one just allows them to like, okay, freewheel, freewheel, dude, give me whatever you've got. And I'm almost always get stuff in that box.
So that's the survey that I have built and valued over the years. And so that's what I'm going to do this week. In fact, that's part of the challenge I'm offering for you all.
But in fact, I actually already sent this out a couple of weeks ago and got feedback in, and I'm applying some of what I've gotten there. It was great. So I've done that.
But what I am going to do for me, I'm going to take this to the next level that I've not done before, certainly to scale of company we have today. And I'm not sure how it's going to go. Got to tell you.
I'm going to put those survey, the survey link in a company-wide Slack today. So anyone at our company can offer feedback to me and anonymously as the one. Now I already have an anonymous thing, like an Ask Alex that goes out there.
So anyone can always reach out to me anonymously like that. But this is more of a proactive, hey, I'm looking to hear how you think I'm doing, what I can do better. Now I'm not trying to burden everybody with it.
So it's not going to be required. Nobody's getting brownie points because it's all anonymous and all that kind of stuff. But I do want to make it open.
So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. If that doesn't work, you know, we'll see.
But given that I already sent it out to the folks around me, I've got some stuff to work on. So that's cool. You know, your mileage may vary.
You may try that. But now shifting gears to my family. You know, I talked to my wife and kids about this.
You know, I'm sure it's a treat to be married and for me to be your dad. I get it. But I've talked to them about this.
And they said, how best would it be for me to get feedback from you? And we've tried this a couple of times through the years. But they all said, hey, let's have it.
Well, the kids said, let's have a one-on-one. That would be better. So let's sit down and talk through it.
Yeah, my wife wasn't so short. We'll try it. We'll see how that goes.
I get no shortage of feedback there. But so we'll see. So that's I am going to focus on those two areas, and I'm going to sit down and have individual conversations and I'm ready to listen.
Right. And then you can employ all those tools we talked about in the last podcast that so many people have out there to how, you know, let people know you're listening. But I really do care.
I really want to hear from them how I can be a better dad or a better husband or whatever. And you know what? It doesn't hurt to hear how they think I'm doing well.
That's why the question's in there. That's not an ego question, but it does help. You know, we are so hard on ourselves for the most part.
I imagine if you're listening to this podcast, you often can be hard on yourself. And I've talked about my imposter syndrome, Frank, who's hard on me quite a bit. That feedback's always there, man.
Always there. So when I reach out for feedback, I try to get some of the good stuff. And that's why, again, we talked about giving feedback.
Hey, it's always good to have some of that there too. Not in just some kind of tactic to ease the bitter pill down, but to really make sure you're looking at people holistically and trying to give them some good stuff. So you deserve that yourself.
All right, so that's the challenge. Put that survey out there, and I'm going to also talk kind of one-on-one with my kids. I'm going to ask them the same question.
So I'm going to use this survey template as the same kind of questions, including, are there any recurring habits or behaviors of mine that you find unhelpful or challenging? I'm sure in my family one, I'm going to get some good ones.
So anyway, hopefully this is challenging. And again, with these challenges, you do you, man. If you've got something else, some other tricks you want to try, great.
I think just the notion of several of us getting, you know, doing our own thing but in the same vein, right? So we're all focusing on this. How do we receive feedback this week?
That's cool. And I appreciate that. I appreciate those of you that are following along with us.
And yeah, any feedback questions, whatever, this week as we go through, if I get enough, I'll put another post out there with some Q&A. And anyway, in the meantime, I hope this is helpful to you all. And I hope you do appreciate the feedback you got.
I hope the folks appreciate the feedback you gave them this week. And I hope you appreciate the feedback you'll get this coming week. And as I always say, wherever you may be, I hope you are flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
