Hello and welcome to the Redefining High Performance podcast. My name is Ty Bennett. I’ll be your host and I’m excited to share just a few minutes with you today. Each of these episodes are short, quick, to the point, but we’re going to talk about something today that’s important for your growth and for your overall performance. In the next few minutes, I’m going to share an idea that comes out of our research. We did a national research study on high performance. And one of the areas that we looked at was the barriers to high performance. What stops us? What keeps us from achieving our goals, from moving forward? And one of the barriers that stood out in the research was when people take criticism personally.
Our research found that one of the biggest barriers for high performance is when people interpret feedback as a personal attack rather than an opportunity for growth. So think about it, when feedback feels threatening, it triggers defensiveness instead of action. And what does that do? It shuts down adaptability, innovation, and improvement. That’s not what we want when we’re striving to be high performers.
So I want to dive into feedback. I want to talk about it from two angles, both the way we give feedback and the way we receive feedback. I recently picked up a book by a friend of mine named Jeff Hancher, and it’s titled Firm Feedback in a Fragile World. Highly recommend it. It’s a great book. And I’m going to bring in some of the ideas from Jeff’s book as we talk about feedback as he does an amazing job breaking some of it down. So one of the things that he points out in his book is that feedback can either be a wedge or a bridge. And the difference between those two things are both how it’s delivered and how it’s received. So I want to look at it from both of those angles.
So for leaders, if you’re in a position of delivering feedback. Let’s talk about it because I believe that trust is the foundation of that. When people trust your intent, they’re more likely to see feedback as help and not harm. So how do you build trust? Well, first off, we recognize that trust is built over time, right? It’s not the very first time you sit down and talk to somebody. If you give them really strong feedback, that may not be received. You need to build trust. Your people need to know that you care about them. They need to know that you’re there for them. They need to know that you’re going to show up and have their back. They need to see that you invest in them. They want to recognize that you show up and you focus on being interested in them and not just interesting, making it all about you, right? It’s about them. And when you can build that layer of trust, that intent is understood, and therefore it’s going to be more likely received as helpful information.
Now, on the other side, if you’re receiving for teams, for individuals who are receiving feedback, we need to recognize that feedback is data. It’s not drama. It’s a tool for growth. It’s not a statement of your worth. Hopefully, we start to get really good at accepting feedback and even seeking feedback. I got a phone call yesterday from the president of a company I spoke for on Wednesday of this week. He called me on Thursday and he said, hey, you were awesome. It was amazing. I’ve got a couple of notes. Great. And he gave me a couple of ideas, just simple little things that could make my speech better. Now, I could dismiss it, right? That could be one way I could respond. You’re not even a speaker. Why would I care what you have to say? Like, you don’t have as much experience in this regard. I could be offended that even with literally three standing ovations during the speech, he wanted to call and tell me ways to make it better. I could be offended and get upset about it, or I could take those notes and process them and go, hmm, okay. And he gave me some good ideas, some things that I didn’t think about, right?
And so having that mentality of it’s data, it’s not drama, it’s an opportunity for growth, right? Let’s talk about a couple of ways that we overcome this barrier. So in giving feedback, if you’re in a position where you’re giving feedback, first thing we want to do is we want to separate the person from the performance. Feedback addresses actions and results, not identity. And so we have to be careful with our words to not say, you do this, you always do this, or putting it into identity. That’s what makes it hard for me to listen to you. Like those, that’s identity.
Let’s talk about actions. Let’s talk about results. Let’s keep it focused on performance when we’re giving that feedback. Now, another thought is that we lead with clarity and care. Direct feedback works best when it’s paired with genuine belief in someone’s potential. So if I can genuinely tell you, look, I think you’re an incredible speaker. I think you have the ability to even have more impact. And here’s a couple of ideas that maybe will help with that, right? Just I want to combine this clarity and care. I want to be able to articulate that. And then on the receiving end, we need to adopt the feedback is fuel mindset. Treat every piece of feedback as raw material to refine your performance. If we can look at it that way, where we seek it out, where we, I’ll give you a cool example.
So at this conference I was speaking at in Florida this last week, The opening keynote, I was the closing keynote speaker. The opening keynote speaker, I had a chance to see somebody I don’t know, never met her before. She was fantastic. Her name is Liz Bohannon and she crushed it. She did a great job. I waited in line to just introduce myself. I got a copy of her book and when I introduced myself to her, I was overly impressed because once I introduced myself, I said, I’m the closing keynote speaker. This was great. Great to meet you. I really like this. I really like this. She said, okay, you’re a speaker. I want your feedback. Where can I be better? That was her immediate response. Somebody like that, I think is an incredible speaker. She’s only going to get better because she’s adopted this feedback as fuel mindset. She’s seeking it out.
Now, there’s a quote by a guy named David A. Bednar that I really like. He said, to be offended is a choice we make. It is not a condition inflicted or opposed upon us by someone or something else. So when somebody comes at you with harsh feedback, taking criticism personally, our research showed is a barrier to high performance. It will keep you stuck. And so we need to change that.
Let’s break down this idea that Jeff Hancher shares in his book, Firm Feedback. He talks about Feedback is a wedge or feedback is a bridge, okay? So let’s talk about it a little bit. When feedback is delivered poorly or received defensively, it drives a wedge between people. We’ve probably all experienced that. So what happens? Let’s see, trust erodes, communication tends to shut down, and the focus shifts from solving the problem to protecting our egos. That becomes pretty problematic, right? Typical signs is the recipient feels attacked becomes resistant and future feedback becomes harder to give. So obviously we don’t want feedback to become a wedge. We want feedback to be a bridge. So here’s what Jeff has to say about that. When feedback is delivered with clarity and care and genuine intent to help, those are kind of the criteria as we’re delivering it. Clarity, care, genuine intent to help. It builds a bridge between people. So here’s what happened. Trust grows. The recipient feels supported and both sides work together towards improvement. And that’s the goal. It’s high performance. That’s what we’re going after. Typical signs are the conversation strengthens the relationship. It increases in alignment and it creates momentum for growth. Those are all the things that we want, right? And so if you look at it just kind of straightforward, high level, a wedge isolates. This becomes me versus you. But a bridge connects. The message becomes me with you. So as we are attempting to deliver feedback, let’s try and do it me with you. Let’s sit down with clarity, with care, with genuine intent to help people and articulate the belief we have in their potential and keep the specific feedback focused on performance, not identity. And on the flip side, when we are in a place to receive feedback, number one, let’s seek it out. Let’s adopt this feedback is fuel mentality. I want to get better. I want to hear what you have to say. And, and let’s try and parse through any, you know, ill stated or roughly phrased things that people say and try and discover truth, try and understand different perspective. Try and see, yeah, here’s where I could improve or where this could be different.
Taking criticism personally is a barrier to high performance. Then on the flip side, seeking feedback and using it as fuel is a driver of high performance. I hope this has been helpful today. Let’s this week work on our ability to both deliver and receive feedback in our attempt to redefine what high performance looks like for us. Thank you so much for listening. This is Ty Bennett. I appreciate you being here every week. If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to this podcast. I bring you a new episode every week, just short, quick, to the point, hopefully actionable ideas. And every once in a while, mix in a really cool interview with somebody that can discuss high performance in a unique way. Rate us, review us, share this with a friend. This idea of feedback, hopefully this is something that you can share within your organization as well to create a culture that allows for this type of open dialogue, communication, and therefore growth. So thank you again and I will talk to you soon.