What Feedback Demands | Jon Kidwell

What happens when feedback is given but ignored? Discover the consequences of inaction and the power of active listening in this thought-provoking episode of the Leadwell podcast. Drawing from real-life scenarios like NPS surveys and employee evaluations, we explore the frustration that arises when feedback isn't acted upon and how it can lead to dissatisfaction and distrust. Referencing Corey Shearer's insightful book "Closing the Trust Gap," we underscore the crucial role of responding to feedback to build and maintain trust within your organization.

Join us as we dive into the essential strategies for fostering open communication and sharing actionable feedback within your team. Learn how meaningful discussions and collaborative efforts can lead to better outcomes and healthier relationships. We encourage you to engage with this episode on social media, share your thoughts, and contribute to the conversation. Your feedback is invaluable to us—rate, review, and let us know what's on your mind. Let's lead with purpose, build trust, and ensure that feedback drives action. Stay well, be blessed, and keep leading with intention.

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Send your Leadership and Business questions to Jon at [e-mail].

For more information visit https://leadwell.com

The Leadwell Podcast gives mission-driven leaders principled and practical advice to do just that, lead well.

In each episode, your host Jon Kidwell, interviews leaders with great stories, to share strategies that help leaders navigate complex, confusing, and often down-right challenging leadership, personal growth, business, and workplace culture situations.

Jon is a nonprofit executive turned coach, speaker, author, and CEO of a leadership development company. In working with nonprofits and businesses, big and small, he realized the unique challenges leaders face when they are committed to keeping the mission and people the top priority. Those leaders’ commitment to their principles and the people they lead, plus seeing the need for more leaders who strive to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons, is what inspired Jon to start a leadership development company dedicated to the success of mission-driven leaders and their organiza...

Episode Transcript

Jon Kidwell (00:04):
As leaders, we often request or demand feedback
of our team, for our businesses, of ourselves, because we want
to grow, we want to improve, wewant to make sure what we're
doing is working.
But have you ever stopped andconsidered what does feedback
demand?
Welcome to the Leadwell podcast, the podcast for mission-driven

(00:26):
leaders, where we dive intowhat is most important so that
you can lead your business andyour people well.
We are doing a short seriesthat also has short podcasts for
the summer, taking a break fromguests, and I would love your
feedback on if you've enjoyedthat.
Now, continuing on that threadof feedback have you ever

(00:46):
stopped and considered what doesfeedback demand?
We get asked to give feedbackin so many different arenas.
There's NPSs for all of theplaces that we go.
Everyone is sending mesomething that says rate us on a
scale of one to 10.
We also are getting employeesurveys and culture surveys.
There are assessments andemployee evaluations and we do

(01:09):
debriefs on projects.
All of it is feedback.
All of it is essentially howdid that thing go?
How are we doing?
What can we do better?
Which is feedback?
And you're probably sittingthere thinking, like me on most
of the ones that I just listedout there, nps organizations,
and there's always the likefollow up and tell us like well,

(01:31):
why did you unsubscribe?
What was it that you didn'tenjoy, what isn't working for
you here at work, and what canwe do to help you?
And a lot of us take the timeand dive into giving feedback
and if you're like me, all of asudden you get annoyed, you get
frustrated.

(01:52):
You start to tell yourself astory about what they're doing
based on the feedback that yougave and the inaction that you
are seeing.
You leave it to your favoriteor maybe not so favorite anymore
coffee shop, or you've sent insomething to your leader as kind
of the anonymous culture survey, or maybe even a 360.

(02:15):
And it's just crickets.
I mean, all of us get annoyedwith those organizations where
we say things like well, we toldthe grocery store exactly what
they needed to do to improvethis.
I mean, they asked and I toldthem and they're not doing
anything about it.
That level of dissatisfactionactually has an inverse reaction

(02:35):
to the feedback that theywanted, because now we're even
more dissatisfied.
And the same is happening atwork, where, as leaders, we do
that same thing with assessments, with surveys, 360s.
We may be as far as sayingthank you, but there's no
closing of the loop and there'sjust this void of well, the

(02:58):
feedback has been given, butwhat's going on?
And here's the thing that Ikind of realized about feedback,
and I'm going to dive into somepieces, and then what we can do
about it is that feedbackdemands action.
Action, because if there isn'tany action, the purpose of the

(03:25):
feedback becomes kind ofdiscorrelated.
I don't actually know thatthat's the right word, but it is
counterproductive.
If we ask feedback to grow, toget better, to make things more
effective, and we don't takeaction on that feedback, we
actually frustrate anddissatisfy and disconnect even
further from the individual orthe place that gave us the

(03:45):
feedback.
I mean, even in ourselves.
I think about myself as a runner, and if you read the book
Redefine your Servant Leadership, you know this story.
If you haven't, you can go pickit up at Redefine your Servant
Leadership.
But I talk about my running andmy body was giving me feedback.
It's essentially what it was.
But I would run and run and runand my hips started hurting and

(04:08):
I just told myself I wasgetting old.
I wasn't trying to do anythingabout it and it started hurting
more and more and more and Istarted to take action on it.
Now in my story, I took thewrong action.
I started trying to stretch andthen I started using ibuprofen
and then I started using moreibuprofen and at the end of it I

(04:30):
finally realized that I justactually worn out my shoes and
the feedback that my body wasgiving me through my hip to my
knee was saying hey, dude, youare wearing us out over here.
We need new shoes because we'renot getting the support that we
need.
And when I did that, all ofthose other things, including
just thinking I'm getting older,started to unravel because the

(04:51):
appropriate action was taken.
So what does feedback demand?
Feedback demands action, and itgoes even better when it is the
most appropriate action.
So I've been man crushing alittle bit on Corey Shearer.
He's a friend and a growingfriend, but I just I want to
read from you his book a littlebit Closing the Trust Gap, and
he talks about feedback.

(05:12):
Feedback is huge in breakingdown trust or distrust, or
building trust, and so here'swhat he said he actually calls
it a sin.
He said sin number five forkind of approaching trust is
this ignoring feedback sinnumber five?
And here's what he saidOrganizations must be committed

(05:36):
to actively listening to theresults and either taking action
on what's being said oractively listening to the
results, and either takingaction on what's being said or
clearly communicating to theteam that they have been heard,
along with the explanation ofwhy certain feedback is being
prioritized.
Otherwise, this is the bigotherwise, because feedback
demands action.
Here's the otherwise.
Otherwise, a lack of activelistening or even the perception

(05:57):
of a lack of active listeningwill result in an abundance of
active speculation and distrust.
And isn't that what happens forall of the surveys, all of the
MPS?
Every time a business asks usor a leader asks us for feedback
and it's just quiet, there isactive speculation.

(06:21):
Our brain starts building outthese crazy stories.
Even in my running story, I wastrying to deduce something.
I just figured out the wrongthing because I was taking the
easiest path, not the best path,but I was trying to build out
what might be going on.
I'm just getting old.
Oh, my leader didn't respond tothat feedback, so now they're
just angry with me.

(06:42):
Oh, that business doesn't careabout me, instead of actively
listening and giving a response,even if it is something that's
really important and here's thepriorities that we're focusing
on.
So if feedback demands action,what can we do to lead well?
Well, corey gives us thatanswer too, as he talks about

(07:04):
developing trust, and he saidone of the things that they need
to prioritize is regularemployee feedback that we take
action on.
If we get regular employeefeedback that we take action on,
we will build a culture that ismore trustworthy, not

(07:25):
distrusting.
So asking folks through thosesurveys, but then coming back
around doing the second half ofthe work and taking action on it
to clearly communicate.
Here's what we heard, here'swhat we are doing, here's what's
being prioritized, here'swhat's not being prioritized.
The same is true in smallconversations, when we give and

(07:45):
receive feedback after a project.
We might be the receiver ofthat feedback, right?
Maybe our manager's talking tous and they give us feedback on
our missed deadlines, on ourmissed priorities, on the fact
that we delivered something butit wasn't quite yet up to the
standard that we want.
The feedback demands actionthat we go and take action on

(08:06):
whatever it was that thatindividual said, or that we come
back and circle around andfollow through, follow up on
that feedback so that we canclose the loop.
When we close the loop, then westart to build more trusting,
more connected, more honestrelationships, teams,

(08:27):
organizations, and we actuallystart to give ourselves the
ability that, when we do miss,when there isn't the action or
the appropriate action onfeedback, we've started to give
ourselves the ability to assumepositive intent instead of the
active speculation, becausewe've seen it in other places.

(08:50):
So you are probably out theregetting feedback from a client,
from a customer, from your team.
You're asking for it, you'redebriefing projects.
Be thinking about what feedbackdemands.
Feedback demands action.
What action are you gonna takethe next time that you get
feedback so that you can leadyour team, your business,

(09:12):
everybody around you?
Well, I'd love to hear about it.
Share it with me on socialmedia, on LinkedIn, on Instagram
.
Send me a message and if youwould take the time to share
this episode with somebody thatyou know that is also sitting
there and maybe you all weretalking about feedback, or
you're thinking about what do wedo based on some of these

(09:32):
things, or you had the activespeculation conversation of like
, I don't know share thisepisode with them and work
together on how you can act onfeedback that you get to build
more trusting, healthy, thrivingrelationships, teams and
organizations.
Thanks for being here today.
I'd love your feedback on thatepisode Positive, negative, go

(09:54):
rate it, review it wherever itis, shoot me a note.
I would love to hear it.
I promise to take action on itand until next time, my friends,
be well.
God bless and lead on.