What to do about Feedback So People Don't Burn Out

0:03 Welcome to the Catching Up with Casey show. If you are tired of chasing buy in, frustrated with teams who can't seem to get on the same page, or over the constant struggle of holding people accountable without micromanaging, this is the show for you. I'm Casey Watts, speaker, author and the creator of the Clarity Cycle Framework. I help leaders just like you take teams from frustration to alignment, so teams can work collectively toward a common purpose in a committed way instead of against each other as though they are functioning in different organizations. And we do it all through the craft of clarity. Whether you lead from the middle or you are the front facing leader of your organization.

0:46 On this show, we bring clarity to the seemingly small things in leadership that make the biggest difference because clarity precedes capacity. Now, with all of that said, let's dive into today's episode. Let me tell you guys, the problem with not going live with these episodes and just recording them not live is I will get halfway through an episode. I've fumble through it so much that I decide, Nope, we're going to scratch that and start over versus when I do a live episode that's streaming, there's no, I mean you, you can't, you can't do that.

1:41 You're because you're live. So I'm thinking, man, I, I definitely have something good going with the live episodes that I do. Nonetheless, we're going to move forward. I did scratch the first episode or the first take of this. I'm going to try again. And I am not going back to record the skin. So you're going to get all of the juicy mistakes. And guess what? That's OK because I, like you, am human. We are moving forward with the podcast series Leading Instructional Change that actually sticks because we know change is hard.

2:21 We're in Part 3 of this series. So if you did not catch parts 1 and 2, go back and listen to those because these four podcast episodes kind of build on one another. So in the first episode, we talked about bridging that knowing doing gap and really thinking about how to start transferring ownership of your campus goals to staff instead of just announcing them. In the second episode, we talked about moving from being a directive to helping to people to be driven in regards to these campus goals. And then this week we're talking about what to do about feedback so your people don't burn out. And specifically, we're going to be looking at a feedback faux pas table that I've written about in my book. And then we're also going to look again at the skill Will Matrix.

3:19 So I talked about the skill Will Matrix in last week's episode. Definitely go back and take a listen there. But today we're going to be talking about, OK, what do I do with that matrix? I want to start today's episode by encouraging you to register for the Ownership Shift webinar. That's going to be taking place before long. I think it's next week, which is going to be Thursday. Maybe it's two weeks from now, but it's Thursday, March 26th. It is during your lunch hour, so if your Central Standard Time, it's 11:00 AM. Eastern is 12:00 PM. If you cannot join live, that's OK, go ahead and register because you'll get access to the replay.

4:02 That replay will only be available for seven days. In this webinar, we are thinking about how to not be the leaders who carry the weight of campus change. Right. So think about your campus improvement plan or your campus needs assessment, how you craft that document. And then it becomes this thing on the shelf that collects dust. And then you recycle campus goals again and again year after year because the plan usually stops with you as the leader. And this free webinar, we're going to be talking about the Clarity Cycle framework and how you can, we're actually going to go through the 1st 2 steps of it where you look at selecting an area of focus and analyzing that focus to develop goals. So you can confidently pass the baton to your people and transfer ownership and then hold them accountable without micromanaging.

5:03 Because this is where you're going to see that change you're looking for actually happen. OK, so go register for that. Catching up with kc.com/ownership. It is in the show notes, diving into the actual content of today. Feedback. There's so much I could say about feedback, but we have such little time. I'm going to reference some information from my book. One of the chapters is specifically about providing feedback regularly and celebrating systematically. I'm also going to reference a podcast episode where I talk about the art of not only receiving but giving feedback. So you're going to want to check that out as well, but I'm going to pull a little pieces from those things. Let's start with the feedback faux pas. So this comes from my book, The Craft of Clarity, which is also LinkedIn the show notes.

6:00 But in this book, I often talk, I talk about why feedback often fails and what what I notice is that we end up regurgitating the systems that we grew up in regards to feedback. And that means that either we're not quite sure exactly what kind of feedback to offer when we go into classrooms or when we've had a meeting, or we've had we're debriefing after an observation, or we know what to say. We know what feedback to give, but we it's not always well received by the person who we're providing it to. And then finally, sometimes we might find ourselves in that realm of saying good job, it was great.

6:44 And we find ourselves there because of the questions that are asked of us from the people we're giving feedback to. More on that in a moment. So what are the different feedback faux pas? What? And when I say feedback faux pas, I mean feedback mistakes. OK, what are the feedback mistakes and what can we commit to instead? There are about six of these mistakes that we want to avoid that I'm going to talk you through, and I'll talk you through the six things to commit to instead. Here we go. Number one, our feedback is vague and broad, making it difficult to act on, OK? What we want to do instead is keep it really focused and explicit because no one wants to walk away from a feedback conversation guessing what's next or trying to fill in the blanks.

7:38 And I think we we navigate to our feedback being broader vague because we're not comfortable providing feedback. And sometimes it feels like difficult conversations. We've got to shift our narrative there. That's a whole other podcast episode. But you do need to start shifting the narrative and thinking about feedback differently because it's not a difficult conversation. It's a productive conversation and people want and deserve feedback. OK #2 it is overly positive and it gives the sense that no growth is necessary. Again, this goes back to the discomfort you might feel giving feedback because it feels uncomfortable. It feels like a hard conversation. When your feedback is overly positive though, it actually is depleting trust and mutual respect. So here's what you want to do.

8:38 Provide very truthful feedback always. And if you run into the situation where truly you feel like that there's no corrective feedback that I need to give, then you want to instead provide a probing reflection or you want to provide a challenge. OK. So I would encourage you to have a Bank of those ready and on hand for those people who are high will high skill so you can ask them a reflective question, get them thinking as they leave the feedback conversation or you are providing them a challenge. OK #3 The mistake that we make with feedback is it has little room for self reflection or little room for potential coaching conversations. And this happens when you overwhelm your people with too many things.

9:34 It could be too many great things that you've noticed, or it could be too many things that you want them to think about. OK. So we want to be sure that it is very targeted on next steps so that you're ensuring growth. Like what? What is the targeted next step #4 Sometimes your feedback can be provided at the wrong place and wrong time. And we know that effective feedback is always timely. However, there is such a thing as wrong time, wrong place because you want to monitor where you are when you're providing feedback so that your stakeholder, that meaning the person you're providing feedback to, can fully attend to that feedback.

10:28 So it's not going to happen in the moment all the time. It also can't happen days and days later. Now, if you know that there's going to be a stretch of time between the time you have met with someone and the time you provide them feedback, we want to be sure to leave a sticky note and e-mail something that is quick for them to look at but doesn't distract them from their work. Let them know you're going to follow up and tell them in what way you're going to follow up. Be explicit about how you're going to give feedback when you're going to give feedback, and be also cautious about what that looks like so that they can fully attend to that feedback. OK #5 your feedback.

11:16 This is kind of the opposite of it being overly positive. It could be overly negative and give the sense of defeat. We don't want to sway too far in One Direction or the other, positive or negative. But we do want to land in that middle area where the feedback conversations result with a sense of purpose and hope on both sides. So for you as a person providing feedback and the person receiving feedback, we want to land in a place of purpose and hope. That's why your questions during your feedback conversations are so incredibly important.

12:02 This is where you as a leader, no matter what your role is, need to step into a coaching role. And we'll actually talk more about that here in a moment when we get into the skill will Matrix. OK, feedback faux pas number six. This is the last one. The purpose and or the approach to your feedback is unclear. Prefacing your feedback conversation with a structure or guiding stakeholders through the feedback conversation will help them to know exactly what to expect and it will support follow through.

12:45 OK, so this is kind of what it might sound like. I'd like to share something I've noticed that's helping our campus make progress and a way I think you can level up your impact. Is that OK with you notice the invitation into a conversation around feedback? I also want you to notice too, in the first part of that, it says I'd like to share something I've noticed that's helping our campus make progress. Make progress toward what? Well, our area of focus and our campus goals is ideally what you're making progress toward. OK, I think you can. I want to recognize that. And then I also want to help you level up your impact. Is that all right with you?

13:31 They're going to say yes, having said that, So those are the feedback faux pas and what we want to do instead. Having said that, there is an entire episode that I recorded. It was probably a year ago now where I talk about the art of asking for feedback and I also talk about ways to receive feedback. I'm going to include that in the show note so you can go back and listen to that episode because I do go into a lot more detail there about providing feedback in really productive and helpful ways. But it's I find it so fascinating.

14:15 I don't know that many of us, if any of us have been taught how to ask for feedback or provided appropriately and we set people up to fail or we set we are set up to fail as people providing feedback with a couple of very well intended questions, but they don't do anything to support appropriate feedback. Here are those questions. How was it? It doesn't matter what it is. Could be a meeting that someone conducted. It could be a lesson that they implemented. Doesn't matter how was it.

14:56 Or they might say was it good or did you like that? They are very, very broad questions that don't allow people providing feedback to do so effectively. What am I going to say? When someone says, did you like that? It's like a it's like a student coming up to you and and showing you their artwork and they say, do you like it? Well, if I don't, what am I going to say? Then I usually with a student would say, well, tell me about your favorite part of this as an adult. I think they're probably able to decipher that. That might mean, uh oh, she didn't like it. Something went wrong because she didn't tell me what she liked. She's asking me like, she's turning it around on me, right? Like adults are so much more complex than that. So we want to get really intentional about how we ask for feedback and how we provide feedback to others and take them through that structure that I talked about earlier. So I had to catch myself doing this recently when I was working with a coach through a keynote that I was working on. I asked her about one part of the keynote. So did you Do you think that part's good? And she, of course, gave me the

16:26 standard, yeah, that's good. But that was useless feedback. And I had to stop and ask myself, what is it exactly that I want her to provide feedback on? What do I need? And So what I asked her instead was, what is it in this set of slides that still lacks clarity? She paused. She pondered. And then she was able to come back with some specific feedback that was actually helpful. And it actually led me to scrap some entire slides and replace them with something that was 10 times better. You have to model this for your staff. We need to teach them to be specific and to allow for reinforcing responses.

17:18 So what you might do then is say, you know, I want to get really clear with you guys about how we want to ask for feedback here on this campus. When I come in and observe a lesson and I finished that lesson, finish observing you, Here's what you can expect Next. I'm going to leave a sticky note with something that I noticed. We will follow up in an e-mail and a meeting what whatever it might be. When we follow up, my encouragement to you is instead of asking how was the lesson, think about what specifically you want feedback on. Here are some example questions.

17:59 Here's what that might look like. And then of course, yes, you're modeling that. So when you've conducted a meeting APD session or you have conducted an observation and you want feedback from your people, say to them, tell me like, like ask them specifically what it is you want to know not was not the question. How was that? Don't be too, too broad. We want to be really specific and we want to invite them into the conversation. OK, so again, go listen to that episode. I talk a whole lot more about feedback. I tell a lot more about it in the book. Let's get to the last piece of this, and this is the skill Will Matrix.

18:43 Remember last week's episode I talked about the skill Will Matrix that comes from the work of Robin Jackson. There are lots of different pieces of research about the skill Will Matrix that you can find online. I like to lean into this Skill Will Matrix from Robin Jackson because it is specific to schools and school leaders. So last week I told you you're splitting your people up into those four different quadrants on the Skill Will Matrix, and I told you to split them up based on where you feel like they are in regard to your campus area of focus and those campus goals.

19:28 Now we're going to go back to it because you should have a quadrant that is titled high will high skill, a quadrant that is high will low skill, one that is low will high skill, and one that is low will low skill. Here's what these people need. We're going to look at high will high skill first. These are typically your high achievers. These are your leaders. We often leave them alone because we think, man, they are rocking and rolling. They don't need anything from me.

20:08 I just want them to keep doing what they're doing. And sometimes we even say to them, just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing great. Wrong. These people actually need feedback, and they need feedback that pushes and challenges them. In fact, Robin Jackson says they need feedback more than anyone else. More than anyone else. And I can attest to this as a high achiever, I always wanted feedback. And do you know how often I received it? Not very often.

20:50 I had to ask for it. And when I asked for it, sometimes people felt uncomfortable providing feedback. But you know what? It's probably because I didn't know exactly how to ask for feedback. And so I asked for feedback, but my, my question was just too vague. Can you give me feedback on this lesson? Too vague. If I could go back in time I would change the way that I asked for feedback. So give your high will high school people feedback, but be sure they know also how to ask for feedback. They may not know exactly how to ask for it. OK then let's look at your high will, low skill people.

21:35 These are your people who have heart, but they lack tools. And so these people need support. They need heavy modeling, support and modeling. Yes, they need feedback, but more than that they need support, the tools, modeling, coaching, etcetera. You're low will but high skill people, meaning they they're not really invested, but they've got the skill to do it. They can do the work, but they have lost the why. And this is where you're going to implement a culture focus, right? They need to be re engaged.

22:16 They need to be encouraged. They need to see how they contribute to the greater purpose. And then finally, you'll have your low will, low skill people. And these are the ones who need accountability. Low will, low skill, clear expectations, firm boundaries. Clear expectations, firm boundaries. If you treat everyone like they're low will, your best teachers are going to burn out. If you treat everyone like they're low skill. Wait, did I get that backwards? If you treat everyone like they're low skill, your best teachers are going to burn out. If you treat everyone like they're low will, your culture is likely to not improve and you have clarity If you're looking at that skill will matrix and you know which quadrant you're talking to.

23:15 OK, here's my challenge for you this week. Go back to the clarity cycle framework rubric. It's again LinkedIn the show notes look at your feedback scores. So there should be an area that's titled Providing feedback regularly. Think about your feedback and where you might land on that rubric. And also ask yourself, is the feedback tied to our overarching campus schools? Next week, we're going to wrap up the series by talking about data and progress monitoring and how to keep the momentum alive after the initial excitement of your instructional change taking place. OK.

23:58 Or after that wears off. So again, we're looking at leading instructional change. The data and progress monitoring we're going to be looking at is not necessarily looking at student assessment data. So come back to next week's episode and until then, yeah, go off and do great things, provide great feedback and we'll catch you in the next episode. Bye everybody. Hey listener, I am so honored that you listen to today's episode and I hope you gained something valuable from it. I'd also be honored if you did ME3 solid favors. First, subscribe to this show. I've got a lot of great content coming up, and I don't want you to miss any of it. Second, be sure you're following me on social media platforms. You can find me at.

24:46 Catch up with Casey on LinkedIn or Instagram. And finally, if you were looking to book a dynamic and relatable speaker for your next event, conference, or retreat, I would love to bring a message about how the craft of clarity makes a significant impact on both leadership and life.