How To Receive Feedback, Feat. Katie Schroeder

Your Shirt Is Ugly: Why All Feedback Is Just Data and You Need to Calm Down

Jason’s got Katie Schroeder here with him. He’s asked her to help him with a topic tonight about feedback to kind of balance him out a little bit. In fact, they’re going to do two podcasts because he definitely wants to get a good balanced perspective on this. What’s been on Jason’s mind from a feedback standpoint, and he promises you this is researched, they’re not just winging it here, the thought that’s been on his mind about feedback is based around the kind of feedback that we receive in the industry right now. But this is kind of a broader topic.

Let him tell you what kind of prompted it, to be honest. And he’ll always be honest, but to be honest so that you know that he’s being vulnerable with you: every now and then Jason gets feedback that he just doesn’t like. And sometimes he gets feedback that he thinks is stupid. Sometimes he thinks that in the lean community, we ask for feedback and plus deltas and we get silly little comments that talk about “Oh, I wish the food was better” or “I wish this course was easier” or whatever. And it’s like “Well…” Or here’s a great one Jason got the other day: “The topic is so hard.” And it’s like “Well, what do I have to do with the topic? This is ridiculous.” So knowing that he’s super immature and emotional, he’s got Katie here to balance him out. They’re going to talk about the concept of feedback.

Feedback Is a Gift But Sometimes I Think It’s Stupid

From a feedback standpoint, let’s talk about the basis for it. Katie and Jason have learned in leadership trainings and other realms that feedback is a gift and that feedback from an improvement standpoint isn’t like a punishment or a negative thing. From a feedback standpoint, positive feedback is a jam. And even saying positive feedback is probably weighing into the whole positive and negative. So let Jason find a way to redefine this.

What would you call that, Katie? Would you say positive feedback or would you say like things that people appreciated or just call it feedback? Katie thinks that’s fine. What Jason wants people to get away from, if at all possible, not trying to be the word police, but if we say negative, “Give me the negative feedback,” unless somebody’s just being a jerk monkey, he doesn’t know that it’s negative. If it’s legitimately helpful to help somebody get better, he thinks it’s just feedback for improvement or if it’s just feedback.

Katie was going to say the idea that it has to be helpful is not a real thing. That’s just your thought about what was being said. For Jason, that “I didn’t really like the food” comment he was trying to reference earlier, he’s like “Okay, I’m going to dismiss that because that’s not helpful for me building this course or whatever.” But it is just feedback. It’s not negative or positive. It’s just someone else’s reaction.

This kind of just goes back to coaching. It’s really important for us to be in the proper frame of mind and not be worried about other people’s emotions and worried about other people’s thoughts about us. We take what we can. We take what’s beneficial. Even if it was negative, it could still be beneficial for us. We take that and we move forward. Jason says that’s proving how wise he is that he asked Katie to be on the podcast.

Brandon Montero’s Bright Lights Story: It’s All Just Data

Brandon Montero today was talking about how, and he used a really interesting story. He said “Okay, you come into a room and there’s bright lights and you see the bright lights and you trip and you fall on your face and everybody’s laughing.” Really, “I walked into a room” is data. “I saw bright lights” is data. “I fell” is data. “Everybody laughs” is data. “I start to get all butt hurt” is emotions.

Jason thinks what Katie’s attempting to say in a super sweet and loving and kind way is that it’s what story we tell ourselves or how we choose to feel about something is what we have control over. Everything else is just data. Let Jason go through a couple of these things. If he was on the podcast by himself, God forbid, he would have said “Hey, make it positive. It’s never negative. Give me only useful feedback. Ask the right questions so we don’t get stupid feedback.”

But what Katie’s saying is “Bro, don’t take criticism from people that you wouldn’t take advice from.” Morgan Freeman says this so it has to be true. Don’t take criticism from people that you wouldn’t take advice from. Katie’s emotional argument actually negates that argument too. Why would you invalidate people? That’s all you’re doing. You’re judging like “Okay, you’re not good enough for me to listen to. You have no value. You have no life experience that I could learn from.” You’re basically saying “You’re not qualified to speak to me.”

Which Katie doesn’t think is part of their mission statement where they’re trying to build people and accept people and help people and grow people to just literally invalidate someone. Fair point. So let’s get it down to the root cause of the issue. For somebody super mature and calm like Katie, not Jason, data, data, data, data, non-emotional, never becomes emotional. Jason thinks probably the thrust of the quote about don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from, maybe that is dismissive. Maybe it’s just don’t get emotional about feedback period.

Katie thinks it’s all right to dismiss feedback and say “Okay, you criticized the caterer at this event that I’m holding.” But even then, maybe you can glean something from that or “I didn’t like that song.” There’s only so much you can do there. You have things curated for a reason, which is not always known to everyone else, so you might get feedback that criticizes something that you’ve worked on and curated or created even. Then you have to say “Yeah, no, I’m not going to validate that specific feedback.” It doesn’t mean the person isn’t valid. It just means that that’s not helpful in the direction that you’re going. You have to just be mature enough to not take it personally.

So basically don’t take it too emotional. Just process it, bring it in. We don’t have to get mad or sad about it. We’re leading with logic. We’re not leading with emotions. Which is quite rare. Katie’s not joking around. It is hard. She’s not saying it’s impossible but it is hard. Jason thinks what the quote was originally designed to do was to say “Okay, if you’re going to go home and get really bent out of shape about something, don’t take it too personally, especially if it’s from somebody that isn’t benefiting you in the circles that you care about.” But Katie’s message is period, end of story, let’s not put our self-worth into the hands of other people and their feedback.

Felipe Calls My Trolls and I Just Block Them

We’re not really talking about internet trolls that are just trolls for the sake of being trolls. We’re talking about people who are clients or colleagues or whatever. So these are not people that you just want to dismiss like “Oh, you’re not worth my time. You’re not worth the moment it takes to acknowledge or self-reflect for a minute.”

As they say, self awareness was not handed out equally to everyone. So it’s good to have even something that might seem like “Oh, I’m automatically going to dismiss that.” Just take a second. Maybe the food really was crappy. In lean circles, we do a plus delta. Jason quite frankly feels like that’s a very good practice. At the end we say what worked, what’s feedback for improvement. He thinks it works really well.

To dig deeper, he thinks a lot of times we get really shallow feedback. Shallow from the standpoint of he thinks that sometimes it’s just fishing for something. But using Katie’s model, really the feedback is helpful because we’re getting people into the practice. You can hopefully get a nugget here or there and you’ve got people that are practicing over and over, actually giving people feedback and speaking up. So really that’s helpful.

One thing Jason would say is he thinks we could ask better questions. Instead of saying “What’s the plus delta for the meeting?” we could say “Okay, the purpose of today’s meeting was specifically to make a very crucial decision for all the trade partners. Did this meeting solve that problem? Did it create that purpose? So what would be feedback in line with what the purpose of the meeting was?” If we ask a better question, maybe we’ll get better feedback.

Let Jason tell you another embarrassing moment. Felipe Engineer and Jason have this really interesting thing. People will troll Jason on LinkedIn and give him really negative comments and all of them are wrong. But honestly sometimes it’s pretty outrageous. Somebody will say something super negative and Jason will give them like five or six different chances to see it his way. Then if they don’t straighten up, he totally blocks them on LinkedIn.

People are going to say “That’s not cancel culture.” That’s Jason being super imaginary. But anyway, Felipe Engineer will call them and actually have a candid conversation for like an hour and a half. And Jason’s like “I don’t want to talk to you.” Katie says “He calls your trolls?” Jason says “Yeah.” Katie says “Oh my, he is.” So Felipe is the designated troll caller and he ends up actually making pretty good relationships with people sometimes and Jason’s like “I’m done.”

If Jason applied Katie’s method to that, basically she’s saying stop canceling people on LinkedIn. Kind of. If you actually give a call and talk to somebody and connect like Felipe does, don’t get emotional about it. You can glean what you can and hopefully get some common ground. In their mission of helping people, you can hopefully help somebody.

Your Shirt Is Ugly: Katie’s Method of Giving Feedback

Critical feedback that’s aimed to hurt somebody out of anger. Let’s apply Katie’s method to that. If somebody said something that was just really mean, like somebody went to a certification training or a boot camp or went to an event or whatever and they didn’t like a certain topic and somebody said the content was stupid or it was just really mean, what do we glean from that?

Katie thinks first of all, when you take a comment that is mean, that is not real. That’s just your thought about that particular thing. All that’s real is that this particular thing was said. That’s the real part. Then you internalize that based on your experiences and who you are and you decide that’s a really mean thing to say.

But maybe that person is someone like Katie that is like “Oh, by the way, your shirt’s ugly.” That’s not an insult. That’s her opinion. Which is what she says. Jason will walk out the bedroom and she’ll be like “You’re like, that is the ugliest. Or no, you’re not wearing that. That’s stupid.” Or Jason will text somebody something and she’s like “Oh my gosh, this is so stupid.”

Jason gets so mad. Is Katie being mean? So she thinks she is, but does she think she is? No, she’s not. She’s just not. She’s into it. Katie doesn’t think she’s being mean. She thinks she’s being helpful. She thinks it’s helpful to know how ugly your outfit is. Katie’s dad was such a hardass that she has a more blunt approach.

Jason says one time they went out in the shed to record a podcast one night and they started. He can’t even remember what the topic was but Katie was so mean. After comment number three Jason was like “Bruh, all right, we done.” And he literally deleted that. Katie says that’s the subject of this podcast. Which is that even though her method of giving feedback is like picking up a sword and poking people or lopping off limbs, Jason shouldn’t be emotional.

Honestly Jason’s starting to understand it better. Literally it’s just data. It all has a positive intent. Some people just talk differently. Very rarely is someone really trying to just be ugly with you. Or that’s the other thing: hurt people, wounded people hurt people. If someone’s wounded and now you’ve triggered something in them and then they want to give you that criticism because it’s somehow been triggering for them, in the end you can kind of be compassionate and say “Okay, I can see that this really bothered you or you’re really hurt by this behavior.”

Katie’s kind of thinking not so much in a boot camp or whatever setting but like at church or in your family or something. Some feedback that you receive comes from a place of hurt from them. So they have that desire to lash out and then it’s your job to not be acted upon. To say “Okay, I can see.” Or maybe there’s even nothing positive in it but you’re mature enough to say “This is not going to negatively affect me. I can see that this person is wounded.” You’re still not invalidating them and just saying “Hey, you’re worthless. You don’t matter to me because you didn’t give me feedback that I like.” But just from a compassionate space you’re operating.

Leadership and Self-Deception: Get Clarity and Do the Right Thing

To tie this to construction, which applies very much, there’s a book called Leadership and Self-Deception which Jason hopes everybody takes the opportunity to read, especially superintendents. Getting clarity is the key. For instance, the book gives an example where a couple is being woken up by the baby and the husband’s been working all day and mom hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep. He hears the baby, doesn’t get up. This has never happened to Jason. She gets up and she’s like “Why aren’t you getting up?” And he’s like “Well, why don’t you respect my work and I have to work all day?” She’s like “Well, you do not…” Anyway, they start fighting back and forth. Finally she goes and takes care of the baby. Both couples are angry with each other because they are telling themselves stories about the other.

What they say in the book is if you can get out of the emotional realm, if you can get out of the deception, that’s why it’s called Leadership and Self-Deception. The self-deception is the story that people are telling themselves, which is what Katie says all the time. So leadership is let’s get back to the point of clarity where we actually figure out what’s going on. Both people are tired. Both people are working hard. And all we have to do then is do the right thing.

We can use that same pattern with any kind of feedback. Let’s do the right thing. If it doesn’t apply, then you don’t apply it. If it’s legitimate, listen and apply it. Even if it’s hard, unpride yourself for a minute. Step back. If there’s something helpful, even if the person was wounded and said it in a mean way, use it to better yourself. Because at the end of the day, even if you were prideful, what’s going to hurt the other person more? You getting all angry and nasty and rolling around in mud or you becoming better while they stagnate? Whether you’re benevolent or evil, taking the feedback is the best course of action.

Katie was going to say there is some merit to maybe this person is not legitimately qualified to give you feedback or to give you helpful feedback because they maybe just don’t know enough about it. So then you again have to kind of step back and say maybe this person is looking for significance by having input where it’s just kind of over their head or they don’t really understand. Again, that’s all about how you are empowered to move forward rather than just decide “Oh, I’m pissed now.”

Jason realized while he gets upset it’s because feedback is in such a public forum for him. For a lot of people that are on LinkedIn and doing other things, if he takes a course like the superintendent boot camp, Felipe’s boot camp, Felipe’s boot camp has 100% success rate from a feedback standpoint. Superintendent boot camp was 95% raving fans but that 5% makes Jason nervous because that hurts his livelihood. If he would just take it for what it is and use it as a tool, he wouldn’t be as emotional about it. The other thing is he tells people what the feedback is anyway in the podcast so he doesn’t even know what he’s worried about anyway.

Your Value Is Not Determined by Feedback

Superintendents, project managers, people in construction, they’re around a lot of wounded people. It doesn’t mean those people are bad. It just means that they’re wounded. Superintendents will get backed into the corner by a foreman or a project manager or an owner. A trade partner will treat somebody wrong or the GC will be domineering and bossy and unfair. A lot of these things will happen.

Jason has found himself being pulled into the emotional side and then they start rolling in the mud. What Katie’s telling him to do and everybody on the phone call is if we can just calm down, get clarity, go back to what is really going on, maybe even get some insight and then just do the right thing. Doing the right thing might actually have consequences to it but don’t turn it into an emotional situation because then it becomes punishment. What advice would Katie give to anybody considering feedback? Just closing thoughts?

Katie thinks, she doesn’t know if this is a closing thought, it’s just a thought: your value is not determined by feedback. Your value is intrinsic and people will say hurtful things. They’ll say hurtful things when feedback should be a gift. Sometimes it wasn’t meant as a gift but either way, if you take it the right way, you might find use in it. Jason really appreciates Katie being on this podcast. He asks her to help him when he feels like he’s not qualified or mature enough to discuss a topic. That was obviously the case tonight. He really feels like he has a better jam.

His commitment tomorrow, the current condition is we get really emotional about things. His commitment tomorrow, his challenge for everybody is it’s all data. It’s only emotional when we turn it into emotion. Take the hurt, the criticism, the feedback for improvement, the topics, the irrelevant comments, all of the different categories and just turn it into feedback and filter in what’s useful, maybe not useful. Then you can use that to better you, your organization, your teams and everybody else and it doesn’t have to be painful and we can continue receiving it all and keep everybody in the practice of giving feedback.

The only thing Jason would say is that by labeling it either positive or negative, we’re probably, those labels, not that he’s the workplace police, but for him personally, he’s going to stop saying positive or negative because that’s assigning an emotion to it or an emotional tie. He’s just going to call it feedback. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why is all feedback just data?

You come into a room, see bright lights, trip, fall on your face, everybody laughs. “I walked into a room” is data. “I saw bright lights” is data. “I fell” is data. “Everybody laughs” is data. “I start to get all butt hurt” is emotions. What story we tell ourselves or how we choose to feel about something is what we have control over. Everything else is just data. It’s not negative or positive, it’s just someone else’s reaction. Your value is not determined by feedback. Your value is intrinsic.

Q: What should I do when someone gives me mean feedback?

When you take a comment that is mean, that is not real. That’s just your thought about that particular thing. All that’s real is that this particular thing was said. Then you internalize that based on your experiences and you decide that’s a really mean thing to say. But maybe that person is just blunt. They don’t think they’re being mean, they think they’re being helpful. Or hurt people, wounded people hurt people. If someone’s wounded and triggered, they lash out. Be compassionate. You’re mature enough to say “This is not going to negatively affect me. I can see that this person is wounded.”

Q: How does Leadership and Self-Deception apply to feedback?

The book gives an example where a couple fights over who should get up for the baby. Both are angry because they’re telling themselves stories about the other. The self-deception is the story people are telling themselves. Leadership is getting back to clarity where we figure out what’s going on. Both people are tired, both are working hard. All we have to do is do the right thing. Use that same pattern with feedback. If it doesn’t apply, don’t apply it. If it’s legitimate, listen and apply it. Even if it’s hard, unpride yourself, step back. If there’s something helpful, even if the person was wounded and said it in a mean way, use it to better yourself.

Q: Should I dismiss feedback from people who aren’t qualified?

Don’t invalidate people. You’re judging like “You’re not good enough for me to listen to. You have no value.” You’re basically saying “You’re not qualified to speak to me.” Which isn’t part of a mission to build people and accept people and help people. There is some merit to maybe this person isn’t legitimately qualified because they don’t know enough about it. You have to step back and say maybe this person is looking for significance by having input where it’s over their head. That’s all about how you are empowered to move forward rather than just deciding “I’m pissed now.”

Q: How do I stop getting emotional about feedback?

It’s all data. It’s only emotional when we turn it into emotion. Take the hurt, the criticism, the feedback for improvement, the topics, the irrelevant comments, all of the different categories and just turn it into feedback and filter in what’s useful, maybe not useful. Then you can use that to better you, your organization, your teams and it doesn’t have to be painful. Stop labeling it positive or negative because that’s assigning an emotion to it. Just call it feedback. Lead with logic, not emotions. Calm down, get clarity, go back to what is really going on, get some insight, then do the right thing.

On we go.