Don't Criticise me!

Ah criticism....This week the ladies discuss their love-hate relationship with criticism, how they have tried to manage it in the past and how they could deliver it better.  

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Transcript

 Hello. How's it going everyone? Hi. Hi. Happy Saturday. Yeah. Or whenever you're listening. Today we thought we would talk about. Criticism. Yes. And I guess how we, deliver it or how we receive it and things we could probably take on board for next time. On both parts. Yeah. Yeah. I think this was very topical for me this week because we, had a very difficult week in terms of.

So we have a client that, has recently employed a new person who's sort of become in charge of, our work. Um, but we haven't met said person in person yet. We don't have a relationship with them. [00:01:00] And we do quite a bit of work with the girls do quite a bit of work for this client, and it appears as if they're quite straightforward, uh, or direct.

Blunt. There are many ways that many words that will be less PC to use for the way this person gives feedback. and it started basically on Monday, there were a few emails going back and forth. none of this was done over the phone or over teams. Uh, or I think one, one meeting was over teams, but it was a lot of emails and I, I do kind of want to go into what that means in terms of feedback, because I have a lot of.

I don't know if there's a lot of views on that, but there were harsh words, very harsh words coming from this person to, yeah, there were things like, this is ridiculous. It makes us look like idiots. There were various people being copied in to responses. [00:02:00] I would, you know, I would usually call it passive aggressive when people copy in people, but this wasn't passive.

That was just aggressive, active, aggressive. Uh, and copying in, because, you know, when you do what, what we do for a living, it involves, like, counsel and then applicants. And typically, if you're working for counsel, you don't include applicants in the correspondence, but this time they were included, which is an odd choice in my opinion.

opinion because it doesn't look good for anyone. there was an insinuation, I guess, that, um, my girl hadn't handled things correctly. And it was, it was, it was crushing for her. She had a very, very difficult week and I think she was very grateful that she was part of a team and not receiving this feedback, if you can call it that, Um, without having somebody to talk to.

And I could tell that it was very, very [00:03:00] hard. So we had a lot of team chat about whether or not it was valid and the delivery of it. And I think that problematically for me is that even if the feedback is valid, even if it is constructive, when it's delivered so poorly and with such emotion, like really emotive feedback with very condescending language.

And you don't take it on board because you immediately go into this shame spiral and get defensive. Right? Um, so I felt like it was my responsibility to bring her out of the spiral and really figure out, was the feedback valid? If it was, which parts of it were, and how can we correct it? And what part of it can we ignore?

Because if it's not given with the best intention, you, and if it's not constructive, [00:04:00] then you obviously can ignore it. But it's really hard to do that when you're in the early phases of your career. And it just got me thinking about, you know, some of those moments in my career when I really wanted the floor to just open up and suck me in, take me out of that environment.

I specifically remember one very angry client. Um, who, who just started yelling at me in this meeting and I was quite young at the time and it was incredibly intimidating. And my boss kind of stepped in and it felt like really as much as I dislike gendered things, it felt like a knight in shining armor in the moment because it was so hard.

And you know, when you like. Fight or flight. I just froze. Your brain goes into Fight or flight. Well, I think it's fight, flight or freeze. I just froze. I had nothing to say. and I I couldn't defend myself. I couldn't [00:05:00] even imagine you in that, in that way.

Normally more compelling. Nothing to say, you. But you know, and I still so vividly remember almost every minute of this meeting because it was, uh, a little bit traumatizing. But I also did feel very supported by my then boss who stepped in and And I, I could tell that he was also, I mean, he, we were the same age and the other, the person who was giving, uh, the critique, uh, which was not constructive, I would argue was quite a few years older, uh, and male and white, but you know, let's not get into that.

And, and I think it was hard for him to step in even, because when you're in this really combative environment and somebody is so sure that they're right and they're yelling. It is very confronting to, to stop them mid sentence and go, let's just calm down. [00:06:00] So. And he did that, which is awesome. He did. Yeah, it did.

It did help. But I was thinking about that this week and talking to the girls about how I have, learned to deal with those, types of sessions when you have bad feedback, particularly, I mean, when you get it in an email. 

How have you dealt with that kind of feedback? Um, I think, I think I go through phases. So initially when I first get it, uh, I, I don't know that I reject it. I think I take it on board maybe too much. I don't even contemplate whether it's constructive or valid. I just feel incredibly ashamed initially because I did have some of that recently, uh, from not from a client, but from a party, I suppose, that I was dealing with and it was very personal and it was directed at my person as opposed to, and also like my professionalism.

So, you know, key triggers [00:07:00] for me who put a lot of weight on my value in my professional life. Of course job. And uh, and then I think when you, when you let it sit for a few days, 'cause I always have to do that. I can't make a good judgment call straight away. I'm the same. Yeah. I have to, otherwise I will react offensively.

Yeah. And then I won't take it on board, which is pointless. That's to do with the parts of the brain that are processing it. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like amygdala and all of that stuff, right? Yeah. It's your, um, basal ganglia system, which is basically your primal system where you do your fight or flight and you basically have that instant like FU kind of moment someone sends you the feedback or gives you criticism.

And then you move to your limbitic system, which is where you start having those emotional thoughts or feeling a bit like a failure and that kind of thing. And you have to go through that process until you move to your logical part of your brain, 

 And we all do it, right? We all do it. [00:08:00] Yeah. It's just part of our DNA. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. So that was a tough week, it got me thinking about, well, critique, getting it and receiving it, because 

 we are, uh, all responsible for junior staff members. And that means, well, definitely for me, the main feedback giver for me now would be clients. And they're not prone to give you feedback.

Unless it's particularly good or particularly bad, I find anyway, you don't, you don't get it as, as frequently as when you're in an early or sort of middle stage of your career when you're not necessarily at the, at the managerial end. I think we're also not in any kind of corporation where you're getting those constant, 360 reviews and that kind of thing that we would have once, I think people would usually have, you know?

[00:09:00] Yeah. And I, so that means that my primary relationship with feedback now is as the giver of feedback. And I take that very seriously because I don't want to be like this person who made my staff member feel... absolute shit for most of the week and it impacted her for most of the week and and I guess I, I considered my role as her support person and her manager.

And if need be, I would have. Because her confidence would have been massively knocked. Yeah. And I, I mean, don't get me wrong. I think that is an important part of every career journey. It's not always going to be positive and you have to be able to roll with the punches a little bit and we all have to do that, you know, sometimes people are going to tell us stuff that's really hard to hear and learning to find the nuggets in that.

Without becoming too defensive is what we're all trying to [00:10:00] do, right. In order to grow. So, having listened to a few podcasts on this topic in preparation for this, podcast, I did think a lot about how to give it. And I think about it all the time. I think about how I speak to my girls all the time so that they will hear it.

And the thing that I took away most from, which luckily I think I do, my intention is on doing this anyway, is that in order to give it, give feedback effectively, you should care personally. And Uh, challenge directly. and I think that's so true for me because if I look back into the early stages of my career, the people who've had the greatest impact are the ones who've taken time to explain and to listen and emotive.

Language around it. That's what it comes down to a lot of the time is the language to the body, right? Yeah. But I haven't done as [00:11:00] much, um, research as you have, Britta. And I think it would be interesting to hear

Was it all like in a professional setting? Because I think we're kind of talking about it in a professional setting, but there is other examples. Yeah. for me, I was thinking around, mostly around professional and then around my children and also, giving your partner feedback, or.

And how we take it from our partners. Or how we take it from our partners. A lot worse than I take it from other people. Yeah, and then I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Um, but I guess, yeah, when I was thinking about criticism this week. I was reflecting a lot on probably not so much, recently, but more my journey through, criticism in the past.

Cause I think I have worked in a lot of companies where criticism has been like the main. Interaction. And how that affected me and how I've moved forward with that I [00:12:00] reckon that's why it's changed careers. 

 I was thinking about how I reacted to criticism and what that's depended on. And I um, I think I've been affected a lot more by criticism when it's done by someone who I've really respected or loved. Because I often think, if it's, with clients or someone who I don't have a great relationship with or don't respect as much if they give me some criticism.

It's sort of like whatever But I think when it's someone who especially in work as well It is your boss and you really respect them or that kind of thing that criticism can can really affect you. So that's what I was thinking about with that and then also the volume so I think I've worked in some places where the volume has been so high and my interactions with that person has constantly been about us critiquing each other, um, that I just don't think you can have the capacity.

And through doing a bit of [00:13:00] reading and stuff, we actually, as humans, don't have capacity to deal with Lots and lots of criticisms. And we can only deal with the, you know, hunter gatherer times. Our brains have only developed to deal with like those little small amounts of criticism, which is why they say when people start getting, um, trolled on social media and that kind of thing, it can like be really detrimental or something terrible happens to them or they do make a bad decision and the media comes and yeah.

So the criticism you're talking about would have been largely negative. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm talking about negative criticism. I'm talking about negative criticism. Unless you add constructive in front of it. I just want to be clear so that everyone who's listening also gets the gist of what we're talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. and then sort of some other things around are reflected on age. So, like scores of studies have shown that people tend to be more positive as they get older.

So they reflect [00:14:00] on themselves more positively than when you're younger. So you remember and really hang on to that criticism when you're younger, but as you're older you you just don't. Think about the negative sides as much, you focus on more of the positive. 

Yeah, well I wonder if the research says that we... What I'm hearing is that we effectively get better at sorting the feedback when we get older, probably. So we don't the good and the bad sort of thing. Yeah, I think we end up... We don't take on the negative Um, What scientists have said is that's because, I think, genetically we need to learn from our failures when we're younger.

But then that... diminishes as we get older. We don't really need to learn from, we're probably, we're probably not making so many mistakes, So that's, yeah. You're probably more self, assured that mostly what you do is right. And then when you get some criticism, it's, it's less often.

Or, or maybe you've heard that [00:15:00] criticism so many times before you're like, yeah, that's, that's who I am. Yeah, that's me. Yeah. Yeah, so, and then I also was thinking around, about how I really haven't enjoyed the criticism in the past but then I also think I actually actively seek it out as well, like I get drawn to those people who will give me lots of criticism.

So you can do better. Yeah, I don't know if it's to do better, but I, I was thinking it's more around. Essentially, my like, deep craving to be understood. Like I feel like, and I think part of that is around kind of laying all my faults out. And if someone can see those faults and actually give the time to give me that feedback.

And hopefully try and understand who I am. That kind of gives me a lot of, I hate it. I really hate it, but I also. Really want it? Oh, yeah. So if people dare to [00:16:00] go there and be, because it can be quite confronting. Yeah. It is confronting. To get negative feedback. but it's true though, because if somebody cares enough to tell you, uh, and depending on how they tell you, but like, if they're not shouting it down your throat, but they actually come from a place of caring, then yeah, that is very valuable.

 And I think as human beings, generally we avoid that. It's easy to do in a professional setting and easy to do in a family setting, but much harder to do in a friend setting................ yeah, I sound completely opposite to you in that regards. I seek. The positive, I literally think I changed from the corporate into the residential design space because I love the, positive feedback.

So, and I, as soon as I seen the design, I'm waiting eagerly for the, like, yeah, I love it. It's amazing. Like, like a little puppy, and then when I haven't heard in a couple of days, I'm like, Oh, what's wrong? You know, really just hanging out for that positive feedback and when I get it, I'm Oh, [00:17:00] it's just completely opposite to what you're seeking in that sense.

 And then if I do get the very odd occasion, not so positive, it hits to the core. and cause I think maybe cause I'm in the creative space more, it feels like a real You know, that's my design, like, how could you, you know, but normally that when that happens is, um, or it hasn't, it has happened once this year and those people gave me a literal picture of what they liked and wanted.

And so I did a pretty simple design and then they basically said. Oh my God. We could have done that ourselves. I'm like, but that's what you asked for . Yeah. And so that really upset me straight away. I've went on the defense kind of, but I tried not to be defensive to them. 'cause you, it's really hard to say, well, that you asked for that.

Like, and then [00:18:00] put it back on them. You can't do that when you are the there. Well, you can, but it's very confronting and uncomfortable. You've gotta do it in such a way that doesn't damage the relationship or. So yeah, I'm completely opposite to you in that regard. I'm somewhere in the middle between the two of you because I, as, as a small business owner, I don't have a lot of people who would take the time to give me constructive criticism and I'm not going to say that I love it when I get it, if somebody is saying you could do this better, but because I don't, I'm not in that space anymore where it happens all that much, I'm responsible for my own growth, which kind of means that you either do a lot of reading to improve.

Or you F up . Yeah. And which is a very painful way of growing, but also incredibly efficient. . Yeah. Because you don't wanna do that again. Yeah. So when I do get feedback, which is [00:19:00] quite rare, um, I really take it on board and I really try and move away from emotive language and. I think when, like for me, when I was doing those, that LVA stuff, I was really wanting a good critique because it was stuff I'm like learning and growing on.

And so I was really wanting as much out of that as possible. So I think maybe does it, or does it, for me, does it depend on what, what it is? And I think, yeah, doesn't that, I reckon it's, Because I agree, I'm the same, that I think if you've mentally prepared yourself for feedback, you want it, and that's very easy to receive.

It's more when it's quite foreign to how you perceive yourself. So when somebody, I have this example, I remember when I was younger, um, and I was working in this company and,[00:20:00] I thought I was being sort of outgoing and, you know, approachable and all that kind of thing. And one of my bosses called me into the room and said, I know you think you're being like that, but you're actually really quiet and I feel like you don't stand up and talk, talk enough and that kind of thing.

And it was so opposite to how I had perceived myself. And when I reflect on it, it probably was like that. Um, but in my head I wasn't, cause I felt like for myself I was being really outgoing. And it totally threw me. And I, I think I cried for a week about how, I had failed and now I wasn't the person who I thought I was.

It's almost, I felt like an alien to myself. so I think it's, I mean, that's probably an extreme example, but I think it's quite upsetting when it's different to how you see yourself and perceive yourself and how you perceive it. Yeah. Cause I mean, at that time, given what they've. With that design, for example, given what they'd given me, it was like, really crap.

[00:21:00] And then I think I actually did a really nice design. But I actually think, and it's become very clear that these people aren't very nice people anyway. They're just, like, to the point that someone who was going to be doing the job for them, outside of my stuff, said, we're not working with them. So I, I have had to take that criticism and go, actually, you know what, it's not...

It's not really about me, it's more about them. Yeah. And I think if you can, like, hand on heart, I don't think there was anything wrong with what I'd done, um, so I'm trying to be okay with it. Still does affect you though, it just, because it's inbuilt in me to kind of seek that positive reinforcement.

That's, that's like my love language. Like if you actually read that book, Love Languages, positive affirmations is one of my love languages. So I feel like that filters into my work as well. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, it, it does. [00:22:00] Why I, my personal theory, and I'm sure there's a lot of research on this, but why it's so hard to receive negative feedback, however it's delivered, is because it makes us feel like we are outcasts, like we don't belong there.

And we, you know, we're, we talk about this all the time, but we're hardwired for belonging. And so it's, you know, that's why it's difficult, even if it comes from a good place, you have to go through the emotions that you were talking about, Britta, that, you know, you start with the knee jerk reaction, and then you move through the phases.

And I think as a feedback giver, primarily now. I'm trying to avoid that. And I find it, it's really difficult to give feedback that is compassionate and comes from a place of caring, as well as clear and direct approach. Without waffling, because I'm very good at waffling when I give feedback, I [00:23:00] am for sure an empathetic and compassionate person and I genuinely care about people that I give feedback to because if I don't give any feedback, it's because I don't actually care if that person improves.

So, and I, I'm trying to build that relationship in the culture where that is obvious. Yeah. Um, but it's still really difficult. It's still really difficult to say to people. This isn't good enough and, and not spell out exactly how they should improve. And I think that is my biggest struggle right now is to try and move away from what I see myself as micromanagement to allowing enough space.

You think you do micromanaging? Yes. Yeah. I do. This is my, myself giving myself feedback. Yeah. Um. And because, it kind of all rides on me, right? Like at the end of the day, if something goes wrong, I'm the person that's going to have to clean it up. And so it's very [00:24:00] easy to move into that. I'll just do it myself, but then I'm not really living my values.

Like I want to help people improve and become successful. And the only way to do that is to allow people to make mistakes and then go and clean it up. But it's a lot harder. Then what I'm making it out as it is because I, I do struggle with that even though I'm, you know, it's one of the things I want to get better at, but, and there's actually some good science behind that as well.

What's the science? What's the science? Um, I think in relation to that, there's something called the Dunning Kruger effect, which is the Dunning, what Kruger, Kruger, Kruger effect, which is, um, basically it's a bias that you have as you're learning and developing as a person where you overestimate your own abilities so you think you're much better than you actually are when you're starting [00:25:00] out and then it's only as you keep going that you realize how little you know and probably get.

So is that more based if you're in your younger years? they quite often use this, term around, if you're, um, in, like, incompetent CEOs or someone, where they they think they are this great, amazing person, or you sometimes see it where people think, quite often think they're very successful and stuff, and then they change a job into something else, and then it's like this big.

Um, but I think a lot of that is around with the feedback from what you were saying Eloise, around letting people make their own mistakes rather than giving that feedback all the time because sometimes that's the only way you realise. things you don't know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you just think you kind of know it.

Like, how do you know you don't know it? You sort of... You don't know. You don't know, right? Yeah, and I think you have to in some ways. Maybe, you don't have [00:26:00] to, but feeling that pang and the shame and the hurt of some harsh criticism Like I said earlier, it's a very efficient way of improving something if you don't reject it.

And this is probably the hardest part. And we had a lot of discussion about this in the office this week that, okay, well, let's just step outside of how she delivered this feedback and who she is as a person, because we're making, we're filling in the blanks here. We don't know. And it kind of goes back to that story that you were telling us in a previous podcast about the teacher, um, giving you feedback, yes, being a parent and I've become a much better parent since.

And Mike's response to that was. Well, she must've had a bad day. And I guess I'm trying to keep this in mind, uh, sometimes probably [00:27:00] to a fault and go, okay, well, let's just assume that this person has had a lot of other stuff go on and, you know, they've come into a role, who knows what else is going on behind closed doors.

I'm sure this is not personal. They may also be the type of person that just gives feedback this way. And I think this is the really important part, particularly email feedback or emails in general. Any feedback for sure, but it's not about the giver. It's how you receive it. We all have our own stories.

We've all had our own week that went on before that, or a year before that, or whatever it might've been that builds to that one sentence or session. That might be the camel's, the straw that broke the camel's back. Exactly. And, and no one knows the other person's story. So I guess the main. The only guidance I could give my, junior this week was to, to just give herself some space to think about what she had said and then figure out ways how to communicate with this particular [00:28:00] person.

That's a lot of what we have to do, right? Like, particularly if it's a client. That's the hardest part, right, when you've been given this hard criticism, and then having to still deal with that same person. Yeah, and you have to, but that's also... And build a relationship again. That's also what makes us grow.

Yeah. Like, that is some hard shit right there. Like, it is hard to come back from a really difficult meeting and then have to keep engaging with the person who you feel like was a bit of a... Shmozzle. Yeah. And, and at the same time, uh, I mean, there's actually a happy story to this because that was most of the week.

And then by the end of the week, she had been dealing with my stuff and had been dealing with this person for quite a few times throughout the week. And we talked through, I mean, because it was, uh, uncomfortable, very uncomfortable for her. There was a lot of like. guidance sessions between the two of us.

And I gave her just a few ideas of how to, to respond and when to call, when to [00:29:00] email, because you know what it's like with emails. We'll get to that because I had a lot of thoughts on that. But then at the end of the week, She got an email from her saying, I completely trust your judgment. And that sounds great.

And you know, like, ah, that's good. And I thought that was, you know, that was a nice little wrap up, which does not always happen. And I, my key

takeaway from people who are extremely blunt and direct in the way they deliver something is that in my personal experience, it's, it's not personal, a lot of them just. are like that. And maybe no one has ever given them feedback on the fact that this is very confronting and people shut off from listening to you.

But when you get to know that person a little bit more, then... Have you since met this person? No, no. We haven't. But I have suggested that we should. Yeah, it's a good idea. Because you have to build a relationship and you know, the... These people don't know us personally yet. I mean, if you, you come into an [00:30:00] organization and there's just a whole bunch of people around you, you have to earn their respect and that's, that's what it's like with every relationship.

Also, sometimes I think, you know, depending on the people and the clients, but sometimes if there's been something go wrong, say, and then you wreak the fight in a good way, you actually build a better relationship, right? but I reckon that's where that vulnerability comes in, where they've given you that feedback and if you take it on or you think about it, they've felt, enough emotion to have to say something to you about it.

Yeah. And you've had to, I guess, navigate that as well. So you've both sort of been. kind of roar with each other. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if totally, I totally agree with that. I think if you open yourself up to, to taking it on board and you're showing the other person sometimes just by showing up and by continuing to seek out their advice and just.

And that's [00:31:00] basically what she was doing for the rest of the week. Then, there's, there's the start of a relationship. Now, they started on a really It's still a very uneven playing field here, naturally, but at least the best we can do, I guess, is to go, yep, taking it on board. And you know what?

We're not going to lay down. We'll just carry on working together and we will learn from one another. And I think if there's anything I've learned through my career is that. If you have made a mistake, or if somebody's told you that you've made a mistake, the best way to deal with it is to just be open about it, and say, yep, that's, take that on board, this is, this is how we will move forward.

And I, I only get irritated when, when people don't take things on board, and they ignore it. That's what I was just thinking then, I was thinking about the times when I've given people feedback, and it's just been [00:32:00] ignored. And I feel like the relationship has just gone south since then because they've sort of just never listened to you.

Yeah. Because you, you care about the outcome. There's a term for this that was in one of the podcasts I listened to. I can't remember the precise term, but it's something around, um, like indifference. Right? So you go from, from actually caring, where you give feedback to you've given the same feedback repeatedly and nothing has happened.

And then you just become indifferent and you don't even try. That's where marriages break down. You know, like, yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yes. Feedback. Feedback. Feedback. Indifference. It is. I'm out the door. It is. And there's, there's studies that show that, where the marriages more likely break down because people have ignored the feedback rather than reacted in any other way.

 there's one particularly, one where they followed couples for 10 years and looked at the [00:33:00] amount of negative feelings they had to each other in the first two years and, and who, who acted on those negative feelings and who didn't. And the people who acted on the negative feelings went on to have a successful marriage, even though they've, those feelings were there and the ones that just ignored them ended.

Yeah. That's it. That's actually quite a good thing to.

Yeah, well it is, right, because it, like you said earlier, Lucy, one of the, one of the hardest spaces for me is to receive feedback from my husband. But, but usually more so in the moment, and I think over the close to 19 years we've been together, it was much harder in the beginning to learn to, to accept it.

Whereas now, uh, Um, if it's given, which is quite regular,

given to you, well, me and I think to each other. Yeah. [00:34:00] Yeah. We're both quite communicative. Although we communicate in very different ways, but, um, it's like we have the initial gut reaction, but I think we're moving through those, the phases you talked about, we're moving through those quicker to get to the point where it's like.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I see the point. Yeah. So that's, I have reflected on that numerous times because contrary to popular belief was not so good at accepting feedback from my husband. No, I would get on the defensive. Yeah. And I'm not saying that we don't, we still do, but I think that we are, yeah, both improving because, I think we both think that the other person is actually coming from a place of caring now, even when we argue, we ultimately have a bond that I guess is strong enough to, to see that that is what we want and everyone needs to have a bit of a blow out from time to time.

I think one of the podcasts, I didn't actually listen to that for this [00:35:00] particular pod, but, Brene Brown did a podcast, which we can put in the notes. Um, Dr. Brené Brown, on how people generally just do their best. And then she's done some research into whether or not that's true. Cause you know, when you get irritated by people, not like, I don't know, doing things the way you want them to.

And then you assume that they just don't care. Apparently that is not true. And apparently most people do the best they can with what they have most of the time. And it's kind of. groundbreaking. It was groundbreaking for how I thought about things a lot because it does make you more compassionate towards other people.

If you don't assume that they're just doing it to irritate you. Yeah. If instead you're thinking, let's assume that this is the best that this person can do. Maybe it's not up to my standard, but my standard may not be the way to measure it. That's quite a good one too. And it kind of [00:36:00] applies to a marriage too, right?

 Because Um, you know, the way he stacks the dishwasher just does my head in, but he's not doing it to try to irritate me or whatever else that might be, that's just how he does it. Yeah. Don't you think as well, quite often the person knows deep down that there is some kind of problem, but they don't have the resources to do anything about it yet.

And I often think that around with my children and stuff. Something that they're doing, but I just don't think they can change yet. Yeah, that's true. Or they don't have the language for it. I think, yeah, I do think that because I often treat my eight year old as if he's 28.

And I catch myself. Yes. Um, which is interesting. But then sometimes they do act like they're twin eight. I know. I, which is your story? I, yeah. Sometimes me and Harvey, I feel [00:37:00] like, I feel like he's, who's, who's 10? He's 10. Yeah. I feel like he reacts to me like he's bloody 18, you know? Don't talk to me like that.

But then he also has some very, uh, sage advice to give you. Ah, yeah, totally. So, um, the other day I was getting very frustrated with... I was on a call with a couple of my girls and I can't even remember what it was but I sounded frustrated in my tone and obviously my son knows me very well.

And I didn't say horrible things or anything, I just... And I was getting, like, when you're on a call, your tongue gets louder when you're getting more frustrated and you're a bit like, No! Not like that, like this or whatever. Anyway, when I got off the call, he was like, mom, I think you, you really love your staff and you're always telling me how much you love them and how much you appreciate them but I didn't think you spoke very well to them and I think you should apologize because you don't want to lose them.[00:38:00] 

And this is coming from my 10 year old and in my, like, I knew straight away. I was like, cause I got off and I thought, Oh God, I sounded really grumpy in that call. And I said, I know you're right. And he said, and you're harder on one of them than the other. And I'm like, I know he's so, you're so right and he's like, it's not fair and you, you should apologize.

And so I literally straight away sent. And I sent them a message and said, look, I'm really sorry if that came across grumpy. I really appreciate you girls. And um, this has been a bit of a hectic week and I was very stressed out and like just apologized and said, I know you guys are doing the best and blah, blah, blah.

I mean, the hero in this story is your 10 year old. It was like this wise. This old man telling me what I knew, but needed to hear actually. And it blew my mind how he was talking, like coming from this tenure up with all this amazing wisdom. And I [00:39:00] said, okay, wise one, you're right. I shall listen to you from now on.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was really, it was really cool. And I guess, that's a key thing for us too. Parents is how we give our children feedback and, and how we react to things when they've done them wrong, is how they're gonna then learn to do it in the future to other people. And so we've got this massive responsibility to react in a way that then shows them how they should react.

Yeah, I definitely feedback sometimes when Ed says things. That I find frustrating or irritating. I can hear my own voice in his voice. And that's, it's only then that I catch myself out going, Ah, shit, I really do need to change. The way he spoke to you, you realise that was how you spoke to him? Yeah, because otherwise he [00:40:00] wouldn't be doing it.

No, I know. Um, and those are hard moments of learning. 

Yeah. One thing I did here, which I thought was quite interesting because, you know, like I said before, I don't get a lot of feedback now and I wonder how I can be more like you Britta and get it. It's scary and it's also, it can be quite confronting to ask and like, how do you ask? So the podcast I listened to said that you can say, what can I do or stop doing to make it easier to work with me?

And I thought that's a little bit less confronting, right? And it could be, you don't, you know, because I'm very conscious of the, the likelihood or not so high likelihood, uh, That my girls would give me negative feedback, because there's clearly a power imbalance. And I, as much as I want to create a culture where they can do that, and I think you can, I actually genuinely think that you can create a culture [00:41:00] where you can speak openly and honorably.

Honestly, around what makes people comfortable or uncomfortable without people worrying about their jobs. I also think it's very difficult to achieve that. And I don't know that I am, but yeah, I think one of the ways to do that is what you get that feedback or to, um, help with that is to talk about the times when you have failed.

Yes. As in your personal things. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. So they know that you've also been there. Yeah. I think that, that balances it a bit more. And then they feel like they could give you some feedback cause you've been really vulnerable about the sort of the areas that you do need to work on.

Yeah. And I think vulnerability is key here. Like I even say I know that I'm micromanaging you, so, uh, but then maybe I haven't gone a step further to say. If you have ideas for how I do say, if you have ideas in general, please, you know, this is the team we, we work together and I don't want to [00:42:00] have a hierarchical structure because I think I said in our first pod that that's where I came from and I didn't enjoy it.

So, you know, I don't really want to, to enforce that here, but, it's maybe it's just one of those slow journeys. It'll either happen or it won't. And. I think we talked before we started recording about the fact that it kind of doesn't necessarily matter about the personality type you are. Yeah. How you receive it or whether you give it.

Yeah. Yeah. There's lots of studies that say that it's no matter what personality you have, there's no specific personality that receives feedback better than any other personality. So I think that's good to understand as well. And would make it easier to, um, receive it. Yeah. It's easier to receive it or to, I think.

Give it maybe. Yeah. If you know, everybody's kind of going to react in the same way. Yeah. And I guess this is a good learning for me to, or for everyone who gives feedback to not make assumptions based on how people [00:43:00] react, because some people might feel more comfortable being open about the fact that it was hard, whereas other people will close down and not show that it was hard.

Yeah. And so then you might make the assumption that, the second person was okay with it because they didn't say anything. Yeah. Didn't, openly feel distress, but it doesn't mean that he didn't, because let's be honest, nobody likes it. I really, I really find it quite amusing when people go, I don't like getting feedback and I'm like, well, then you're like 99 percent of people on the planet.

Nobody really likes somebody to tell them you're not doing this right. Well, it can be exhausting. I think it's exhausting having to. And I also think like you were saying earlier, Lucy, when, um, you said you started doing something new in your job and so you were very eager to get good feedback and you, you know, put some effort in.

Just any feedback. And I think that that is so true. When we do [00:44:00] something new that we like admit to ourselves that is new to us and that we don't, haven't, mastered yet, we're probably generally more receptive to getting feedback. Versus when we've done something for donkeys years and then somebody critiques it, I guess that's when you really have to question whether it's coming from a good place or a bad place and the motivation for it.

I was totally up for whatever feedback you were going to give me, um, and, and then when I got the feedback actually from the client,I was very happy because it was, like I said, it's not something that's really in my wheelhouse and I did spend quite a lot of time and effort on it.

 But that's my thing. Like, I'm like. Hanging out for the good feedback. If it said, if it said, ah, it wasn't right, I would have been like, ah, damn it. You know in the last part you said to Britta, get off my leg. [00:45:00] Yeah, I'm the puppy and the feedback sent in, you're the friendship.

I'm always the puppy, my dad's the puppy. I'm hanging out on their leg going, tell me I'm a good puppy.

 Well, I was going to say maybe we should talk about, uh, usually we'd wrap up with a bit of a challenge. Yeah. We set ourselves some challenges. For criticism. I think mine is pretty obvious that I need to.

Seek out constructive criticism a little bit more. Do you think it's easier when you're, like, because you guys deal with a lot of the same clients. Whereas I have the one off constant flow of one off. But do you think it would be like, in my instance, I should maybe seek it from each of those one off? How did it go?

What, what can I do to improve? I just wonder if that I, I mean, that could really kill my [00:46:00] confidence. No. I'm just wondering if that's that. To me, I wouldn't feel like that is valuable. If it was one, person, I wouldn't feel like it's that. I'd feel like my, for you, your feedback would be almost like a recommendation.

So if somebody Yeah. Okay. Recommended you, then you'd be like, okay, I know that's true feedback. Whereas I don't know if like I had to keep thinking about myself, like if somebody did, I don't know how much feedback I would give them if it was like a one off. I just wouldn't have the emotional investment to do it.

And your way of, I guess, saying you were happy with them is if you referred them again to someone else, right? Yeah. I reckon. There's also, I think, different things you can seek feedback on, like, is there really much point in getting feedback on whether or not somebody liked your design? Maybe not because it's so personal.

But it's more, I think, around maybe, and I don't, I agree with Britta, I don't think there's much point doing that with somebody you have a very short interaction [00:47:00] with, but I guess it would be more interesting maybe for you to find out from a longer relationship. I don't know how you communicate with that person and if that works.

I don't really know what that would look like, but it's not necessarily about your, your design style or your design skills, but other sides. Yeah. Like, I mean, I, I, this has been a big learning week for me because I don't micromanage, but I think I do need to more. So I had a bit of a week where, Just a few little things, but it just made me realise I needed to be a little bit more diligent on certain things, so it was a learning week for all of us, I guess.

So, I don't know, maybe, I mean, I could ask feedback from my girls. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's a good one. Yeah. You could say, what can I do or stop doing to make it easier. Yeah, yeah, that's okay. That's a good one. Yeah. Even a team [00:48:00] session I think would work because there's three of you and they work together as well and they might not necessarily talk to each other about that either.

Yeah. I mean, what my feedback to the girls this week was, um, showing. Because I often will send them stuff and say do a, do a base plan so we're ready to design. So it'll be like, send them all the plans from whatever files I've been given. Set up a CAD base plan and then I'll get the base plan and then I'll start drawing into it.

This particular week there'd been, it wasn't a major pipe, but there was like a stormwater pipe for the house, Was not ever shown on any of the plans I'd seen, but it was on a plan that we'd been given. And so when I was designing a didn't that was there, when they went to site and dug up, they found the pipe.

And they're like, was this on any plans? And I'm like, looking through everything going, no. And then I dug right back to the beginning on the very first plan and it was there. And so I, that's my fault. That was on me. I should have made it really clear at the beginning.[00:49:00] 

 that's lessons learned. And so I've communicated that now to the team and we'll move forward and there won't be any issues ever again in that regard. So, but yeah, you, yeah, I don't, I should have probably been more all over it at the beginning. So that. It's, I'm not blaming my team for that.

Micromanagement is key. But that's why, yeah, like I listened to you going like micromanagement, but then I'm like, shit, I, I don't probably do it enough. Look, I'm a micromanager and I still miss things like that. And I think at the end of the day that, that was my point around, you actually have to let people make mistakes because it, as much as it pains me and I'm sure them to do it because it would have done that to me when I started out as well, it, it's inevitable.

Yeah. It's going to happen. Yeah. I can't be on top of everything and I can't be on top of not making any mistakes as much as I would like to try. Yeah. But I think in that sense, right, it is about how you react to the mistake, even with the client. Totally.

 [00:50:00] Yes. And what about your challenge, Britta? the challenges that I want to take on is, I think quite often I have the big F you reaction when someone gives me.

I'm going to have that big reaction. I think I wanted togo in, some, quite often the feedback comes as a surprise, so it's hard not to have that big reaction. But um, I want to go more in, or try and reframe my mind a bit. to try and go with the intent of understanding more than having that reaction.

So that was one thing I wanted to work on. and my business partner is really good at that actually. He always tries. I can just see him do it. He's really good at trying to understand why that feedback has happened and the reasons for it. and the other ones in terms of elevation, you're talking about the, I think it was in reference to that book, radical candor.[00:51:00] 

Oh, yes, that's right. Was it the care? Care, personally, challenge, directly. Yeah, and I think quite often, just with where my personality is, I think I end up challenging quite a lot. I think that's my perception anyway. And I think, through reading a bit of that book, they were talking about, rather than going into those conversations, challenging someone.

I'm giving that feedback in that challenging way, I guess, more, if you can go more on to the care personally, I think if you have those conversations where you care personally around that person, I think quite often that person has worked, has worked out what theirwork ons are anyway. And you can talk through that with sort of them leading the conversation rather than you coming in and saying, you did all this wrong.

Yeah. Like, what do you think? Yeah. And why have you done it this way and stuff like [00:52:00] that. So that's, I kind of wanted to reframe those conversations a bit. That's true. You do have to ensure, I think, in those situations that you have a culture and an environment where people feel psychologically safe to do that.

Yeah. And I have no doubt that you, you guys do that in your firm, but I just think thinking back to some of the places I've been, I wouldn't have felt, a lot of them wouldn't have felt psychologically safe to say that this is what I need to work on. Same. And I think that's how, and I think about the way that I have sort of learned my interactions.

And I think some of the. And that is from learned interactions from previous companies and previous bosses and stuff where it was constantly, you got that feedback and it ended up being this, basically a huge fight, like over the feedback, where you would kind of come back to them with some excuse.

Well, no [00:53:00] excuse, but you'd like, be like, well, you think I'm like that, well, you're like this. Gotcha. You know. So it becomes an attacked decision, ultimately, right? Yeah, there's a couple of companies that are now where I feel like that has been like, the way that you communicate. No, that's not a good environment.

It does so come down to delivery, man. Yeah. Because you don't want them to feel attacked, right? No. It's going about it in a way that... They don't feel like they've been attacked and shamed. Yeah. That's the key thing. I thought about this. In delivery of feedback. I thought about this in the last few weeks because a friend of mine has been going through some difficult stuff at work where, and she, and it's been very, upsetting, uncertain, all of that kind of stuff has been going on and she really wasn't quite sure what to do and she was, she was.

 one foot out the door and really keen to leave probably flight. [00:54:00] Um, and then, so we've been talking about that a lot. And then this week she had a couple of really good conversations with the person that she directly reports to, or maybe that person's boss even. And in those two conversations, she realized that she was valued and appreciated.

And that, you know, the company actually cares personally about her and her future prospects. And I think that's really where that comes down to. Like you said, Lucy, if people feel valued, then, you're probably less likely to fill in the blanks when nothing is forthcoming and you have, you're going through some uncertainty.

And I think feedback, I personally think it needs to be delivered. And a face to face conversation. Email is just not, should never be an option. I got some feedback back in my last company, via [00:55:00] email, by my boss. And to be fair, I'd started working, on my other business and was trying to juggle two jobs.

So, it was probably fair I was dropping a few balls towards the end. It was in an email, no phone conversation, no actual conversation face to face around anything. And you know, there'd been a lot of other stuff, personal stuff going on in my life and we'd had COVID lockdowns and so much stuff. But like the fact that that was delivered via a crappy email, I, yeah, I was out, foot out the door.

You know, you just go, well, you don't value me enough to even make the effort to come and have a conversation with me. Yeah, I think that you could have a whole pod on emails, how they are written and how they are received. And in fact, that was a lot of the guidance I guess I was trying to give the girls this week that a lot [00:56:00] of the times in my personal experience, it's very easy for people to fire off an email that has a certain tone and gets received by another person whose tone we don't know.

Um, and. And if you just pick up the phone, that other person is a lot less likely to be communicating in that same way. And that, that is my like sort of key takeaway, I think in, in life that if you talk to people like face to face over the phone, over teams, whatever, you can convey messages in a much subtle way.

You can't put a tone on an email. I mean you can. But it can be taken the wrong way, right? You can't, you might not necessarily give the tone that you're wanting to give. And you don't know how the person who's receiving it is going to take it. Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing about feedback is that you don't know what anyone's emotional state is like when you give the feedback, [00:57:00] especially.

Yeah. And especially at least with face to face, you can probably maybe pick up some more things. Yeah. A lot of my feedback at the start of my career was by track changes. So, you know, another thing I would not recommend. Uh, but I do also think that there is, red pen, that's so aggressive when there's like so much red pen, basically red pen.

But it is, uh, I think ultimately in a professional setting, maybe things are improving now, but a lot of the companies where I've worked, there has been very little feedback on how to give feedback. Like a lot of, a lot of training on how to do a job, right. And very little training on how to manage people and like.

Yeah, that's not true. They just kind of expect you to, you don't. Because I have no training on how to look after juniors, but you get thrust into doing it and I effed up all the time in the beginning and I cringe thinking about some of the things that I said and did to juniors in the earlier parts of my career.

Same. And for all of [00:58:00] you, I am very sorry. Same. I'm sorry. But you know, we can but learn from our mistakes and. And I think I, that's, if I am ever, or even now, but like, if I'm ever training young people, that's the one thing I want to tell them, like, just try and keep an open mind as much as possible. Like, try and assume that people are doing their best and usually you end up with a better result.

Personally, I do anyway. I just had one more. That's all right. I'm doing the wrap up. Wrap up. And assemble. So, one thing, I reckon one thing we should All do for ourselves is to, um, I think we focus on the criticism, but we don't focus on the positive feedback. And I think almost keep a record knowing that I, I do, I collect that shit like trophy and you trophy cabinet in my brain.

I would, I think I would probably benefit, and I think a lot of us would benefit from actually. Documenting [00:59:00] that and having a little list of the positive feedback because I, honestly, I can't remember any positive feedback. Barely. Like, I remember it being like a week, a week afterwards and I have a good feeling, but then it's gone.

And I just focus on, you know, in the 3am in the morning, I'm not thinking about the positive feedback. I'm thinking about back when I was 13 when the teacher told me my essay was bad.

Yeah. That is so true. I actually used to do it, but I think it because it was because I was trying to weigh it all up with all the negative feedback. And then I needed the positive to kind of go, but look, I also have this. It's like a gratitude journal though, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway. They do say you shouldn't, um, collect the positive feedback, like trophies, not in a sense that you handle in the way I would like.

Constantly be seeking that because I, I dunno if that's healthy either. Um, [01:00:00] but it's still good to have it in the sense it's confident for your confidence. Yeah. And, and you should acknowledge it and take it on board as I, you know, give yourself a tick kind of thing. Yeah. But maybe not constantly be seeking it.

So not hanging off people's legs for that positive feedback. Yeah. Well, that's a good wrap up, isn't it? Yeah. Right. We've, we've had some more, um, listener feedback, so I just wanted to say thank you to those who have sent us that because it's very, it's good feedback. It is good feedback. Which is very nice.

it to read it. Oh, well. We'll read it to you. We'll send it to you. But I think, um. Just the time, some of those emails, the time taken, it's just, it would take a lot of time. So, it's really nice. That's awesome. There's nothing more valuable people can give you than time, right, actually. Which is, uh, why it's so Appreciated.

Appreciated. Heartwarming. [01:01:00] Brings like a tear to our eye with the It sure does. Our lovely listeners, we're very happy about that. So, uh, we don't actually have a topic for next time, but I think we might try and do a challenge update so watch out for that and We'll see you in a couple of weeks

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