Episode 17: Mastering the Art of Receiving Feedback

Christine Reynolds, Talent and Performance Director at Dothings.io, delves into the art of receiving feedback, exploring its crucial role in personal growth and professional development. Discover how mastering feedback can transform criticism into opportunities for high performance.

Takeaways

• Receiving feedback is essential for personal growth and improvement.
• Feedback, though sometimes painful, is a necessary tool for development.
• Understanding the challenges of feedback can lead to significant breakthroughs.
• Psychological insights can aid in effectively processing feedback.
• High performers excel by mastering the art of receiving feedback.
• Feedback and imposter syndrome create a complex dynamic.
• Filtering feedback helps determine its true value.
• Choosing your response to feedback is a personal decision.
• Feedback should be evaluated and utilised, not dismissed.

Resources

Your Bold Moves Brief (including the receiving feedback checklist)

The Big Conversation Conversation Starter

Connect with Christine

Do Things

Connect with Caroline here

Sign up for the Genius Files - your weekly backstage pass to the unspoken rules of high-performance careers. Smart shifts that make you say, “Oh damn, that’s exactly what I needed.” 

#feedback #personal growth #receiving feedback #high performance #careeradvice

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Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at caroline@inspireyourgenius.com - I read them all.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Quest to Understand Feedback
• 5:33 The Emotional Responses to Feedback
• 10:05 The Impact of Past Experiences
• 20:12 The Importance of Feedback in Growth
• 21:38 Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement
• 24:45 Navigating Feedback with Trust and Openness
• 27:41 The Filtering Process of Feedback
• 29:48 Constructive Feedback v. Critical Feedback
• 30:50 Final Thoughts on Feedback & Growth Mindset
• 33:23 Career Quote Crime

Transcript

[00:00.5]
Well, hello there. I'm Caroline Esterson, your host and today I'm joined by the wonderful Christine Reynolds. Christine is talent and Performance management director at Do Things, the company making performance reviews and talent mapping a whole lot more effective.

[00:17.5]
Christine spent over two decades really in the HR hot seat across TV broadcasting, book publishing and tech. So she's actually seen it all the time. The bosses who can't look you in the eye during feedback, the awkward silences, the, can I just give you some constructive criticism?

[00:35.9]
Dread. She knows just how messy feedback can get and she's really passionate about cutting through all of this with data and tech that actually help people grow. So today we are tackling her, favourite and, let's be honest, most terrifying topics, receiving feedback.

[00:57.0]
So buckle, up.

[01:02.4]
This isn't a pep talk. It's a practical guide with a glint in its eye. Smart moves, slight chaos. Welcome to Little Moves Big Careers.

[01:15.6]
My new manager, Matt, he's the founder of Do Things, gave me some feedback which, was painful to hear, but he went, of all the things that you're good at and all the things that I feel there's room for improvement. The one biggest one you have.

[01:31.3]
And I was like, oh God. And he went, is receiving critical feedback. And like, oh, So it was, it was like a double whammy of like, okay, I need to receive this well, because I'm obviously not receiving feedback well, what am I supposed to do?

[01:52.3]
Completely was just like, like, try and resist all normal urges. So it became a, a, bit of a quest. And a very Australian term is like to feed your face into the wood chipper. Which is like, you need to go, go head forth into what is going to be the most painful to figure out why.

[02:13.0]
Yeah, why that is such a impediment. A blocker. You know, maybe it's a weakness, whatever you want to look at there. But I was like, yeah, this is a whole new level of receiving feedback that I've ever experienced before. Which then started a, whole bunch of research into psychology pieces.

[02:32.2]
And then obviously it's a huge piece. If you want to be a, a high performer, high potential individual. The ability to receive feedback is huge. There's a whole piece to receiving feedback that I'm not sure we teach enough about at work.

[02:49.7]
Yeah. And I mean your previous podcast of imposter syndrome, that and then feedback melting pot, right? Yeah. Christine, isn't it really interesting? Because our past experiences really do govern the way that we feel about things, don't they?

[03:07.6]
And I think in feedback in particular it is one of those because the people that I talk to have very mixed views about it. Yeah, I actually, on that I actually was reading a study the other day about the feedback that you receive as a child and how that you receive feedback as an adult.

[03:29.9]
They talked about studying three sets of children and you had a control group and then one group that were given feedback that was more along the lines of you're smart, you're creative, very, very much like labelling identity As the feedback and then the other group that were praised for effort.

[03:49.2]
So it was, you know, look how persistent you are, look how much effort you put in. Now those children, when they were given different tasks to undertake, given the same feedback, the individuals who were given identity feedback, you're a great athlete, you're very smart, very intelligent.

[04:04.8]
Those individuals often later on in life were picking tasks that reinforced or easier, let's say reinforce that I'm, I'm, I'm more intelligent but I'm going to take the less challenging tasks where the children who were praised for effort, particularly when they're repeating different tasks, they would try, they try the harder problems they would be more persistent in undertaking.

[04:27.8]
So you replicate that across life. If you've been told you're smart and then you receive feedback that tells you there's a tweak in the armour, that maybe your self view and how you feel others should view you isn't exactly aligned that, that hits.

[04:45.1]
Right? Absolutely. I think this, this links really well, doesn't it with the growth mindset as well? Because you know those people that are praised for effort, they are more resilient because they try and they'll try again and they'll try again and they recognise that they might make, make mistakes.

[05:03.4]
So they're very above the line, they're curious and want to do things. Whereas if you're told that you're smart or you're fast or you're strong, anything that suggests otherwise completely cuts at your very identity. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

[05:20.3]
So above the line and below the line thinking about how how you respond. So you can be defensive. When someone says something that's really quite flutting to your self identity, do you become defensive or do you jump into that fight flight being the flight piece which is tears.

[05:40.6]
Maybe it's, I'm just stunned. I, I don't respond at all. I breathe in that moment. If you think about times that you've given feedback to others and you think oh, how did they respond? You can definitely see the defensiveness.

[05:56.5]
If I try and hold. You don't understand the situation. I've got so much on my plate. Or the. I'm now so frozen in the emotional. This has wounded me. It's. It's quite an emotional reaction. Is that just something that you've also noticed? Yeah.

[06:11.8]
Oh, completely. You can also see how it's affecting people going forward as well. It's not just in the It's not just in the moment. And I think that's what's really important because the people that, that freeze or become defensive, they.

[06:27.3]
They bat away that feedback. So they're not. They're just not going to grow, are they? Correct. There's a lot of research on how to give feedback, but there's often that piece of, what are you saying to yourself after that person's left the room?

[06:42.9]
And I think in hr, across my career, I've been called to many a, very small phone booth type room. Yes. Just processing some feedback that in the room was sort of, you know, you smile, thank you for the feedback, then find a small space and fall apart.

[06:59.9]
Just have that collapse moment of like, I can't believe they said that to me. I can't believe that's how I'm viewed. Particularly if the feedback wasn't owned by the person that was giving. It is. Yeah. The others said this about you and I thought you should know. Oh, no, that is the worst, isn't it?

[07:17.8]
And. And you wonder whether they're taking real, real pleasure in being the messenger in that situation as well, don't you? Absolutely. I mean, there's filters, right. You're filtering by what is my relationship to this person? So as you said there.

[07:32.9]
Are they enjoying this? Is there a rivalry between us? Do I respect them? Oh, yeah. Oh, that one's huge. So, I definitely have been in situations where someone said, I. This person, I can't believe they said this to me and I can't get past it. Like they are renting space in your brain right now.

[07:51.3]
Do you respect them? Do you think that they have an authority on. On this particular topic to be able to give you that feedback? If, if there's, a filtering process that you really need to think about, does this person embody this particular behaviour that they are telling me I should be changing?

[08:12.3]
Are they an expert on this? Do I need to get more viewpoints? But that, that piece of sitting in a room and processing it, be that a really emotional response, or as you said, just batting it away. I'm not even going to entertain that.

[08:27.4]
No, thank you. Moving on. And it's really, it's really hard in the business setting as well, Christine, isn't it? Because, you know, you think about. You're in that booth. Somebody. Somebody's broke, somebody's broken down. You. You can't rationalise emotion.

[08:44.6]
We say, bring your whole self to the workplace. We want it all. But then. No, we don't, we don't want emotional. No, no, Bring, bring the efficiency. We'll have that one for happiness. Yeah. Collaborative, definitely. We weren't sorry. The. Can you bring all your nice stuff to work?

[09:01.2]
You know, just leave your baggage behind. But we just, we really just want you nice stuff. Don't get cranky, don't get angry, don't get pissed off. I also don't want to see tears. So tears is a big one that people don't want to see because they don't know how to deal with it, do they?

[09:16.3]
Correct, correct. I actually, thinking of a manager, he said to me, I gave feedback, she cried. And then I realised in that moment, she's not leadership potential. This isn't somebody that I can, yeah. That I could see promoting someone that cries to this level. I thought, wow, okay, so the times that you throw your toys out of the pram and we all have to sit there while you're having a meltdown of one spectrum, but we've got no room for another emotional spectrum.

[09:43.7]
So what are we saying here? That women can only get furious? Is that what's loud? So, there is a part in all of this where you need to have space to process what's happening for you. A lot of the stuff that I talk about, this is a bit of a big one.

[09:58.9]
But the reason why feedback hurts and that's why the tears are coming. It hurt. Time for brain food. The research bit. But make it cheeky because we all love evidence, especially when it supports our own experiences.

[10:17.0]
Gartner have done some research recently, Christine, that has talked about, identifying when is feedback most useful for people. And 65% of people really welcome feedback, which I thought was quite interesting as a. As a number shows a lot of people don't.

[10:35.4]
But those, those people, they want it in the moment. They don't want these big appraisal, one to one situations. They just want. Hey, Christine, I noticed, yes. That that is the, the micro stuff that makes a real difference to people.

[10:51.4]
And the difference you used there was, I noticed, not getting a triggered response. I'm not thinking, oh, Here it comes. I noticed, I observed, I perfected. Can I give you some tips? Yeah, I mean, open to tips. Tips sound lovely. It sounds like a real lovely space we're moving into.

[11:09.4]
Rather than, Can I give you some feedback? Yeah. That word in itself is clinical. It's really. It's heavy. Right. That comes with a real weight of here it comes. That's exactly the point, isn't it? Because that phrase is framing what is coming.

[11:27.6]
And our past experiences suggest that this is a big deal. So we brace ourselves for it. So I guess the question is, how do we reframe that in our own head so that we're not bracing ourselves for it?

[11:44.7]
And it's for me, is understanding what's happening as to why you are, panicking. Why is that big surge of cortisol gone through you and hearing, can I give you some feedback? So naturally you're thinking, well, there's consequences to this. That.

[12:00.0]
That's usually an evolutionary, very, very starting point. Evolutionary programming of. We are social creatures. We want to be in the gang, we want to be liked. Now, when someone says, can I give you some feedback? That word is ladened with, you've missed the mark.

[12:16.6]
Yeah. Something isn't right. So instantly I'm thinking, whoa, hold up. I'm going to be segregated here. I'm not in the in crowd. This is meaning that I am being rejected. Yeah. If you think way back in the day, if we were rejected from the clan or from the.

[12:33.8]
From the group, that's survival. So our, amygdala, little lizard brain within us, it still exists, is looking and scanning for threats. And those threats, dangers. Sabre tooth tigers. Absolutely. Yeah. We can't tell the difference.

[12:49.1]
Yeah. Can I give you feedback? Is that a Sabre tooth tiger? Yeah. Both of those come with the same weight. Yeah. And heaviness of. Hold on. Right. Survival. This is a threat. Yeah. So because of that huge cortisol, like, straight away, I'm stressing, I'm ready.

[13:04.8]
I'm starting to brace myself for what could be depending on how your experience in the past. But like a neurological standpoint on this would be that if you have a quite an, inner critic that sits within the voice that's talking to you of, like, you suck at this.

[13:22.0]
Presentations aren't your best. This, this, this feedback's coming as terrible. That is already starting to look for the negatives. So when someone hands you some feedback, that, feedback is coming through with a highlighter. Right.

[13:38.6]
Your brain is already in the amygdala. Already says, we're keeping this one front and centre. We're making sure that when we see this sabre toothed tiger or you know, the next presentation that comes up, we are digging through the archives, to look for.

[13:53.9]
How did that go last time? Yeah, it keeps it nice and close, puts a highlighter on it and says, remember last time. Remember the feedback that you got? That feedback was you talked too fast, you mumbled this, you were too confusing. Of the 20 positives that you may have heard at the time, that inner critic is looking for the negatives.

[14:13.6]
Absolutely, yeah. Of this. Well, you've got another sort of layer into all of this, the sort of psychological layer of that which is what's going on for you at the time. Yeah. So of the psychological layer, if you're a perfectionist or perfectionistic tendencies, you're hearing or looking for feedback to be super positive.

[14:35.4]
I nailed this because I did so much work. Why? My intention, all the effort, all of my energy research. I went to town on this. I'm not ready to hear anything other than you nailed it. So it's very binary.

[14:51.3]
I definitely have perfectionistic tendencies. Which means that when someone says can I give you feedback even before they start, I'm like, oh, failed, failed. Because there should be no feedback. I nailed it. I'm binary.

[15:06.7]
Success, failure, perfection, failure. There isn't anything else. So straight away, Christine, you do know that there's a bit of a grey world, don't you, in between the, in between the two. Absolutely. And this is something I've been working on.

[15:23.0]
Right. This is, this is the piece of your self worth can't be tied to I'm the best. Because you're not. There has to be some self awareness that says are you the best public speaker? Yeah. Do you have, you know, the absolute knowledge on insert X?

[15:41.4]
Yeah. So then there's gap. Right. But that, that piece that explaining that to a perfectionist that's peeling back multiple layers of how you've grown up, where your self worth comes from, how you show up, where did you get praise? So that praise may not have been from.

[15:58.3]
Look at all the effort you put in. It's you were smart, you're intelligent, you're a top performer. Yeah. So that, that path that you've been on needs to be unpicked. Adding into all of that a, perfectionist is hearing I must nail it every time.

[16:16.3]
All the time. Yeah. Add in I'm in an environment I've never been in before. Stepped into a role that's a little bit scary, maybe stepped Into a whole company where I don't know what's going on, I don't know the political climate. I don't have any sort of one in my network here.

[16:33.6]
Impostor syndrome creeps in. Imposter syndrome, then tells you, now they've seen the mistakes and you really shouldn't have been here to start. Well, so they've seen it. So that negative programming in our brain, our brain is naturally programmed to think about the negatives.

[16:51.4]
Yeah, Your survival instinct, right, it doesn't programme us for happiness, which is quite sound. But in looking for the negatives, it's protecting us, isn't it? Our brain. Our brain is wired to protect us. Anything above, that's us.

[17:07.1]
We have to work really hard to get up to there. Keeping your head above the positives. Yeah, absolutely. So because of that negative nature, or what your brain is looking for, for survival, it's going to highlight or amplify anything that is negative, that comes through.

[17:26.4]
So of that, your intention could have been amazing. I put in so much work, it's excellent. I've made sure. I've researched this to the hilt. The impact, not the same. And that impact piece is the task or the skill you're practising? Yeah, the.

[17:42.6]
And the intent, how much you put effort into it, how much you really tried. That piece can't be questioned. You really did try, then. The impact is not about you. This is the skill that you're practising. That journey piece is often what I talk about when I go into the room and someone is falling apart, they've crumbled, and I'm like, okay, nice.

[18:02.7]
Was this about you as a person? Did they say, caroline, you're the worst? Yep. Full stop. No, this is. The presentation wasn't great. Or the, you know, insert X of whatever feedback it was. What you did on that task at that particular point in time didn't land that task.

[18:25.2]
So we now have something that we can tangibly say, we can fix this task, the skill, if you want to, but it wasn't about you. This isn't your identity that they have attacked, but that piece at work, how you view yourself and how you appear at work, that becomes quite blurred.

[18:45.2]
Have you found it really does. And I love what you said, Christine, about effort and impact. You know, your effort cannot, cannot be questioned. You know, if you don't put effort in, that's up to you. But. But if, you know, if you're what we hope, you want to make a contribution, you're working hard to improve your Effort can't be in question.

[19:04.7]
It is the impact of what you've done. The ability to receive feedback is so such an essential skill for high performance, isn't it? Absolutely. It's, it's the difference between seeing somebody as interested in growth, interested in being a more rounded, maybe even moving into leadership positions.

[19:25.9]
Yeah. The staff that don't ask for feedback regularly, you know, I'm talking like micro feedback rather than the sort of two big points in the year where we're like, better give feedback mid year and end of year if you're lucky. But the staff that I have managed, who have said to me every single one to one, what could have been different, what's one thing I can work on?

[19:46.6]
Those tiny little bits of feedback are, the ones that are shaping. And when I think, oh, that's not insecurity, they're not saying, can you do something? Yeah, absolutely. It's the opposite. It's. I need to keep growing. I need to make sure that I am hitting the mark and they're not waiting for those two big cycles to be able to help that feedback.

[20:07.1]
It also takes the pressure off you as a person providing feedback. I completely agree with you, Christine. You know, the way to stop feedback being like such a big deal is to just be doing it all the time, to be asking for it.

[20:24.1]
And I remember a conversation that, something that you put on LinkedIn and we ended up talking about a couple of months ago about something you did with your partner on a Sunday and I do it with my husband. We just kind of every, every now and then we're like, how's our relationship on a 1 to 10 for you?

[20:39.9]
It's just straightforward. It's because the first time we did it, it was weird. Yeah, really weird. But now it's not. We just go, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are we doing? What's one thing that needs to improve this month going forward? And you might think that's a little bit unsexy for a relationship.

[20:58.7]
But actually if it keeps us growing then, and it works for us, then that's really good feedback. And it, and it stops that heaviness of. I'm holding on to something that is bothering me within this relationship.

[21:15.5]
I'm just able to just say it. And I think the same goes in work as well with, with your colleagues. You know, why are we not asking our colleagues for, Are we rubbing along well enough at the moment? Is there anything more that I can do to help our relationship and to help you Grow. Because I think the more we build that collectiveness, and collaboration, support, the stronger we are.

[21:42.5]
And I think hybrid working is, is reducing that. So why not fill the gap? Let's start talking about these things amongst ourselves. Because the reality is feedback is everywhere, isn't it? Is. It's all over the place.

[21:58.4]
If you're listening and you're looking for it and you have those reflective moments to think, why are they silent? Why didn't no one say anything about that? Back to, you know, when you're talking about with your partner, in the absence of having that conversation, be it something that feels quite like robotic, if it's at times of the year or just a general like, well, will we do this?

[22:18.7]
This is so normalised in our relationship. In the absence of that, both of you would be thinking, oh, it must be good. No one's saying anything. So the. Unless you're fighting, then it's okay. Like, there's this like, very binary view of. It's not, is it?

[22:35.0]
No, absolutely not. And that tiny tweaks that you could be doing, you know, throughout the entire lives, means that you're enriching that relationship and you're responding to each other in a way that's really fruitful and you're building something together. Short of that, you're sort of coexisting and hoping that, well, until we fight, I guess this is good.

[22:56.3]
And it's the same in a workplace. You know, if your peers aren't saying to you in meetings, talk too much, then you're the one in the meeting. Off you go. Yeah, it's interesting. I had another friend, that said to me, while feedback, do you tell someone they have food in their teeth when you're eating with them?

[23:18.4]
I do believe that when we are asking for feedback, if you're going to do it with your peers, you almost need to opt in and reflect back to, like, when I worked at, Rico Europe, there was probably eight of us, all different divisions, who ate lunch together and regularly said, well, this is what we're doing.

[23:36.4]
If you have a pimple, if your hair is too greasy, if you've got dandruff on your shoulder, whatever it was, we all were like, we're doing this right. We look after each other. Yeah, what's going on? I thought that was really normal. And then have gone on to other jobs and realised that is completely not normal.

[23:52.6]
I don't know how we got to that weird level of like, oh, we're all like, in It. We're making sure we're okay. Yeah. But there was no fear in saying, oh, God, thanks. Thanks for telling me. And that's protecting each other.

[24:08.4]
Yeah. I want to know. I'd want to know if my flies were undone. I'd want to know if I had cabbage in my tea. I would. Right where there's the other lens on it, which is. Now you've told me. I'm terribly embarrassed. I can't believe you saw that. You know, I.

[24:23.4]
I'm forever now going to be checking my teeth 20 times a day in case. That is the case. So it's that flexibility within here to think, well, sometimes I'm gonna have cabbage in my teeth. Yeah. It's okay. I don't have to be perfect.

[24:38.4]
This isn't a threat that's going to cause me to, be viewed in a certain way by a manager. This is okay for our relationship. And I think for me, that's why it's so important to develop that level of trust with your colleagues so that you are able to protect each other.

[24:56.5]
Because if you have that level of trust amongst yourselves and you're supporting each other, you're not as wobbly when you get feedback that you're not that comfortable with and you've got people that can help you process it more easily.

[25:13.3]
The soundboarding that soundboarding is. Yes. If one person gives you feedback and you think that's unusual. I've never heard that before. It can be a nice sort of history walk. I mean, I've been psychometric to the hilt in hr, different tools along the way.

[25:30.3]
To have a little memory walk and look through those, see if there's any themes that are coming up. But also, as you say, if you've got good colleagues around you who will probably not go into straight with the cheerleader. You know, I'm only going to say great things because I want to have a great relationship.

[25:47.1]
Or the critic, which is, I can't wait till you have a chink in the armour. And I'm going to try and, like, pierce that as well. But if you've got someone who's in that coached space, which is. I'm happy to future focus this. Do I think that I see that? Have I seen that? Yeah, there is some substance there.

[26:03.3]
Maybe not as harsh as it has been. I had a friend recently who said their manager called them negative. Okay. Performance review. And I thought, oh, that is some harsh feedback. Negative. When you think about evidence.

[26:20.0]
Yeah. That's your next one. Yeah. Right. When you play it out as well. From that relationship status, you have a manager saying to a direct report, you're negative. Some of the conversations that you have to have with your manager is about pay, is about your role, is about promotion opportunities.

[26:40.9]
Those are going to be difficult conversations. And if you've been labelled negative, that shuts it down, doesn't it? As you said, you need to go into that curiosity state of saying, all right, well, if that's your feedback, first thing I do is pause and think. I'm not going to be defensive because naturally that's my first instinct, is I'm going to tell you all the reasons why that's not the case.

[27:01.9]
So you've shut down the feedback straight away because we're now in this combative state. But after that, it is, what emotions am I processing? What is happening for me? So as quickly as possible, jumping into exploratory curiosity, give me some examples.

[27:19.1]
Where is it showing up for you? As soon as you can jump into a question that brings it back? It's almost like this hot potato for me personally, when someone says, I see you as negative, I'm holding it. And now I'm starting to, like, absorb it into my identity. Yeah, sponge.

[27:34.5]
I'm taking it on. I'm like, okay, now it's really heavy. And now I feel like I. I want to process this emotionally defensive, crying be it. Then I spiral into a shame thing of, oh, no, that's how people see me. The alternative, throw the ball back, which that curiosity state.

[27:52.6]
Explain more. Tell me more about this. What are you seeing that I'm not seeing? That feedback has to be justified, then it's too Right, correct. So if it can't be, or if the examples provided are a bit weak, that's when I start to think, what's happening here?

[28:11.3]
It's not to be worked out in the room, but you might look at that and think, Was your intention to shut me down, shut me up? Was it that there's rivalry between us? Do you feel threatened by me? There are probably some things that you can layer in to think what was the intention behind that feedback?

[28:28.8]
Particularly when you've done that clarification piece of, I want you to give a bit more to this. But the one I never did, and I think throughout my career is probably a big gap, was the filtering process. Yeah, it all needs to go into a filter.

[28:46.1]
Have I heard this before? Have I asked my peers and colleagues to give me some more feedback of, I just heard this. Am I negative? Am I this, where do you see this? And it's hard. Your good friends are going to side with you. So you, it's, you need to pick wisely of who's going to be able to give you some feedback on that.

[29:06.5]
But not all of it needs to be taken. Absolutely. I mean I really like what you're saying Christine, about the filtering process because it is easy to get defensive and go, it's just them. But actually if you're going through the filtering process, you are pulling out themes as you, as you said before and it gives you the opportunity to go, interesting.

[29:27.4]
What is it that I need? What is it that I need to do with this? Or nothing. Because you always have a choice. You always have a choice about how you're going to deal with this. You're absolutely right that some of it just needs to be let go. It's just noise. It could be that person and what's happening for them on that day.

[29:44.5]
If you ask them for feedback the next day, maybe it would have been something completely different. One thing that I had a colleague in the past talked to me about what was allowable, weaknesses and that, you know, of all the strengths that you have, you're going to have some weaknesses but there are going to be bits where you think that is important for what I need to do in the future.

[30:02.9]
How often behaviour is going to show up where I want to go, my goals, you know, does this align? Is this something I want to work on or is it something I park and think, okay, that is probably an allowable weakness. It's not damaging almost to the level. And if you're asking for regular feedback, you're going to receive feedback that probably isn't something you need to work on or that you want to work on now.

[30:26.6]
And I think all of this comes back, doesn't it Christine to what we said right at the very start about growth mindset. Yes. You, you make the choice over what you want to process and what you don't. And if we can come at receiving feedback from recognising that we're all flawed and Chris Mooney calls it flawsomeness, which I absolutely love, that we are all flawed and some of those things we're going to be okay with.

[30:55.8]
But feedback allows us to question whether we are okay with it, whether it's inhibiting our opportunities or whether it's okay. And I think that's why feedback is so, so important.

[31:14.1]
Small shifts, sharp impact, these are quick fire career moves, real things you can do before your next coffee refill I'd like to summarise our discussion, really. There's been so much we've, so much we've talked about and so many stories that we've shared.

[31:34.6]
If you were to give three quick ideas of things that they can do in the moment to help them receive feedback in a way that they can work with it, what would you tell them to do? Christine, number one is pause.

[31:51.2]
Yeah, that moment of pause is going to buy you an interruption for the fight flight response. Yeah. Number two, I definitely say the feedback comes in, you need to think about.

[32:06.6]
This isn't about me personally. Yeah. So your identity and, you know, the behaviours you associate with yourself, that's one thing. But we're talking about a particular skill, a particular task at, a particular time, that one piece of delivery at that time.

[32:22.9]
So as it's coming at you, as you're starting to process what was said, trying to separate self from task. Yeah. The last one has to be filter. Filter all of the feedback that comes in. It's. You're not a sponge. Don't absorb it. You need to make sure that you're putting it through a sieve that there is a filtering of.

[32:42.6]
Have I heard it before? What is the intent of this individual? Is it something that I want to work on? If not, it needs to flow out. It can't be that you absorb everything and that becomes almost like the, the extra weight that you are carrying.

[32:58.5]
So I think those are probably my big three. I really like those, Christine. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a little checklist for people that they can just download to help them. Because sometimes in the moment you're not as resourceful as you want to be, whereas if you've got a checklist you can sort of tick it off and guide you.

[33:14.8]
So it becomes a habit because receiving feedback in a way that you can work with is actually a habit that you need to build. This quote has the right vibe and the completely wrong advice.

[33:30.8]
So let's fix that before someone puts it on a mug. So the, quote that we have for you this week, Christine and I both did a, major cringe moment when we, when we set it out. It's one that we actually hear quite a lot.

[33:48.0]
And this is the quote this week that needs to be put firmly in the bin. Are you ready? Don't take this personally. Horrible. Don't take it personally. How, how do you not take.

[34:04.0]
Yeah. Something personally? It is personal. Yeah. And why are they feeling the need to caveat it. So I think what we need to do is look for, a more positive reframe because it is personal. Yeah.

[34:20.4]
But how you view it personally is up to you. I would view it, as Christine has already said in the quickfire career moves, I would view it as. It's not about my identity and who I am, but personally about how this particular task was performed.

[34:35.4]
And that is personal because I want to improve, I want to get better. So I am going to take it personally, but I'm not necessarily going to own it. I'm going to make a choice over it. Absolutely. It is personal.

[34:51.7]
The idea that it's not going to be, you know, it's like saying to someone, please don't be emotional about it. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's another one. So, Christine, thank you. It has been an absolute delight chatting to you today. Before we leave, I've got two requests of you. Firstly, what little words of encouragement would you like to leave people with this week?

[35:13.2]
Little words of encouragement. Keep asking. Keep asking for feedback. It's, it is deadlifts, you know, you know, just try and do little tiny feedback requests. Yeah. You can also shape it in a way that doesn't.

[35:29.6]
Doesn't sound scary to the person who's giving you feedback. Oh, we got any tips? That's, that's easy. It's a nice one. What did you observe? What's your perspective? Perspective on this? If you keep asking that, that will naturally light a fire under your growth mindset.

[35:45.9]
It will light a fire. So that's my little words of encouragement. Keep asking. I like that we're lighting fires today. That's really good. And secondly, Christine, where is the best place for people to connect with you? Good one. LinkedIn, definitely.

[36:02.4]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Find me on there and definitely drop me a message, provide me some feedback. I'll put all of Christine's details in the show notes for you so that it's really easy.

[36:22.4]
Christine, thank you so much for joining me today and for all of you out there listening and thank you for lending us your ears for this short period of time. I hope you found it useful. Please send the episode to somebody who you think might need a little help with receiving feedback.

[36:41.0]
And of course, remember, make your move even if it's tiny. Especially if it's tiny. See you next week.