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Coaching for Leaders
713: How to Grow From Feedback, with Jennifer Garvey Berger
00:36:23
Jennifer Garvey Berger: Changing on the Job Jennifer Garvey Berger is cofounder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, a consultancy that serves executives and teams in the private, non-profit, and government sectors. Her clients include Google,
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- [00:01]
Dave Stahoviak
We often think about feedback as something we give to someone else. What if, in addition to that, feedback is an opportunity for both parties to learn and grow in this episode, how this can open the door to some of the best leadership work we do? This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 713, produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviak. Leaders aren't born, they're made, and this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. A conversation that we are often having in a leadership context is a conversation about feedback. How do we do a better job of learning from feedback, giving feedback, receiving feedback, and thinking about feedback in a different way than sometimes we've been taught to do? I'm so glad today to welcome a guest who's done such tremendous work on this is going to help us to think about how we can do better at being able to grow from feedback. I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show Jennifer Garvey Berger. She is a co founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, a consultancy that serves executives and teams in the private, nonprofit and government sectors. Her clients include Google, Microsoft, Novartis, Wikipedia, and Oxfam International. She is the author of four leadership books including now in its second edition, Changing on the How Leaders Become Courageous, Wise, and Steady in an Anxious World. Jennifer, so glad to have you back.
- [01:49]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Thank you so much for having me back. I loved our first conversation so much. I wanted more.
- [01:53]
Dave Stahoviak
As I was thinking about this book that you've just revised in its second edition, I was reading through and I stumbled upon this paragraph and I think it captures so much about feedback. You write nearly every book with a shortcut about how to organize and give feedback is probably coming from this perspective that the leader or feedback giver has access to a powerful truth that the receiver who needs the feedback does not have access to. As long as we hold this image of feedback being something that one person, often the leader, gives to another person to educate that other person, often someone with less power or status. We've missed the ultimate point of the feedback system. As I read that I it just surfaced the question what is it that we're missing?
- [02:45]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Feedback is supposed to be the way systems learn, right? The way. The way human systems, the way natural systems learn is by having come back at you something from the outside world. And as soon as we make it a one way game like feedback is something I give. Feedback is something that goes one way out, then we've kind of messed up the whole system. Feedback is a, is a process, right? It's a. It. It is in many ways a mindset. And we think of it as an event, and we often think about it as an event where we're the hero, bestowing on others some wisdom that we hope that we can make palatable for them. And I think that by and large, that's not such an interesting game, really.
- [03:42]
Dave Stahoviak
The word learning keeps coming up when I think about how you invite us to think about feedback and looking at this bidirectionally. And like you said in that paragraph, we often think of feedback as, this is this thing, especially from a leadership standpoint, this is this thing I'm bestowing upon you. And this really works. There's so much more opportunity if we think about how does this work as a system. Right. And you invite us to think about and consider some steps as far as how we approach this. And the first step is to separate data from your interpretation. Tell me about that separation. What does that mean?
- [04:23]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
I mean, this is actually just a handy step for us as we go through our lives generally. You and I last time talked about mind traps, and one of the big mind traps is we, we build all kinds of stories that get very far from data. And I guess I used to be a researcher, and so I spent a lot of time looking at data and then watching myself make stories up about the data. And then as I became a coach and a leader and spent time with others who were also kind of making up their own stories, I just watched. We do that all the time. We do that all the time. We're constantly having data come in to us and then making some big story about it. And very often the thing that upsets us is not the thing that happened, but it's the story we made up about in. And so the first step is always to look at what. What really happened. And then what's the story I made up about what happened?
- [05:22]
Dave Stahoviak
That sounds really simple and intellectually makes a ton of sense when I hear you say that and I read it in the book. And yet I back to all the times that I have failed at being able to pull those two things apart of like, what actually happened. And then how do I interpret it? When you're teaching people how to start doing this better, what is it that helps?
- [05:46]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Remembering to ask the question helps, right? It's always hard to do. I completely agree with you. But the time that it's hardest to do is when we forget to ask the question. Because then the story we made up about it looks and feels to us like the truth. It feels like that is the thing that happened. What happened? You were a jerk. Right. Like, that's what happened. Until I remember that there's a story I made up about it, Then I can't get back to what was the interaction between us that led me to this story. And that's where the goal. That's where the first part of the gold is, I think. I think a ton of the learning process from Feedback ironically comes without even talking to the other person at all. It's just like a process you can go through with yourself to make sense of yourself before you even bring another person into it.
- [06:43]
Dave Stahoviak
Ah. And what is that question that I ask myself that gets me maybe in that space where I have a bit of that pause? Yeah.
- [06:51]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
I think it's really a handy question to say, what. What story am I making up here? And what was the event that happened? Can I separate out the event from the story I'm making up?
- [07:04]
Dave Stahoviak
And that starting point? That's enough. Sometimes just to get us in that place of recognizing in the moment that there's a difference between what happened and how I'm thinking about it. And it opens the door for us to be able to just consider looking at something a little different way and just set aside a bit of the emotion.
- [07:24]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Yeah. Actually, the way it usually happens as we're developing this practice, and even once we're good at it, if there's enough heat in it, then we forget all about all these steps and we don't remember them until much later. And that's okay, too. That's okay if I stomp around and slam cupboards and feel mad at you. It's okay as long as at some point I come to remember, oh, there's a difference between the event and my reaction to the event. And that breadth of space gives me choice, gives me possibility, gives me the chance to have a productive conversation and for a new thing to be born.
- [08:09]
Dave Stahoviak
The invitation I'm hearing there is to allow ourselves to be human and react with the emotion and the frustration. And if we can at some point the next day, two days later, an hour later, whenever, to be able to stop and to ask that what's maybe the story I'm telling myself here and what actually happened, as long as we do that at some point.
- [08:33]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Yeah, there's no statute of limitations here. You could do it four years later. I mean, that's a long time, but you could do it four years later. You could Think, oh, you know what? I've been holding this thing about this person. I had a friend. I live in this intentional community in France with friends, some of whom I've known for years. And we just had one in the kitchen the other day where one of these friends with whom I also work, treasured colleague and friend. She said, wait, I have been telling myself a story about this thing that you said years ago, and it's just now occurring to me the difference between the story as I'm telling myself and the thing that actually you were saying, I'm just getting that difference. And she's talking about something that, you know, started, like, six years ago.
- [09:30]
Dave Stahoviak
Huh.
- [09:30]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
There. There's. There's no statute of limitations on our learning.
- [09:35]
Dave Stahoviak
Indeed. Well. And speaking of strong emotions, you invite us, as a next step to get curious and to examine what made us react strongly to something, whatever that something is. What does that curiosity look like?
- [09:56]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
There's so much gold in our reactivity that we try to numb or tamp down or we feel ashamed about every time something happens and I get angry or hurt or offended or whatever the word might be, that there's something in me that's happening that I could learn from in me. We tend to first think, oh, there's something you did that created this thing for me. You know, when. When you interrupted me in that meeting, it created the. It made me so mad because. Because it shows that you disregard me so much. Okay, well, that's really interesting. So the emotion that arose for me was, like, anger and a sense of being disregarded, like, the feeling of not enoughness or unimportance or something like that. That's really interesting. That's in me. And all you did was. You happened to be walking by, and this thing was in me, ready to catch fire. And examining that is incredibly useful because you learn about yourself, basically. We learn most about ourselves as we rub up against other people. And it's why leadership is such a potentially fantastic growth opportunity, because we're rubbing up against other people a lot. And so this is an opportunity to see ourselves more clearly before we ever get to the other person. It's an opportunity to see ourselves.
- [11:30]
Dave Stahoviak
Yeah. And as you said, so much of leadership is coming up and rubbing against what is happening with so many relationships in our lives. And that's one of the places that you suggest we look to is just the relationship between ourselves and the other person and kind of like, what's going on? What does that relationship look like? That's part of the curiosity of this. That Maybe provides a bit of insight.
- [11:55]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
That's exactly right. Because it's again, the thing that's going to automatically arise for us, unless you've done a ton of work about it. The thought or impression that's going to automatically arise when you get frustrated or upset about something, afraid is that other person kind of unilaterally created that situation. That's. There are probably seven cognitive biases that get rolled up into one kind of very commonplace reaction which says, you did that to me. But actually that arose in a relationship where we are both creating the conditions for things to happen and looking at, okay, so what's the context of the relationship and how am I understanding it? Is this a relationship where I feel ignored a lot? Is this a relationship where we ignore each other? What is that? What is that that's happening?
- [12:59]
Dave Stahoviak
And speaking of relationship, that ultimately this comes to a bit of a conversation and you invite us to talk things out. And there's a line I highlighted in the book that grabbed my attention more than anything else you write. You have to welcome someone else into your thinking if you're going to really learn. And I was thinking about that sentence and thinking how often we all. I'll certainly throw myself in this category too. We think that learning is only. I'm listening to a podcast or I'm reading a book or I'm watching a TED talk or I am going to a conference. And yes, all those are learning, right? And we sometimes miss that. Some of the best learning can happen in conversation.
- [13:51]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
I think often the best learning happens in conversation. And it happens when you're not. This is the thing about feedback. It happens when you're not going after very often comes at you. You were expecting something else to happen. You were expecting that we were going to go to a meeting and we were going to be talking about the supply chain. You are not expecting to learn something about who you are in the world, what your identity is attached to, where your limits are. You weren't expecting that. But actually, in conversation with others, all of that becomes available in a different way. And if we are up for it, then, I mean, all of this learning is free. You could spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on all kinds of learning experiences. But the truth is, life is offering us an awful lot to learn from all the time if we can just learn how to learn from it.
- [14:55]
Dave Stahoviak
And you highlight a distinction of when we are having a conversation of description versus judgment in how we approach that conversation. What's significant about that distinction?
- [15:10]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
People go into feedback conversations and One of their first questions is always, how can I tell you something without you being defensive? I get asked this question all the time, right. How do I make it so that you're not defensive? And the way to make it. Here's like a. Here's a secret to feedback. The way to try and create the conditions for the other person to be as undefensive as possible is to not give them anything to defend themselves against. And what do we defend ourselves against? We defend ourselves against judgment. Right. If you judge me, there's no way you can create the sweet conditions. You could take me out for a nice meal, you can compliment my shoes, you can say all these very lovely things about me and to me, but if you are judging me, I will be defensive. That is just the way that works, because I have to defend myself. Whereas if we're having a conversation about what happened between us, like, I noticed this thing that happened between us, and I'd like to understand what my part was, what your part is, what sense you're making of it, what sense I'm making of it. I have an important view that I'd like to share with you because you don't know my view, and you have an important view and I don't know it. And if we have that conversation, it's still tricky. I'm not saying these conversations are easy. Those conversations, which I've spent most of my career having and helping people have, they're engaging, right. They are activating. But there's so much learning potential there.
- [16:45]
Dave Stahoviak
Yeah. As someone who wants to do a better job at having a conversation like that, where it is description, where it is feedback flowing both ways, what does it sound like, especially at the start of a conversation like that?
- [17:03]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
So I, speaking for myself, I know that because these conversations are hard, even though I teach about them and try really hard to practice them, I know that I will also try to weasel out of it if I possibly can. And so I try at the beginning of one of these conversations to create the conditions where we both own the fact that we're going to have this conversation where I don't have to carry it, because quite frankly, it's a little bit too heavy for me to carry by myself all the time. So I often start a conversation like this with something like, you know, there's been something on my mind or something troubling me about the interaction we had in the meeting last week. And I would just love to clear that with you, and I'd like to hear your perspective, tell you my perspective Sort of find a way forward together. Would you be up there for that conversation? And the other person might say, yeah, well, now I'm kind of curious because now there's something. Or, yeah, I also hated that meeting and I hated that interaction, so let's talk about it. Or they might say, no, no, I don't. I absolutely do not have the space to have a feedback conversation today. Can we talk about it next week? I say, okay, next week. But the point is, you lay out for both of you to know what's going to happen, and you kind of put yourself on the hook for listening, listen to you. And in exchange for that, you basically get the consent of the other person. Okay, I'm going to listen to you, too. We're going to listen to each other. That's the promise we're going to make. We're going to say things and we're going to listen to each other. That's what we're going to try to do. And then you've really created the conditions for something good to happen.
- [18:58]
Dave Stahoviak
And I love the statement you write in the book that you said you've used so many times in conversations like this. And it gets to what you were just saying of like, there's this is both of you ideally, right? And you say, I'm really interested in what this looks like from your perspective. And that's a powerful statement that a lot of times we don't say in feedback conversations, do we?
- [19:26]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Well, to be honest, Dave, I think we spend most of our time not actually being interested in what it looks like from somebody else's perspective. I know in my coaching practice, I spend a lot of time with the leaders I work with. The leaders I work with are brilliant, spectacular humans, Right? I have just extraordinary clients. And when they get into one of these places where they've been triggered by something, when something's happened that they think needs to change, they forget to be curious. These are people who are incredibly curious, whose minds are so alive. But I know it happens to me all the time, right? As soon as I get kind of ready to tell you something that's going on for me, I forget to be curious about what's going on for you. And so a lot of what I do to help leaders get ready for conversations like this is just help them get curious about what is going on for the other person. So that when they say, I'd really like to know what it looked like from your perspective, it's not just a line, it's actually the truth. I really am desperate to know, how did this look for you? Because it doesn't make sense to me.
- [20:46]
Dave Stahoviak
And you're likely to get a response, as you say in the book, that might be a little bit messy, right. From the other person. Depending on their experience, they're where they are. And this for. For me, like, this is. I think one of the hardest parts of this is you try to approach this really well. You say something like, you know, I really am interested from your perspective, and you get something back that's, like, sometimes really hard to parse and to, like, think about. Okay, what did that mean? And I'm. I'm curious. Have you found something that's helpful to, like, listen, to, learn and kind of parse that out in the moment when you're sort of listening to someone process their perspective from it?
- [21:33]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
I think you're pointing to one of the hardest pieces is that the person you're talking to. The odds are very, very high. They did not read a book about feedback before talking to you.
- [21:45]
Dave Stahoviak
Right.
- [21:46]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
And they are not practicing. They are just giving you whatever kind of tangle of stuff, some defensiveness, some anger, some annoyance, some fear. Right. A few facts, a lot of story, a lot of projection. They're just giving you the whole ball, and it's like somebody tossing you. You do it. And so you have to untangle the yarn. If the thing that you're going to do is piece together what happened, how do I feel about it, and what's the story I'm making up about it? You can do exactly that thing. When you listen to other people, it's hard because you're with the other person right there. And sometimes what you need to say is, okay, that's a lot. Give me just a minute to make sense of it. Okay, here's what I'm hearing. You can slow it right down. If you think the conversation is supposed to get in and get out. You're on some kind of marine expedition. Get in, hit the target, get out as fast as you can, then you will not be able to have this orientation. Yeah, but if you think, oh, this is a human being who's teaching me about me and him and us and the organization or the family or the neighborhood association, whatever we're in. And I could learn all those things right now. It's like, better than a workshop that I paid money for. Better than a weekend that I'm taking to pay somebody to teach me stuff. It's right here. I can do it right now.
- [23:25]
Dave Stahoviak
And this is like the good work of leadership, too. I think sometimes well, I'll just. I'll just put myself in this category. I think sometimes when I've had conversations like this in the past and feedback, I think in my mind when I'm not in a good place, oh, I have to deal with this today. This is the thing that keeps me from doing my work, that I have to deal with this frustrating situation, this person that behaved in a way that I didn't like or didn't expect. And. And yet thinking about what you just said, if I can enter into it in a place like you've described and bring in the curiosity and be willing to untangle the ball and, like, stay with it and not just the in and out. Right. But to, like, really have the conversation. Wow, that could be the best work I do as a leader the entire month. If I'm able to come to a place of understanding with maybe one of my key direct reports or peers or manager or whoever it is, that if we have more trust between us, we understand what's happening, we understand the narrative. That 20 minute conversation, or 40 minutes, however it is, could be the thing that unlocks so much else and makes everything else so much easier.
- [24:42]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
I love this. I completely agree with you. We often think of these sorts of things as a distraction from the work. Actually, this is the work of leadership. Yeah, it is the work. And being able to have conversations where we learn is the job of a leader. And the other thing you pointed to there that we haven't touched on, but it's incredibly important, is these conversations, when I have them in this way at the end of the conversation, not only have we both learned, but we have deepened our relationship. We trust each other more, we can bring harder things to each other, and this kind of conversation is easier next time. So I've also prepared us for a much better future, both of us for a much better future than we were going to have before the problem arose in the first place. Now we are really getting somewhere good.
- [25:45]
Dave Stahoviak
And it leads to the opportunity to build a solution together and grow from it. As you say in this chapter, what does that look like, building a solution together? Because I think a lot of times we do think about it, like, okay, I need you to especially find the manager. I need you to do this now that we've talked this through, shift your behavior, whatever it is. What's different about together?
- [26:07]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
The difference is we go in with our solutions with this incredibly partial data, because I don't know what happened for you and I don't know why you did what you did. I Don't know any of those things. And so if I. If I am doing this ideating by myself, I'm coming up with this solution by myself, then suddenly it kind of almost can't work, right? It's not really reasonable for it to work. I'm just guessing about you. It's just a guess. And yet that is our habit. You're 100% right. That's our habit. If, however, we've had a conversation, say we are in a thing, and you are always missing deadlines, and I'm giving you feedback so that you won't miss deadlines anymore, right? And my request to you is, could you stop missing your deadlines, Dave? Because it's really making my life hard, okay? I don't have any idea why you're missing deadlines. I don't know what's happening in your life, and I don't know what I'm doing that creates the context for you to be missing deadlines either. And so over the course of our conversation, I might discover I am giving you really unhelpful requests for these things, or I haven't been clear about what the deadline is, or I don't understand that you have seven people giving you these requests, not just me, and that you're way underwater because we've got some process inefficiency in the organization that's really not working. I don't know any of those things. And so when I say, hey, Dave, could you stop missing your deadlines? I've missed the chance to learn about the organization, about you, about me, about how I'm doing, about how things are working. I've missed all of that. But if we have a conversation about it and I understand those things, then we have to say, okay, so it's really important that you get your work done in a timely way. And there's this other context we're sitting inside. What are we going to do about that? What's our next step? And we make that together.
- [28:13]
Dave Stahoviak
This is the second edition of the book, and the chapter on feedback we've been talking about wasn't in the first edition. And I'm guessing you brought this in for a reason. And I'm curious, as you think about feedback over the last few years and all the feedback you've given and received in client situations and with colleagues and peers, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on about it?
- [28:39]
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Thank you for that question. I was convinced when I wrote the book the first time, I had already been working with people about feedback. I think this thing that is now a chapter was like a table or an or in an appendix or something. There was a, like a, a reference to it. But I've, you know, I've worked with hundreds of leaders since then and I've, I've taught feedback a lot of times and I've become the chief executive of, you know, an organization of like 100 people myself. And, and so I've also had to give and receive a lot of feedback in these years. And the thing that I have changed my mind on is I used to think if you got really good at it, it wouldn't be hard. I don't believe that anymore. I believe it's always hard. I believe it gets, you get more natural at it. But it's always hard. I don't expect it to not be hard anymore. And I believe that the opportunity for us to learn from it is so much bigger. I thought it was big before, but actually I've coached so many leaders for so long who are operating on a story for months or years even about another person or another line of the business or a customer segment and if they had had a feedback conversation with them, their lives would have opened up in a different direction. I really believe that the core move of our own development and of our successful leadership is being in the flow of feedback, receiving, giving, flowing through what's going on for me? What's going on for you? What can I learn from you, from what you're seeing? What can you learn from me, from what I'm seeing? How could we improve on that? A constant non mechanical flow of feedback between us and we could all be learning so much more and our lives could be better.
- [30:48]
Dave Stahoviak
Jennifer Garvey Berger is the author of Changing on the How Leaders Become Courageous, Wise and Steady in an Anxious World. Jennifer, thank you so much for your if this conversation was helpful to you, three related episodes I'd recommend to you. One of them is episode 273 Essentials of Adult Development. Mindy Dana was my guest on that episode. A few reasons I'm thinking about that conversation first. Several of our members have gotten into it recently and found that it's really helpful in thinking about how they're working with different people in their organization who are different levels of development. The other reason I'm thinking about it is Mindy and Jennifer are dear friends, support each other's work closely, and a lot of of Jennifer's book is built around the stages of adult development. We didn't talk about it in this conversation, but that is a big part of this book and especially the second edition. And so if you'd like to get into that more, the conversation with Mindy is a great starting point, as is Jennifer's book, to really get in depth on what those different stages look like and how you show up differently in supporting people at those different stages. Again, that's at episode 273. Also recommended episode 583, how to give Feedback. Russ Laraway was my guest on that episode. We talked about the process and the steps of giving feedback as we did in this conversation. And Russ makes the point in that conversation. It's not always the right time. Yes, we do need to give feedback if we need to give it. But thinking about how to really time that well, getting that consent from the other party and also some wonderful language on really how to do that, I think it's a great complement to this conversation. Episode 583 for that and then I'd also recommend the last conversation with Jennifer here on the podcast. Episode 613, how to Lead better through Complexity. We talked about the distinction between complicated and complex. Complicated, hard, but almost always a clear answer. Complex, hard, not always a clear answer or the answer is changing as we go that distinction so much the reality of how we all lead today. Episode 613. Also a great compliment to this conversation. All of those episodes, of course you can find on the coaching4leaders.com website, also on all of the apps freely available. Sometimes people email me and they say, well, the notes for the episodes, how do I get them? Do I have to have the free membership? You do not. You can go onto our website. You can go onto any of the apps. All the notes links are available for every episode publicly. However, what's not available on the podcast apps is the ability to search by topic. That's why the website exists, so that and the free membership. So we can help you to find exactly what you're looking for right now. So perhaps you are having a conversation upcoming about feedback or you're looking for more resources. It is one of the topic areas inside of the free membership. So if you just search inside the episode library, click on feedback, you'll see all the conversations we've had about feedback over the years that will help you to find what's most important for you. Plus tons of other resources inside the free membership. I make my book and interview notes available for almost every conversation. When I was reviewing Jennifer's work, I was grabbing highlights from the book, putting my thoughts in there, my questions and I've shared that document with you a bunch of that we didn't even get to in the conversation today. Those are available for almost every episode. It's part of the free membership book and interview notes. If you haven't yet set up your free membership, I'd invite you to do so. Just go over to coaching4leaders.com you can set it up right on the homepage there and you'll be off and running with all the benefits inside of the free membership. And if you're looking for a bit more, another opportunity is to begin to have more of the conversations that we talked about today. I think about that invitation from Jennifer to if you want to really learn, you need to invite others into your thinking and have conversation. And it is one of the reasons that the Coaching for Leaders Academy exists so often. We get in our own heads about things. Maybe we bounce an idea off with someone else occasionally, or a manager or someone else that's in the same organization, but we don't get the objective perspective that talking something through helps us to see and learn from in new ways. It is exactly why I bring together leaders in small in a small cohort of a community to work together over time to support each other, to talk things through, to get the perspective that so often we miss inside of our organizations and our professional development. If you'd like to explore that as well, I hope you'll consider the Coaching for Leaders Academy. For details, go over to coaching4leaders.com academy and you can also sign see an opportunity there to request an invitation for the next time we open up applications to our academy. A helpful place if you are at an inflection point in your leadership right now. Again, coaching4leaders.com academy coaching for leaders is edited by Andrew Kroger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. I'll be back next Monday for our next conversation. Have a great week week and see you back there.