Welcome negative feedback

Feedback adds incalculable value to our enterprise. Elite performers seek out constructive criticism to achieve enterprise goals. Our largest improvements occur in the light of negative feedback.

“Every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration. Constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought.” ~ Margaret Chase Smith

“Working at Pixar you learn the really honest, hard way of making a great movie, which is to surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you, much more talented than you, and incite constructive criticism; you'll get a much better movie out of it.” ~ Andrew Stanton

“I like constructive criticism from smart people.” ~ Prince

Introduction

Conventional wisdom encourages us to turn our failures into learning opportunities, and we couldn’t agree more. However, in RemoteU, that’s simply not enough. It’s safe to say that, regardless of where you come from, you may receive more negative feedback here than in any other program in which you might have participated.

The positive role of negative feedback

Feedback is invaluable to our enterprise. Therefore, when communicating negative feedback, we should do so in a way that is constructive and engaging. Our intention in RemoteU is not to disengage our students. Rather, our job is to prepare you for success in our program and in your career after. For that reason, our top deliverable to you, and to all of our students, will be lots of honest feedback.

On winning and losing

Our largest improvements occur in the light of negative feedback. In other words, short term losses are a fundamental ingredient to long term success. We learn more from losing than from winning. So, we seek out losses which are cheap to incur, yet provide immensely valuable insights.

Elite performers in every field utilize a similar approach. They continuously search for and incorporate constructive criticism (aka negative feedback). By doing so, failure drives optimization, if we’re keen enough to learn from it. To see how Elon Musk approaches this topic, go to minute 2:02 of this clip.

Principles for managing feedback

We’ll discuss five principles for effectively managing feedback, which are

• Perspective

• Intent

• Receptivity

• Curiosity

• Execution

Each principle builds upon the next to help you receive and implement the near-constant stream of (often negative) feedback you’ll receive during RemoteU.

Perspective

Enterprises run on various levels of feedback, ranging from none to a lot. Our position on feedback may even seem extreme compared to most other teams. We deal in high-volumes of feedback in order to strengthen the enterprise. Our growth comes from deep insight born of continuous testing.

And we utilize these insights to make tough-minded business decisions. Such growth wouldn’t be possible if we weren’t honest about what’s working and what isn’t. Negative feedback is often the most useful because it highlights opportunities for growth and improvement. Therefore, we embrace negative feedback and ask that you do, too.

We don’t mince words, and we can’t ignore the truth. If our position on feedback seems extreme, keep an open mind. A measured, disciplined approach to improvement - by way of a high-volume, often negative feedback - is the bedrock of success in this program and in your career after.

Intent

Once you’re in the thick of RemoteU, and the negative feedback begins to come fast and furious, here’s something to keep in mind. Your manager and coach are here to make you better. They have your best interest at heart, and they want to see you succeed. It’s part of their job to deliver negative feedback, but they’ll always try to do it in a way that’s constructive and engaging.

Yet, in spite of an organization’s best intent (ours included), there’s always the possibility that negative feedback gets delivered in a disengaging manner. If this happens, keep in mind that, in spite of the poor delivery, the feedback was provided with the intent to improve the enterprise. This is most difficult when the message is a hard one to hear. However, if you are to be successful, make every effort to accept and adopt the feedback you’re given, in the spirit in which it is intended.

Receptivity

What separates the professionals from the amateurs is their ability to receive and incorporate feedback. Less professional workers tend towards knee-jerk reactions, while pros are willing to consider feedback from any good source. Pros don’t let their egos prevent their own improvement.

Good feedback is objective, by nature, because it’s data-driven. Pros are experts at dealing with the objective nature of their product, team, and enterprise. Human nature tends to react rather than to respond; to deflect rather than to receive. In the digital age, listening has become a lost art, yet, we need it more than ever.

When receiving feedback, make an effort to listen more than you speak, and the insights gained through deep listening. Be honest about what you learn. The more receptive you are, the more value you will inevitably receive.

Curiosity

When receiving negative feedback, it’s not enough to simply hear out your critics. You must also inject genuine curiosity into the process. Root-cause analysis requires us to ask “Why?” no less than five times when attempting to determine the root-cause of an issue. In addition to “Why?”, there are several other great questions you can ask.

For example:

• “What do you think is causing me to make that mistake?”

• “Since I am struggling in this area, how would you advise me to change the way I’m working?”

• “Can you provide a specific example of that issue?”

• “Who are the top performers in this task, from whom I can learn?”

Your willingness to ask these, and countless more questions will drive actionable insights, and ultimately demonstrate your commitment to performance improvement.

Execution

Great business leaders know that there is no substitute for execution. Even if you do a great job at receiving and clarifying feedback, but fail to quickly integrate it, you’ll continue to produce subpar results. The shelf-life of feedback in RemoteU is very short. Time is of the essence. To leverage insights received from negative feedback, it must be integrated ASAP.

Larger processes are broken down into individual work units. Therefore, most of the feedback you’ll receive will be on an individual work unit. As a rule of thumb, you should always attempt to integrate feedback immediately into the very next unit of work you perform.

Pushing Back

Is this to say that every piece of feedback you receive will be well-founded? Absolutely not. If you receive feedback that you know is off-base, it’s OK to push back. However, effective push back is as much an art as it is a science. The “science” of pushing back requires that you know your stuff.

To push back effectively, your performance and your position should be strong. If you’re not 100% convinced of your position, consider accepting the feedback, for now, and push back another time. Push back too quickly or too often and you may develop an undesirable reputation for being feedback-averse.

The “art” of pushing back involves how we communicate with others when giving and receiving feedback. It has to do with how we communicate and adapt to change. The purpose of negative feedback is to foster change. However, change can be difficult. So difficult, in fact, that there is a field of study entirely devoted to how humans adapt to it.

The change curve

The Kubler-Ross change curve shown below is a model that describes the natural phases people go through when they experience meaningful change.

When negative feedback is unexpected or severe, we may at first be in shock or denial. After some time processing the feedback, we become frustrated or even depressed. Eventually, we become willing to engage in the new reality, if only a little at first. As our familiarity grows, we become empowered to make decisions within the new paradigm.

Ultimately, we become proficient in the new reality and it becomes as familiar as the old one. This state represents the full integration of the change. Not everyone goes through every phase of the change curve, at least consciously. If the principles of some or all of the phases don’t resonate for you, that’s ok. The key is to remember that most people go through a similar process (by any name) when they are required to undergo meaningful change.

Great communication and support throughout the change event will shorten the initial and middle phases in order to achieve integration as quickly as possible. When giving feedback (e.g., pushing back), remember the recipient of your feedback will also go through these phases - consciously or unconsciously - as they move towards integration. The key to success lies in not taking (or making) negative feedback personally. Rather, view it as the opportunity (aka gift) that it is.

Empathy and your customers' shoes

Sometimes, interactions with your customer (your manager is also your customer) can be difficult. When this occurs, it's easy to become defensive, or over-explain yourself. Instead of helping the situation, this type of response would likely escalate it. Therefore, it's critical that you control the urge to respond defensively.

When you encounter an angry customer (or manager), first attempt to understand exactly why they are unhappy. Put yourself in their shoes and really see it from their perspective. You, yourself, are a customer of many products and services (e.g. the very internet service you're using, right now), and you've very likely called customer support on multiple occasions.

Therefore, you can easily adopt a customer's perspective. When you do, you should be able to identify the pain points the customer is experiencing. You'll come to realize that the customer is most interested in having a solution to their problem, not in hearing the support agent defend their position.

When you interact with customers, make it a habit to consider their perspective. You'll solve the problem faster, with less interactions, and make both of you happier. Creating this habit requires an investment of time in practice. Take time to document your customer's (or manager's) needs each time you interact with them, making note of positive outcomes, from the customer's perspective. Continue practicing putting yourself in the customer's shoes, and soon it will become a habit.

Example

Let's explore the benefits and practice of putting yourself into your customers' shoes, by looking at a practical example:

Context: The first bullet point below is an insight you recorded on your TMS sheet Customer: Anyone who receives your insights

Imagine you have an insight about using a google sheet function to automate a particular task automatically. Your insight (in this example) reads as follows:

• "TP uses google sheet functions instead of typing values manually."

Now, imagine that, rather than the author of the insight above, you are an IC receiving this insight from someone else. By doing so, you're putting yourself in the shoes of another. When you first encounter the insight, it may actually sound feasible. But very quickly, you would realize that the insight is too high-level (i.e., unspecified). Among other things, you'd want to know:

• Which google sheet functions did TP use?

• On which steps were they used?

Without clarity on these issues, the IC who receives this insight won't be able to execute on it. So, let's refine the way our insight reads, in order to address those questions:

• TP uses Vlookup and IF functions to calculate values on Pass/Fail column on the source table, instead of typing values manually.

Now, anyone who encounters this insight (whether another IC, or your manager) will not only understand it, but be able to execute on it. This was accomplished by simply putting yourself into your customer's (or manager's) shoes.

By doing so, you improve your communication of insights, as well as their adoption rate, all of which adds real value to the customer and to the enterprise.

A worst-case scenario

A fundamental component of RemoteU includes our evaluation of your performance. It’s important, therefore, to understand that we evaluate a very particular subset of your skills, as they relate to RemoteU. Primarily, we’re looking at how well you learn the WSPro frameworks, and whether or not we think you’re a great fit for our culture.

This is an important distinction to make. We aren’t judging you personally, or even on your professional skill set as a whole.RemoteU participants come from all backgrounds and have wide ranging skills and talents. There will always be some who aren’t a fit for our enterprise, for one reason or another and regardless of their overall talent.

Not being a fit for us at this time is not a reflection of your talent or enthusiasm. There are many reasons the most talented people may not graduate the program. Not graduating might seem like a worst-case scenario. However, your participation alone puts you in an entirely new sphere. Insights and skills you develop here are highly valued and highly sought after. Learn them well, and they’ll continue to add value in your career for decades to come.

Conclusion

Feedback adds incalculable value to our enterprise. Our largest improvements occur in the light of negative feedback. Utilize the principles for managing feedback - perspective, intent, receptivity, curiosity, and execution - to ensure continuous improvement of quality and performance. Elite performers in every field continuously search for and incorporate constructive criticism (aka negative feedback) in order to achieve enterprise goals.