Leaflet #119: feedback for strong performers, growth mindset meets pragmatism,
Getting good feedback to people who are doing quite well already
You have the good problem of a direct report who is difficult to critique because of their strong performance. You presuming people want managers who consistently help them achieve the next level of excellence that is just beyond their reach rather than somebody who’s just supportive.
That’s an assumption you’re wise to make. If you recruit talented, ambitious people, your assumption is probably correct for almost every direct report you have.
What may not be clear is that you both see the value in this kind of manager and in you being this kind of manager for them. And that you both see that you’ve often given little constructive feedback or critique. It can help to acknowledge this, so that it’s the shared story between you, and point to a new approach.
“I have this manager, and they’re the nicest, most supportive person. In fact, they even tell me it’s a struggle for him to come up with things to critique about me. But he always does. And the reason he does is because he knows I want it, and he knows I care about constantly growing and reaching a new bar of excellence.”
If that’s the story your report has about you, then you should feel pretty free to offer criticism and opportunities for new growth or excellence all the time, at whatever level of intensity you can find. The bigger the better, in fact.
The simplest way to establish this shared story is saying something like this the next time you meet,
“Hey, I just wanted to sync up about how I’ve been thinking about this. I’m trying to grow in some ways as a manager. I’m trying to improve this manager-report relationship. I just wanted to share how I’m thinking about that right now. One thing I think it’s important for me to do is offer you direct critique and identify ambitious ways you can grow. So I’m going to make deliberate effort to offer those to you, especially in instances where it would be easy to say ‘Yeah, things are good! Nothing really to change or adjust here.’”
What’s remarkable about this approach is that your report may not have felt you were falling short with your feedback, yet you will get them to agree to this story, and they will be glad for it. This is the same thing a great teacher does when they say to fourth graders, “Do you want the fourth-grade homework tonight or the fifth-grade homework tonight?” Everybody knows the right answer, even if they don’t really want harder homework. And they’re proud of themselves for choosing fifth grade. When they choose it, they get better as a result. At the micro and macro level, the choice feels really good to them to make.
But this doesn’t happen without your intentional framing.
-ben
Growth mindset meets pragmatism
You have high expectations for people on your team and for one person, you’re feeling like, “I don’t really believe they can meet these expectations.” What do you do with that?
I simplify that to two questions.
What is my belief about human growth in general? My (Ben’s) belief is that anybody with the will can grow to do just about anything, given sufficient time and effort. If somebody who I don’t believe can do something right now puts in the right amount of time and the right amount of effort, they will in fact be able to do it.
What amount of time, resources, or effort am I and my company willing to spend to get this person to that point?
Those are two totally separate questions. We typically conflate them. As a result, we end up using our best guess as to whether we can picture this person doing this or not, which is heavily informed by the past and all our cognitive biases. We make a question of training and resource allocation a question of talent and identity, which is inherently harder to answer and act on with confidence.
-ben
Unpacking and overcoming a bureaucratic “no”
When you’re a founder or an advocate, you’re often in the business of getting a big, old system that employs lots of people schooled in its rules to do or permit things it doesn’t normally do or permit. You’re trying to change things and you need a system to change, even just a tiny bit, with you.
Often, when you encounter one of the employed students of this system1 they will a) be trying to look out for your interest, as they understand it and b) assume that you don’t know the way the system works. Sometimes this cashes out as a rejection of your request or a delay of the timeline you need for your project/client. “Sorry, ma’am, [x] isn’t available for another 10 business days.”
It helps, more often than not, for you to assume a) and b) as well. In other words, think of this person as a good and helpful person who is trying to have your back. Don’t think of them (and treat them) as a bureaucrat who goes to work every day to make good people’s lives harder.
In addition to the assumption, it can be useful to ask, with genuine curiosity, why you’ve received a rejection, or why the (too long) timeline for fulfilling your request is what it is. Sometimes this reveals further assumptions the system-student has about you: they may be trying to save you money or effort, assuming that you are not extra-motivated or extra-resourced in pursuit of your goal. When you reveal that you are in fact willing to spend extra(ordinary) time, effort, or money, the system-student might suddenly have good, new ideas for you about ways to get your thing done. There’s an alternate pathway, maybe more costly or painful than the standard one, but viable for very-motivated you.
-eric
COMPELLING QUOTATIONS
Artist of noticing Rob Walker on the “unshazamable”:
Everybody complains (understandably!) about the algorithms that shape our entertainment choices and direct our attention. But seeking the unshazmable isn’t just a way of escaping the algorithm. The unshazamable isn’t even in the database that the algorithm is designed to mine!
Tapping into something enjoyable that didn’t come from a database doesn’t have to take the form of consuming a particular cultural object like a rare song; it could be an experience, a moment of presence. Looking at the moon can be unshazamable.
Writer Wright Thompson on land and creation in the Delta:
Farming at its essence is just the practice of getting water onto land and then getting it off again, and the eighteen-county teardrop of the Mississippi Delta does this as well as anywhere on earth. On the eastern boundary between the flatland and hill country a series of reservoirs trapped the runoff and on the western edge levees kept the big river from flooding out crops and people. Humans had stopped the natural order of things, halting the patterns that created their fertile home, working with puritanical resolve to harvest the bounty that had taken a million years to create. Nothing about the physical appearance or ecosystem of the Delta carries any of the Creator's fingerprints. This land is man-made.
Poet WS Merwin on early middle age:
It sounds unconvincing to say When I was young
Though I have long wondered what it would be like
To be me now
No older at all it seems from here
As far from myself as ever
You can call this person a “bureaucrat” for simplicity’s sake but maybe don’t call them that to their face.
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