Candid feedback starts with psychological safety

Feedback exists on a spectrum, from “so soft that the person doesn’t even know it’s feedback”¹ to “crying at work because the delivery was so callous and unfair”² . Let’s talk about psychological safety and feedback.

What we want is the ability to give candid, tough-to-hear feedback within a container that feels safe and non-threatening to the relationship itself.

“I know how much this means to you and I’ve seen how hard you are working. But I have to be honest, the quality of your work isn’t meeting expectations, and I want to give you this feedback early, so that we have time to turn it around. Let’s talk about it.”

To get there, you first have to build the relationship. Get to know them — what makes them tick, what parts of the work lights them up inside, from where do they draw strength. Let them get to know you, in the same way.

And, show them it’s safe to be vulnerable, by going first. Talk about the failures you’ve had and grown from, the parts of your job that you’re bad at³ , and the places where you need the help of your team.

This doesn’t end after one conversation — we will build this foundation brick by brick, in weekly 1:1s and outside-of-meetings conversations, over many months.

As we do that, we’re also being transparent.

“I’m really excited to work together! And, I want to be clear about my expectations, which may be different than your previous manager. You can trust that I’ll give you feedback along the way, so that there aren’t any surprises as we get used to working together.”

Eventually, you’ll need to give some challenging performance feedback — the smaller feedback comments aren’t working, and the growth isn’t happening.

The best thing you can do in that situation is to be clear, be honest, and deliver it with care and empathy. Here is where the relationship you’ve built up pays off: the feedback you are giving isn’t an attack on them, it’s about their work. And hopefully that helps them be more open to it and less defensive.⁴

I think a lot of managers — including really well meaning ones, and especially in our era of remote work — only relate transactionally with their teams. Good work → good feedback; bad work → bad feedback.

But if we want to help our people grow into their fullest potential, we owe them more than a paycheck.

The Workshop

This is a newsletter-only section where I share a half-baked idea in hopes that y’all who are smarter than me can work it out with me.

This NYTimes article (gift link) on doctors using ChatGPT to fight with insurance companies is such a sad indictment of how broken our system is.

Basically, insurance companies have created rules and systems that force doctors to jump through and increasing number of hoops to prove that the treatment they are prescribing is justified, and therefore should be paid for by insurance.

The insurance companies say this is necessary, to protect against rogue or incompetent doctors who are prescribing treatment that is inappropriate.

But what you end up with is a system where doctors have to prove over and over again that they are, in fact, good at their jobs. And doing so is incredibly time consuming. Presumably, for the insurance companies, the process and paperwork friction is a feature, not a bug, because it results in them not paying for treatments.

So doctors are embracing ChatGPT to take a couple sentences of “here’s why this treatment is appropriate” and turning it into a whole multi-page argument. And it’s working — approvals are up. For one doctor quoted in the article, approvals are now happening 90% of the time, vs 10% of the time previously.

Insurers are now fighting back, by experimenting with their own GPTs that will read in all of these applications and appeals, summarize them, and then determine if they meet the relevant criteria.

So, just like with dating profiles (Bumble CEO: my bot chats with your bot to figure out if we should date), now doctor bots will argue with insurance bots on whether you have to pay out of pocket for treatment that you need.

1  I’ve lost count of the number of times a struggling employee has no idea they were underperforming, because their manager was so afraid of upsetting them and hurting their feelings that they deprived the employee of the truth and the opportunity to improve.

2  I call bullshit on “it’s just business” and “grow a thicker skin”. That’s just toxic masculinity mixed with giving yourself permission to be an asshole.

3  Personally, I’m not very organized beyond knowing what should be at the top of the “what’s important” pile. I’m awful at PM’ing a squad and running a sprint.

4  No guarantees, of course. People often regress to their younger selves in those moments, it’s just part of being human (I do it, too).