Simply Feedback
The word "feedback" can spark fear in people. Often our instinct is to hide or defend ourselves, but how does that open your eyes to opportunities at the present or even possible blind spots keeping you from achieving your career aspirations? Each month, join Troy Blaser, LearningBridge’s long-time software developer, as he interviews guests who are industry leaders as they share their ideas on professional growth, best practices, and the feedback lessons they learned that shaped their career today.
Simply Feedback
61. Shaping Feedback Through Perspective - Lori Riznek
Lori Riznek is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. While being a favorite with students, she also has deep expertise in leadership development and organizational effectiveness and has dedicated her career to fostering leadership skills and enhancing team dynamics. As a consultant and executive coach, Lori helps organizations build strong feedback cultures and improve employee engagement. In today’s episode of Simply Feedback, I’m excited to learn from her decades of insights on leadership and high-performing teams in today’s evolving workplace.
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Check out the free Q&A videos that we have produced with tips to help you receive feedback graciously and act on it visibly at www.learningbridge.com/tips.
I really think it's important to always remember when we're preparing to either give or receive feedback, that we have our own unique perspective and the person to whom we're speaking has theirs. And to some extent, those two will cross and they will also be very different. And if we don't spend time either thinking about or exploring the ways in which those perspectives are complimentary and different, then our feedback giving and receiving is going to be suboptimal.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. Welcome to Simply Feedback the podcast brought to you by Learning Bridge . I'm your host Troy Blazer, and I'm excited to be with you. I'm happy to introduce Lori Rizek. Lori is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, while being a favorite with students, she also has deep expertise in leadership development and organizational effectiveness. And she has dedicated her career to fostering leadership skills and enhancing team dynamics. As a consultant and executive coach, Lori helps organizations build strong feedback cultures and improve employee engagement. So in today's episode of Simply Feedback, I am excited to learn from her decades of insights on leadership and high performing teams in today's evolving workplace. Lori , welcome to Simply Feedback. It's so great to have you with us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, Troy. That was a very generous introduction,
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Well, it's true. And I'm looking forward to our conversation. I wonder, could you tell us about maybe a time in your life when you received some feedback, maybe it had an impact on your career, on your personal life? Is there a story that you could share with us regarding feedback?
Speaker 1:Whoa, <laugh>, are you starting with a hard question or
Speaker 2:I , I guess it depends on the feedback, right? <laugh>?
Speaker 1:Well, as a university professor, I get feedback every four months. <laugh> . Mm-hmm <affirmative> . I have to say that it is a sobering moment. Having taught four 40 years, I still both look forward to and have a certain element of nervous butterflies when I open up those evaluations to see what they have to say. 'cause invariably I find there's always something that's surprising and something that I can learn from the feedback. So I thought , uh, maybe I would talk about two examples, if you don't mind. Sure . And I'll try and make them short. The first one, I'll go into the academic world. I , um, years ago had a very, very talented PhD student who was assigned to me as my teaching assistant. And it was at a time in history when professors were starting to migrate from being the , uh, sage on the stage to a new style of more engagement, student oriented feedback. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And so I was practicing my skills at designing new formats for how I ran a three hour class. And at the end of this particular class, I was quite pleased with my outcome. I thought, oh, that's really cool, and I think that's working. So afterwards I said to my ta, would you give me some feedback, please. I think the class went well, but what did you think? And she very generously said, well,
Speaker 2:<laugh> a slow well is a, is a scary start to a sentence. Right. It was
Speaker 1:A slow, well with a very large, you know, comma at the end of it, <laugh>. And her comment was that she thought that the material and my energy and my stories were extremely well received by the students. But her point, which was so insightful, it just really made me stand back, was that I knew in my mind where I was going with the lecture, but the students didn't know where I was going. So they didn't have a mental map that they could follow along and see how one part of the lecture sort of led in , created the context for the next. And I thought that that was just like, wow. Spot on gift that I received. So I went back to my drawing board and started all over again. And every lecture I've given as a result I think really benefited from that advice ,
Speaker 2:Kind of having that roadmap . Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was such an obvious piece, right? And because I had to sit down and think about the roadmap, I also could think about where did I need to give a better example or where could I tell a story or ask a question that would really both reengage the student, but also give me an opportunity to check that what I was saying was resonating with them, that they were following along as I had hoped they would or asking questions, et cetera. So that was a very positive feedback. Yeah . Experience . The other one, actually, I was fortunate enough, early in my career to work as a manager in a government agency up here in Canada at the federal level. I had a role where I was asked to start a new team and introduce at the time a strategic planning process. So those were back in the dark, you know, age of dinosaurs kind of thing, where the process followed a fiscal year. And I was really focused on trying to create a process that was gonna work across all these various governments. So I hired my team of people and I got really busy and it was, it was a hard sell 'cause people weren't accustomed to this stranger coming in teaching me how to design a strategy process, telling me it had to be done in February and I had to do this in April, et cetera. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . But I felt really good about the work and the team. And in the division where I worked, there were three other managers. And this was my first time leading a team. So I thought we were doing very well. And one day my director called me in for some, some feedback. So I thought, oh , this is gonna be really good. Right?
Speaker 2:<laugh> , uh oh ,
Speaker 1:Just, you know, pop me on the back and tell me it was great. And he did and he didn't. So he said that I had successfully created a very strong and cohesive, highly motivated, very results oriented insular team. So I was like, oh my. And he reminded me that my team existed in a broader context, namely the other two teams who were in our division. And that our work couldn't be successful with one team being successful. And it also couldn't be successful if that one team thought they were superstars <laugh> Yeah. Relative to everybody else. And it just was like one of those moments where you kind of hit your forehead and go, oh wow. It's a system. It's a system and we're all part of it and you can't be an island of success. You know, you have to be a whole globe of success, so to speak. Yeah. And that really caused me to reflect a lot on what I thought my role was as a leader, not only with my team, but with my colleagues, my peers, and with my key stakeholders that I was trying to sell this strategic planning process too . So it was hard feedback to hear and it took me a little while to emotionally let go of the feedback and start to look at it as potentially something that I could learn from and ultimately really changed my approach to, to leading.
Speaker 2:Those are fascinating stories. It seems like, as I listen to you tell them, what occurs to me is that it has a little bit to do with perspective. In the first story, you had a , a unique perspective that the other students and the TA didn't have and that you knew the whole story from beginning to end. 'cause it was your, your story. And the TA was able to point out that, hey, the students have a little bit different perspective, they don't know the end yet, so it's more difficult for them to sort of follow along and , and understand where you're trying to go. And then in the second story, you had a perspective that was focused on your team as it rightfully so, and you did a fantastic job on that team, you know , creating a very cohesive team that worked well together. But that director could see multiple teams and said, Hey, from my perspective, you need to broaden out a little bit. And so to me it's an interesting lesson on perspective.
Speaker 1:I think choosing the word perspective is a very good one and probably very appropriate given what we're talking about. Because I really think it's important to always remember when we're preparing to either give or receive feedback that we have our own unique perspective. Yeah . And the person to whom we're speaking has theirs. And to some extent those two will cross and they will also be very different. Yeah . And if we don't spend time either thinking about or exploring the ways in which those perspectives are complimentary and different, then our feedback giving and receiving is going to be suboptimal.
Speaker 2:Yeah. In the first story, you sought out that feedback from the ta, you recognized that your perspective was unique as the professor. And so you said, I need to get some feedback from someone who is seeing things differently than I am. And they were able to point out kind of a blind spot for you. And so it's important I think, to remember, Hey, let me stop and get feedback from someone with a different perspective. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Well, I love that you shared a story from your time as a professor. You teach organizational behavior at the University of Toronto and Canada. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes. And I've also been able to teach in Iceland , uh Okay . In the executive MBA program. And I also teach in Italy , uh, Sienna at the university there, where Oh wow . We try to look at cultural differences in leadership and what we perceive the leader's role to be.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Very global kind of perspective. And I know you've also consulted with organizations professionally, you know, around the globe as well. So Lori , besides the difference in experience level, what are some of the differences in perspective and priorities that you see between the students that you work with and maybe the older professionals as you interact with them?
Speaker 1:The one thing that really stands out for me with the students, especially I would say at the more undergraduate level, is that they are really hungry for high quality feedback so that they can assess whether or not what they were trying to accomplish in writing an assignment as an example, was actually seen in the same way by the professor. And also one of the things that I've really learned over the years is that people are not particularly good at understanding what their strengths are. Hmm . So they're always looking for somebody to say to them, actually, you have a very good analytical approach to a particular topic, or the questions that you ask in the classroom are very insightful. And I know that because other students shake their head when you ask the question or it takes us to a new part of the conversation. That's the kind of feedback that the more junior student just can't get enough of mm-hmm <affirmative> . Because it's offered very infrequently. Alternatively, in due respect to the more senior executives in the MBA classes, they bring , uh, unique set of experiences against which they can bounce off new ideas or concepts that you present and decide for themselves whether or not they agree or they're applicable in their circumstance. But one of the things, again, in all due respect, is that I do see this thing that I call hardening of the categories a lot more among the senior people in the room. In that, in that our mindsets have a tendency to become a little bit more , uh, set as the experiences we have tend to reinforce what those mindsets are. Yeah . For the good and for the bad. So that when someone comes along with , um, a new idea, it's not always an easy sell, which is something that we need to keep in mind, I think when we're giving feedback in general, is that we might feel really excited about this opportunity, let's say, as a leader to give feedback to someone, but it's not necessarily something that the person who's on the receiving end is really going to accept. So I'd say this thing called open-mindedness is a dramatic difference. Similarly, when you as an external consultant go into an organization, and this relates to two points that I wanna make, the culture within that environment determines, I think a lot about perspective. So in some organizations when we go in, people greet us with open arms because they see the external consultant as not having that historical view of what's happened in the organization. So it's a fresh look and perhaps it's a fresh way of looking at data or analyzing problems, et cetera. And so in certain cultures that's very much welcome. In other organizational cultures, I would say it's more cautiously approached as well, I'm gonna be more critical of this because we had to bring in this external person who perhaps is there because they're judging that what we did previously was not valued . I think the second point I wanna make is that I have learned over the years that there are huge cultural differences at the macro and micro level that you need to pay attention to. And in some cultures, for example, people are much more accustomed to receiving information, not necessarily critically thinking about information and deciding if they wanna convert that into insight or into something that they can work with and , and use in their room. And I , I'm thinking in particular of an experience I had, I was working with a bunch of 20 or so senior leaders, two of whom were women. And at one of the breaks I happened to be in the ladies room, along with one of the participants who was clearly very emotionally upset mm-hmm <affirmative> . And I asked her, you know, are you okay? What's happening? And she said, this is just so out of cultural appropriateness for me that I'm having a really hard time handling our session. I really want to be open-minded to what you have to say, but it's, I'm having a hard time doing that because I feel I can't really ask questions in the way that I might like to, because culturally that would not be received particularly well. Interesting. And it was like, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I , I came , I came out of that break really with a different mindset myself for how I was gonna continue to run the session. So yes, there are huge differences I think in perspective between professionals and students and, and across cultures. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:<affirmative> . At the college level, they've come up through primary secondary education all about the feedback. Ultimately, what is my grade going to be for this course ? Right. Like you say, they're very much in the realm of receiving feedback, but those older professionals, it's less of a blank slate. What are some ways that we can keep an open mind as maybe we're in the mode of receiving feedback?
Speaker 1:I think for me, trust is the most important word when it comes to being able to both give and receive feedback, is that you have to have a foundation in a relationship built on trust for people to be able to open up to it. And I can give you any number of examples where that trust has been absent and the feedback, while really good, high quality , legitimate, wasn't as potentially powerful or impactful in changing behavior or achieving desired work outcomes as it might have been because the trust foundation wasn't there. Hmm . And, and in a more traditional relationship with a , let's say between a manager and his or her direct report, that trust builds up over time. Yeah. And we know that trust is a very fragile, it's not a commodity, but it's very fragile. And so historically, if something is somehow challenging or damaging that trust, then to believe that you can go in and just begin to give good feedback and it'll be received in the same way in which you're hoping it will won't necessarily be the outcome. Yeah. When you are going into a new relationship, like a consulting one as an example, the only way that trust is going to be built in my experience is from listening, listening, listening, listening. Hmm . And really listening with real intent to try and understand what this person is telling you. And that doesn't mean that you're sitting there mute. I mean we're all experienced , uh, leaders I'm sure listening to this, but it's that you are indicating in your non-verbals and in your engagement that you are listening and that the questions you ask reflect the listening and then that starts to build the trust. And then I'm going to relax a little bit more and be more willing to hear what you have to say, but also open up to any suggestions you might have.
Speaker 2:Now I find I'm very aware of my own nonverbal communication to you in this very conversation. <laugh> , you mentioned as you shared that story right at the beginning of our conversation about your teaching style. I wanted to ask you, are there changes or shifts that you've seen both in academics and professional or either one? Are there changes in the industry that you've seen that have surprised you?
Speaker 1:I think if I look in my rear view mirror mm-hmm <affirmative> . I can see from the student perspective almost waves, generational waves of characterizations of what that student is looking for in their learning experience. So if I think about back when I was a graduate myself in the seventies, a graduate student, pardon me, we were still very much hippies and doing our mother earth thing. And you know, values are really important and freedom of speech and all the rest. And that resonates in the classroom and the demeanor and the expectation of the students. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then you go through in the next generation that comes along and people are getting more, I would say, career oriented. Right? So I want this mm-hmm
Speaker 2:<affirmative>.
Speaker 1:And I feel right now that the whole organizational context and setting is in a real regenerative mode where old models of being as leaders and as employees are not particularly effective or relevant in an environment where, you know, there's a lot of hybrid working relationships, remote working. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Where the proliferation of knowledge and where it comes from and its legitimacy is incredible. Where the workforce is much more and should be much more diverse and inclusive than it historically has been. People have different expectations for what they want to get from their work experience. Hmm . You know, if I think about my own three children who have the benefit and sometimes the curse of having a coach as a family member, <laugh> one of them in particular who works in the high tech , her mindset was, well if this doesn't work out here, well no problem, I'll just put on my, you know, roller skates and head down to the organization down the street and pick up there and see if it's a better fit for me. And of course fit is really important, but now I see that, you know, as the tech industry starts to change and different skill sets are required, et cetera, it's not as easy or as likely that those roller skates are gonna go very far in terms of getting you a better job just by leaving the one that you've got right now.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there's like influences when you're dealing with the development and giving feedback to, let's say a younger person on your team, then the approach that you have to take when you're dealing with somebody who's been around for a long time sees it all and kind of has a , well, here we go again, then mindset. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . So yes, I think you do need to be particularly sensitive to the, the needs and the experiences of the individual to whom you're giving feedback and what the organization expects of us all as well. I would say cultural eq , EQ at a macro and a micro level Okay. Is extremely important for leaders in today's organizational settings.
Speaker 2:And that probably comes from, like you said earlier, a lot of listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And also I think learning how to ask what I, I call high quality questions. Questions that don't simply require a head nod or a harrumph uhhuh for an answer, but get a person to kind of open up and express more of what's going on in that internal tape recorder in their mind. Because that's what we all wanna know. Yeah. If I knew what you were thinking right now as I'm speaking, couldn't we have a much more effective conversation? Right. Yeah. It's good questions that get a person to relax and open up and that's the trust piece. Right? Yeah . So they're all, all of the elements are so intertwined with one another.
Speaker 2:Although I suppose if each of us could hear the internal tape recorders of those around us, it would make for very noisy environment. You shared a couple of great experiences of times that feedback has affected you in your career. I wonder, in your time as a coach, can you share a story with us maybe of an experience or a time when you've been able to see feedback cause a point of inflection in someone's career that you've been working with?
Speaker 1:I have a really good example.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well I think it's a good example.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. <laugh> . Now you've piqued my interest,
Speaker 1:A board of directors for a very large global corporation approach me and said that they were considering putting a person who was at the moment ahead of one of the divisions in a spot where he, a male would be effectively the successor to the CEO of the organization who was going to retire in about a year and a half. But the board just had this reluctance, this kind of hesitation. They weren't sure, but there was an itch there. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And they asked me if I would go out and interview some pre-identified stakeholders that this man worked with on a regular basis. So it might have been his direct reports, his peers, his customers, regulators, et cetera. Sure. And just see what impression they have of him. So I thought it was a very unique request. And I did go out and I had about 50 interviews. Wow. So a huge, yeah, it was huge. But it was a very high profile global organization. So the data, the information was really important. After about five interviews, there was a clear theme that just continued to be reinforced. And basically the people I spoke to said that they doubted the integrity of this man. And they said that they believed that he was not trustworthy and that he was extremely self-serving. Interesting. And in many cases they cited the same example where he had called out a, a peer in front of a regulatory body rather than discussing that issue with the peer. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Back at the office before going out. And the way in which they described that incident just stopped the conversation. It was so shocking. And in its pointedness and it's just humiliated the person Yeah. The peer. So I had to go back and tell the board of directors what I had discovered while retaining the anonymity of the contributors. Sure. And the , so they kind of hit the pause button on that opportunity for that man. And they said to me, now we need you to go and tell him. So we're dealing with a very smart man, very, very capable. He had a commanding presence in a room. So I had met him 'cause I interviewed him, he knew exactly who I was interviewing, but he didn't know because there were so many of them, he couldn't possibly figure out who said what. And of course I couldn't report the feedback in that way, but I did have to tell him that the , at the essence of it all was trust, integrity and being self-serving. And, and this is a true statement, he sat there, he sat there, he sat there, and then he picked up the books and this binder of material that was on the table in front of him and he just threw them at me. Oh my goodness. Yeah. He was just so incredibly upset. Yeah. And then he really broke down. Then he really broke down. And so I was like, okay, <laugh>, wow, this is a new experience. So I suggested that we take a break and let him sort of diffuse a little little bit. And when he came back into the room, he would ask me, well, where do we go from here? And I said, well that was a really good question. I think that the answer was in his court that where we could go from here was, I did my job. You heard what you heard, thank you very much. And that was the end of it. Or alternatively, we could start to work in a coaching relationship with one another. Yeah. I have to be very honest and say I wasn't sure that I wanted the latter outcome. And I did tell him that too.
Speaker 2:Understandably.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I said that, given what I've heard, this is not gonna be easy and you're gonna have to work so very, very hard to make any kind of a difference here. And so why don't we each take a couple of weeks to think it over and we'll connect. And in the end, we actually had a very effective long-term coaching relationship and he had to work extremely hard for a long period of time. I think two years, two and a half years before, people didn't think that this was the new face that he was presenting just because he'd received this feedback. But rather than internalize the will to actually be different in how he approached the situation. And I would be misleading if I said it was all a bed of roses kind of thing. Sure . It was a hard climb. But he really impressed me with how much it it meant to him, the feedback he received and how he wanted to try and make a difference. Now, he never did become the CEO of that organization. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . We can all surmise why that was the case. Yeah . But he did go on to work in another organization where he did become the CEO and to my knowledge, because it's a while ago now, that he has been successful. But it was a tough message to have to deliver and it was very tough for him to hear.
Speaker 2:Great story. I liked that. It's amazing how a small bit of feedback can make such a major change in a person's career. But also I think it points out what we talked about earlier and that is that trust, which is kind of wrapped up in the person's integrity, is so easy to lose. It's so fragile and can take so long to build that back up again. Like you had said earlier in our conversation, Lori , you've shared some remarkable insights. I've really enjoyed our conversation so far. Is there anything else that you would share with our listeners in terms of advice or tips or ideas that you want to share with us?
Speaker 1:I think I would say that I would hope that when we're going in to give feedback, that the place we're coming from is one of adding value. That what we want to do is offer some insights to another person that will help them be even more effective, more curious, more aligned with the organization, more motivated than before our conversation had started. And if that's what my objective is when I'm in a coaching or in a teaching mode, then the onus of responsibility to achieve that outcome primarily lies with me. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And my own willingness to prepare ahead of time to exercise my empathy to the full extent. And I know that isn't always easy because oftentimes we're giving feedback to deal with , uh, perhaps a performance challenge. And so to think, oh, adding value there or somebody who's been chronically exhibiting that performance challenge over a long period of time and turning that situation around is not easy. So I'm not having a , um, a naive perspective, but I think my own mindset is really important and I own the responsibility for making this a successful conversation. If I can even help the other person to see that they also own that responsibility. They're not just sitting there, but they're responsible for the outcome as well. All the better. But that's never gonna happen if I go in with my own agenda and I'm just here to tell you what's not working right or what the limitations might be on your career development, that's not going to get us to a maximal outcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that's fantastic advice. And as we come in with that empathy, with that desire to build trust, hopefully we don't get things thrown at us from upset individuals. <laugh>, it may not always happen that way , but sometimes Right.
Speaker 1:<laugh> , well, if you've been at it long enough, you're going to have something like that happen in your career. Right.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. Lori , I have really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you so much for your time and for exploring these ideas with us. I think what you've shared has been really helpful to me, and I think it will be to our listeners as well.
Speaker 1:I wanna thank you for giving me this opportunity, Troy. And my, my greatest wish for this conversation is that your listeners perhaps can take one idea away that will be of some value to them going forward. So thank you very much for having me.