daily check-ins are🔑 to giving constructive remote 1:1 feedback w/ Jarron tate Dir of Sales @ roots
To effectively give constructive feedback you must work on building deeper bonds with your team. This way they're more receptive to it and feel you have their best interests at ❤️
Here's the recap...In today's episode, we chatted with Jarron Tate (JT), Director of Sales @ Roots. We spoke about how to provide 1:1 feedback to your team; both positive & negative. We spoke about what formats to use (text, video, audio). How often to provide it. And creating a habit of daily personal check-ins with your team. Why it helps your team better receive constructive feedback.
Full Transcript Below...
Related References
Want your feedback to be better received, ask yourself for feedback
As a leader, we're here to make our team more successful. Part of that comes from providing feedback to our team. We as leaders want to be more successful too. Just as you provide feedback to your direct reports, you should be asking for feedback from them too. This will help you become a better leader. It will also help you understand your team's preferences. Some people may like feedback immediately in a certain format. Others in a completely different way. To make the greatest impact, the feedback should be personalized.
Check-in with your team every day or as often as possible
Every day or as often as possible have a quick chat with each person on your team. I prefer video as the most engaging but in this use case, it's the content that matters most. Ask them questions about who they are outside the office. Ask about their family, their training for X, or similar. Then use their responses for future questions. It builds a trust and a deeper bond. What that does is set a better stage for sharing constructive feedback. When you're saying hello and building that rapport often, they know you've got their back. They know you want what's best for them. So when you need to give them some guidance, they know it's coming from a positive vs negative place.
Share positive feedback publicly
Many employees above salary desire recognition. A great way to do that is showing appreciation and giving accomidations publicly. You can do that by posting in a general Slack channel or one dedicated for positive feedback. Replying to a boss that gives you credit for a job well done, by instead calling out people on your team that were highly involved. Another great tool are plugins/apps like Bonusly. Where the team can give recognition for great work in a $ form.
Progress reports aren't only for school
When your team provides feedback they have the expectation something will come out of it. So you must start off by recognizing that you've heard their feedback. Next, you should provide some rough plan of what you'll do with that feedback. Finally, you need to keep them in the loop with progress. Employees who see progress & results will be more motivated to leave additional feedback.
Use data and deliverables to anchor your feedback
As often as you can, feedback should be linked to specific data, deliverables, or milestones. So long as the expectations were clearly defined, provide feedback specific o whether your team is meeting the specific understood expectations. If they aren't, as a leader ensure the objectives are understood and actually achievable. If it's a question fo wehthere they are achievable, you can break down an item in smaller pieces to help better ensure your team is hitting them.
Scott: [00:00:50] Hey everyone. Thank you for tuning into today to another episode of leading from afar. I'm Scott Markovits. Welcome back Tevi. You were quite missed the last week, so it's good to have you back. I hope in the last few weeks that you've been able to change some hearts and minds at InVision to embrace async communication. So you're not forced to miss out on future episodes.
Tevi: [00:01:12] Hopefully making progress on that.
Scott: [00:01:15] Slowly, but surely. Maybe before diving into today's topic and doing the introduction, I just want to throw an intro question here to both of you. Getting your feedback of the recent story on the I'm going to call it mutiny at Apple. Of the decision of forcing people back into the office three days a week. Wanted to get your take on what you think about it before we get going. JT do you want to get going first?
JT: [00:01:39] Yeah. I can start with it. I definitely respect Apple's decision. I would love to see more companies offering a hybrid approach and just giving it a little bit more time to see what productivity levels look like. Continuing to gauge employee satisfaction with this hybrid model.
But I would love to know what led to that decision. I don't have the facts behind it, but it's an interesting decision and I'm sure they will continue to evaluate how it goes. But yeah, that was interesting to see from Apple and I'm interested to see how the rest of the companies continue to adapt as we move forward in this new best business world.
Tevi: [00:02:20] Yeah, I agree. I think it will be interesting to see how they iterate on that. Apple has a very strong office culture. They spend a lot of money and effort on their buildings and headquarters. So I think it's a strong part of their culture to be in the office. I think that it's a little bit of a nod to the fact that people can be productive remotely, but they still want people in the office. So I think it'll be interesting to see how people enjoy working like that. If there will be set times where everybody is free to work. Where they want specific days of the week where they'll have to be in the office versus specific days of the week where they can work from anywhere.
And I'm curious to see how it goes.
Scott: [00:02:54] Yeah. So I'm going to the extreme and saying that companies should be taking a very close look at this. They're not the first. The same came from Google and Facebook in the last two months who all went with this three, two approach. And then within a week, having to pivot their decisions of putting some percentage of employees working full time.
I've said across, I don't know how many of these episodes if there's any one thing that companies should have learned this year plus is that you're simply not going to force people back into an office ever again. Whether that's three days, two days, one day. So companies are really going to need to start thinking how, if they're going hybrid, how you're actually going to be able to do it. Because you're just simply not going to get every employee back to the office, whether you want to or not.
We could probably spend a whole podcast episode on this. Any company that's exploring the idea of hybrid and what that will look like should be paying close attention.
But get us back on track here for this conversation. So today we're happy to be joined by JT. JT is the Director of Sales at Roots. Which is an HR stack for Slack-centric teams. Prior to roots, JT has been leading remote sales teams across a few different companies.
And JT, usually the way that we start off, tells us a little bit more about yourself and tell us a little bit more about
JT: [00:04:12] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm JT, I would say I'm somewhat of an HR nerd. I've been in this space for, I actually love it so that a backhanded compliment to myself, but I've been in the space for about 12 plus years. Across several different companies in sales and sales leadership. I find the agent technology space fascinating. There's constant change. There's constant innovation. I've led teams in the office, I've led teams remotely, I've led teams through a pandemic as well, remote that had been in an office. At Roots what I do is lead all sales efforts.
And what we do is build HR plugins that meet employees where they rather be. Which is in their Slack environment plain and simple. So yeah, excited to be here, excited to talk to you both about remote leadership and one-on-ones. It's a topic we're passionate about as a company and myself as well.
Tevi: [00:05:18] Very cool. Can you tell us a little bit more about the product itself? How's it helpful to remote? Yeah.
JT: [00:05:25] Yeah. So our plugins allow remote teams to have total visibility into items related to PTO. Managing that from your Slack environment. One-on-ones, onboarding, referring potential colleagues to the organization, and social connections. Seeing how engaged employees are with each other and in public channels.
Our niche is keeping that all within the Slack environment to eliminate employees having to log into multiple systems to do HR-related tasks. So we want to keep them in that tool to allow them to do their best work.
Scott: [00:06:07] Awesome. As a leader in whatever capacity, whether it's one-on-one feedback or product feedback, things like that. One of the most difficult aspects is eliciting transparent, honest feedback. So from your experience leading remote teams, whether through a pandemic, previous, or now, what can leaders do to elicit that feedback from their director?
JT: [00:06:30] That's a great question. I'd love to get, both of your thoughts on that as well. But I think setting expectations that they want feedback from their direct reports. I think a lot of times leaders would like feedback, but they don't set that expectation and open that door to receive that feedback.
So it's hard for their employees to give it to them. But in my experience, when you set that expectation, you will get feedback from your employees. And you've got a couple of options, right? You can take that feedback and get better, or you cannot and you can totally ignore it. But what I've seen is once you give that open door for feedback, your employees will start to see if you've taken that feedback seriously. They will start to see a change in the feedback that you've given them.
I would say opening the door. Saying, "Hey, I'm here. I need to get better. This is not I'm just critiquing you. I want to get better as a manager showing a sense of vulnerability." I think that's one of the best traits you can have in leadership is being vulnerable because we're all human.
But I think that simple phrase of setting the expectation that I need feedback as well, and I'm going to give feedback will really help. Get the feedback that you need as a manager, but I'd like to toss it back to you two and see what your thoughts are as well.
Tevi: [00:07:59] Yeah, I think you're totally right, JT. It's important that you provide as a leader, you provide the safety for people to give the feedback. So you have to directly request it. Say, "How am I doing with this? Or what can we do about that?" Be very specific about what you want feedback on, but then make sure that your response to the feedback shows that you appreciate the feedback and that you're respecting the thoughts and ideas. Even if you don't necessarily do what they ask. You still have to provide that safety that it's okay to speak freely. I think that's important. A lot of people, a lot of leaders say they want feedback, but then they might dismiss it as soon as they get it, or they'll make a comment that shows they disagree right away and they're already shutting it down.
What do you think Scott?
Scott: [00:08:46] I think you've both laid it out perfectly. It's creating that safe environment to be able to give feedback. As a leader, sharing the honesty yourself. Because everything starts with the captain. If you're the one who is sharing honest feedback yourself, you're the one who's giving the right opportunities for them to give feedback. I think that it definitely opens up the responsibility and the opportunity to give feedback. The one thing that I also believe, and maybe I'll end it off with the next question to you JT, is what you actually do with that feedback. I think that is one thing that you enlisted the feedback and they give that feedback to you. But then the real question is, okay what happens with that feedback? I think it's extremely important how you structure it. How you make your direct report understand, "Yes, I've heard it. And here's exactly what you said. Here's a project plan or a to-do plan. This is exactly what I'm planning to do with your feedback." And then keeping them in the loop. The following meetings are what we've been able to do. Here is what we're not being able to do. Because I think that is important. It's what actually happens when I give feedback. Is anything happening with it? And if it is, then it encourages me more to give feedback in the future.
But if it goes and goes into a black hole somewhere and the feedback doesn't get anywhere, then it discourages me in the future. Because nothing is really going to come out of it. So I'll turn that into a question of how do you show your employees you're implementing and taking on board their feedback.
JT: [00:10:14] That's a great question, Scott. I think very similarly to when you give an employee feedback on a skill set that you need them to get. I think we talked about coaching. I'm passionate about that before the call. You, want to come back to those pieces of feedback each and every week, right?
I can't tell someone, I need them to improve on sales calls during a one-on-one, and then we never talk about it. It's that constant coming back to it. Now it doesn't need to be tedious and micromanaging every day, every week. So as a manager, you can do that as well. Scott, if you work for me and you give me some feedback, we come back and touch base on that every week.
I show you where I'm at. So it's like a little bit of reversing of roles. So the employee kind of feels like their manager and that's probably not the best analogy, but still there able to benchmark the feedback that you've given them. That they've given you and continue to have an open conversation because that's how you can get really good relationships with your employees.
It goes back to what I talked about earlier. Being vulnerable. And then having those moments where they're able to tell you, this is what I'd like to see you get better at. It comes off very trusting, right? Because they know you give really good feedback. They give really good feedback and that's how you can grow.
And you can get the most out of that employee because in my experience when employees trust you they'll do whatever it takes. They'll run through a wall for you, but you've got to build that trust. It's not something that can happen in a one-on-one once a month, right? It is constant feedback in a safe environment, positive and negative.
And that's how I feel like you can grow that relationship and get the most out of it. Which will lead ultimately to higher production, whatever that role is.
Scott: [00:12:04] Yeah, Tevi I would love your insight especially being in a product role. Because I think this is very similar to running product. You're always trying to gather feedback from users. That honest feedback on how you like the product, what you don't like.
I think it's the same experience. If you're an end-user and you're saying, "Hey, this feature would be great or this is a pain point for me." And you've seen that improvement in the product, then it enables you, and it gives you the motivation to keep building on that relationship.
But if it's not, then it's okay why should I continue giving my feedback? Tevi would love your insight from a product person.
Tevi: [00:12:41] Yeah, totally love the way JT put it. How he shows his progress. I think that's super important in really any feedback. Even on a product as a manager. There should be a feedback loop where you accept the feedback, show progress on it, and report on it or communicate on it whoever that may be too.
I love that there's a way that if you get feedback from an employee or a team member I'd love to know what your tools are jT actually. Cause I think that's really cool. Is that something you can do in Roots?
JT: [00:13:12] That is a really good question. I'm pretty old school. I keep a notebook. I come back to notes, everyone, every one-on-one. I don't want our communication to just simply be during a one-on-one. So it's daily check-ins, but not from a micromanagement standpoint. It's "Hey, how's it going today? Happy birthday to your wife or your spouse or your significant other, or your child." Those little things help build that trust. When you do have to deliver tough feedback, they know that you care, right?
If the only time you talked to an employee and you have to give them difficult feedback is during a one-on-one. They're going to take it in a way that it wasn't intended to be delivered. But it's those little nuggets each and every day hopping on calls, right?
Like checking in during the day, at the end of the day, knowing little personal details about them. Those are trusting relationships. Those are relationships that you build outside of work too. So you need to have those relationships with your employees and your staff as well. For me, it's pretty old school. I'll be honest, just coming back to previous notes and just being really intentional. Because when you're intentional about things, it's really hard for you to forget. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Tevi: [00:14:24] Yeah. You're saying two things you're saying be authentic in your communication and make sure there's a feedback loop. So that's cool. I actually use Notion to do something similar. I have a one-on-one document for each person that I meet with and every week or whenever I speak with them, I'll put in an entry for that date.
And if there's an action item, I'll put it at the top of the document. Then I'll track it that way. So the next time I speak with them, that action item will be at the top. It'll either be completed or uncompleted and we'll discuss the progress of that.
JT: [00:14:56] We actually do have a one-on-one plugin. We do have the ability within Roots to track one-on-ones and what has happened in the previous one-on-one. Being able to add talking points to following one-on-ones and being able to go back and see how an employee or manager has graded a one-on-one. Giving feedback on that as well.
Tevi: [00:15:17] Cool. How about you, Scott?
Scott: [00:15:18] Yep. So it's also either through a Notion document or a Google document. Depending on the team and what tools that we're using. Also similar type of format. Every week or whenever the one-on-ones are. You have your agenda, you have your action items that are things that are leftover from last week.
But the one thing I really loved JT what you said, and I had a big smile on my face. That feedback really comes from those micro-interactions every day. "How's it going? How's your day? How is your wife? Did your kid make the soccer team? I heard your kid hit the walk-off home run." Whatever the scenario is. It's those little micro-interactions that build that relationship and that trust between the leader and their team.
I know my leader has got my back. I know he cares about me. The fact that he's checking in, he's asking about my family, is asking what's new. He's really making the emphasis for me to grow in my career and whatever else. As you said, I'll run through the wall. The first leader that I ever had, worked very much this way.
I remember we had one summer, we were trying to do a project and I was working six days a week, probably 16 hours a day. And it was only for him. I didn't care about the project. Any of the deliverables. I knew this guy would do anything for me. I was like I'll run through a wall. At one point, I was super duper sick and I checked in that day from, home. But as you said, when you build that relationship of trust and that bond, it goes a very long way.
Tevi: [00:16:39] I guess talking more specifically about different kinds of feedback, what are some methods that you have with positive reinforcement or positive feedback? At InVision we use something called Bonusly. Which is a nice way to show public recognition and award people dollars. You could award someone like $5 for helping out on a project
I never saw that used anywhere else, but it's cool. It's a nice way to build teamwork. Everybody sees what other people are doing and what they're getting rewarded with. What are some ways that you show positive reinforcement and positive?
JT: [00:17:14] Great question. I know this may embarrass employees sometimes, but I like to post their accomplishments in public where I know executives are at. Or even send emails and copy executives on emails that we've either gotten back from a client. They're really happy with how that employee just interacted with them.
Just those little subtle things, right? Because again, it's me showing my staff that I care about them. It's an indirect way to get them in front of executives that know that they do a good job, but they don't know the details. So I try to be really intentional.
In terms of just making sure that my staff gets in front of the people that they need to be from a recognition standpoint. I think that's super important. I was taught that early on in my leadership career is just those little things that go a long way. I would say 9 times out of 10, once the employee figures out that the executives are on that correspondence or are they getting a note and they didn't know that the executive was on there.
I get a note back to say that was so awesome. Thank you for doing that. That means a lot because I would love to know the stats on this, but I feel like at least in the sales profession, there are a lot more people that do it for the recognition. The money's important, but I can only speak in my experience.
The top performers want to be recognized. They also want to be paid, but I would put recognition right above that. So I always try to do it in unique and creative ways. But again, it's one of those things like Scott talked about when you have a manager or someone that you work for, that is passionate about you and your success. The sky's the limit in terms of what that employee can output for you in whatever the role is. It can be sales, marketing, HR, product. It just, I'm just telling you it's just that emotional piece of it can bring out the best in
Scott: [00:19:15] I love that. I love that idea. And that's something that I also experienced through my first manager. When a project went really well or one of the internal stakeholders was very happy with it, my manager, every time would reply back to his manager or manager saying, "Oh, this was handled by Scott and Scott did a great idea and CC'd on this mail."
I think that's an absolutely fantastic thing that you could do, as a leader. You're not taking responsibility for the work that your team, did. You're giving them the credits and "Hey, they did the hard work. They're the ones who deserve the recognition." I absolutely love that.
But switching gears from positive to constructive feedback. Your thoughts of when you should provide one-on-one constructive feedback? What happens at the time that it happens. Your next follow-up in a one-on-one meeting, every quarter, every review time. Is there some right timing for getting constructive feedback?
JT: [00:20:12] This is a tough part of the call now constructive feedback. But if you notice a trend with at least with me, those little nuggets of checking in showing that you care. When you do have to give that negative feedback, they know it comes from a place of you want to see them do better.
It's not, like I said before if the only communication is during a weekly or biweekly one-on-one and the only thing you're doing is just hammering that individual, what they need to work on that puts them in a tough spot mentally. But if you've done your check-ins and they know you’re compassionate, you can give them some real, tough feedback and they know it will be tough for them to hear it. Cause it always is tough to hear negative feedback, but they know it comes from a place of compassion. I'm not a big person of giving negative feedback or constructive feedback over email or Slack or whatever the internal communications are. I like to do it face to face on a video call like this.
Just because I feel like it comes off more compassionate and not just delivering difficult news. I think you should do it as soon as you can. It wouldn't be impactful for me to get constructive feedback three weeks after that constructive feedback was noticed.
I would love to get both of your thoughts. They would want that as soon as possible. I just feel like it goes better. If you can do it face to face for can't do it face to face, do it over a phone call, but I just would not do it over email, text, or Slack. But I'll pause for a second cause I would love to get both of your feedback.
Tevi: [00:21:51] I'm curious. I'm going to jump in with a little bit of a side question, maybe. If you're only jumping on a call for constructive feedback. Would you be afraid that somebody might think, oh, no, JT said he wants to talk. Or do you also do one-to-one face-to-face calls when people are not only in need of some sort of constructive feedback?
JT: [00:22:15] That's really great. So at least for me, I always hop on calls with reps. Think of a wrestling tag team, right? Like you got Hulk Hogan stone cold Steve Austin. They're trying to win the match. That's how I do it. If I notice things we can debrief immediately after the call.
So I never ever want a rep or a team member to feel like I'm hopping on a call because I'm coming in there to grade them like a college professor. Because that's not the case. Anytime I'm on a call, they know that "Oh, I feel like they're excited, because they know that I'm on there." I'm going to be enthusiastic and we're going to try to close the business. They also know we're going to debrief after the call. I may not have a ton of negative stuff. I'm going to have feedback. I think that's important.
I never want to set the foundation. A team member or a group of team members knows I'm going to be on a call and they're just like shaking in their boots. Because I just think that's just a tough spot to put people in. So hopefully that answers your question.
Scott: [00:23:17] Yeah. I'll come and jump in. I think JT you're very unique in your leadership perspective. I have been a fan of giving constructive feedback in bunches. I'm not doing it at the time because similar to what Tevi has said, I've unfortunately in my career have had a bad experience of getting that feeling that every time I see my manager's name pop up in Slack, it's, "Oh, great. What did I do now?"
so I've always tried to use the sense of if it's something that needs to be addressed now, address it now. If it's not, wait for three, four minor things that happen over a number of weeks and try to address them all at the same time. I'm a big believer in not going more than 10 days without giving someone accommodation and giving them that positive feedback.
So I hope if I'm regularly on almost a weekly basis giving them positive feedback and every couple of weeks now coming with something constructive, it hopefully lands at home a little bit more. But most managers I've had in my career, it's very little in the positive. Regular on the constructive.
That it turns you off very much to even seeing their name pop up, whether it's a call, whether it's Slack. So that's why I've normally tried to go with that approach, but agree completely that constructive feedback always needs to be done live. If you're in your office, in person. Or remote needs to be done via video. Never in texts, never in Slack because the door swings wide open for it to be interpreted in the totally wrong way. Where you could be giving somebody a 5 out of 10 types of feedback and they take it as a -5. I'm reading something that you've written completely in a different direction and then opening it up to a lot of more negative feelings.
When you're giving that constructive feedback not always does somebody it very well or sometimes they can get upset or frustrated. What do you think are some things that you can do when somebody doesn't take feedback?
JT: [00:25:10] That's a good question. I've got a 24-hour rule I like to implement. So even if I get feedback that I don't like, I think you've got to give it time to settle. And then you can address it after 24 hours. Especially if it's something that is negative or maybe you don't agree with because it's always good to self-reflect.
I always ask that question too. When I do have to give constructive feedback because a lot of times that individual may be self-aware or they may lack the self-awareness of what that feedback may be. It leaves that conversation to be a little bit easier if they can self-reflect and they already know what I'm going to say.
That helps guide that conversation when it's going to be constructive feedback. Now, it's a difficult conversation, but again, it's setting the expectation previous to our conversation earlier of I'm open to feedback. I need feedback. I'm going to give you feedback, but in the event that the feedback is something that maybe we don't agree on can we agree to give it 24 hours before we come and talk through it. And we'll talk through it in a setting like we're doing right now via video phone. That would be how I would approach it would love to know your thoughts, Scott, Tevi.
Scott: [00:26:35] So this is the return of the asynchronous marriage consultation I spoke about in a previous episode. Relationship advice like that works everywhere. When somebody does something you can be on fire. And the natural thing is you just want to spit out the first thing that comes out of your mouth. To get that feeling off of your chest. But I always try to, or at least I work to try to that 24 hour period. Like you said, here's what I feel. Write the document down, wait till the next day. And half the time it's like scrapping it or scrapping most of it and doing something much more constructive. The first 24 hours is probably much more passionate. There's a lot more emotion being involved in that.
Try to take the emotion out of it, just to make sure the messaging is clear. Make sure the communication is clear. And then you're coming from the heart. You're speaking from the heart and trying to give them the sense you're trying to do it for their benefit and to make it for their well-being.
Tevi: [00:27:34] So my background is in design, UX design, and product design. So I've been receiving feedback for 20 years. And the first couple of years of my career receiving feedback about a design from a client or a manager’s bosses, it was always difficult to accept. Especially when it wasn't given in a constructive way.
Like my favorite is, "That's a good one." "It doesn't do it for me or make it pop." Feedback that's not very meaningful to a designer. They don't know what to do with that. That's infuriating. So I learned to just accept the feedback and try to think of what they mean by it.
What I started doing way back then was what if I was giving the feedback? What if I said those words to another designer? What would, I mean by it? How should I accept that? So that was a good way to flip it from my perspective. It's important to make sure you're giving feedback that is actually actionable and meaningful.
And I know Reed Hastings. I just read his book a few weeks ago about Netflix has rules for how they give and receive feedback. And really good guidelines on how to create constructive feedback. They also say, don't wait, do it and do it right away. Because the longer you wait to give feedback, then the longer that problem exists and you want to solve that problem.
So one of the ways they do that, is they say, "You'd be better at, or be better for the company, if." And then you give that feedback. So it's very actionable and very concrete. If somebody is upset and they come at me, then I would want to reiterate what the result was that I would want or what it was that they did that needs fixing and say this is not a personal attack. Reinforce whatever it is they're doing that's good. Hopefully, there's something that's good. And make sure that you try to take any emotion out of it and make sure that they see that this is actually well-intentioned and not meant to be.
JT: [00:29:23] I definitely agree with that. Those one-liners of feedback you would get would have to be tough to hear, make it pop.
Tevi: [00:29:30] Yeah. It doesn't do it for me. I don't feel it.
Yeah. That was fun. Good, times. So pivoting a little bit. What would you do to somebody who's not meeting expectations? I know I said that hopefully, someone is meeting expectations. So the constructive feedback is not going to be so harsh, but what if someone is not meeting expectations, how would you provide feedback around?
JT: [00:29:58] That's a good question. I think once you got to that point, you would have either had a ton of one-on-ones leading up to those micro conversations. I think a question to really help open up the conversation when someone is struggling and it's just to ask them to self-evaluate. How they think they're doing in that role.
That'll tell you a couple of things. It'll tell you if they have the self-awareness to know that they need to get better. It'll it may help guide the conversation because they may bring up all the talking points that you want to talk about, but for whatever reason they have. Both parties have missed being able to diagnose where the potential gaps are.
Leading into another option would be just asking them if it's okay for you to give some very detailed feedback that you've observed over the course of time. In the sales world, we have data, right? We know how many calls they're making, what their close ratios are, how much revenue they brought in.
These are all factual things that you can come back to. Because I think when you give negative feedback, it has to be a combination of raw data and what you are observing. I think it needs to be a healthy mix because if it leans one way or the other or, only off how you feel about something it's going to be tough because we all do things differently. But we can end up at the end result. Which is the goal. Tevi, I'm sure in your role, there are people that design and do things differently than maybe you would personally. But at the end of the day, they can get to the goal. So it's just making sure that whatever needs to happen to get to that end goal can align with the company's core value and mission statement.
But still allowing that person to be themselves. Ultimately when you have to have a combination of data and what you are seeing and a healthy combination of both, they may not receive that information well, but they know it's not one-sided.
So would love your, feedback on that as well.
Tevi: [00:32:09] Yeah. You said it was actually. The biggest lesson that I had to learn when I first started managing people, was people are going to do things differently than me and it's about the outcome. Are they going to get the outcome that we need as a team, even though they do it differently? As long as they're still doing that and they're executing against the mission, let people be different.
Let people be unique and solve problems in their own way. As far as responding to not meeting expectations, what I've done is first, I provide very clear expectations. Let's say a product roadmap by next Monday. If they haven't been able to do that, or I follow up with them during the course of that week. What's our progress on that roadmap. By the time Monday comes, I'll know that either they're behind or what their progress is. But then I'll try to get smaller in terms of the expectation that I need. Or what's the roadmap? What's the next sprint looking like for this specific area? Make those smaller tasks, which are usually easier for people to manage. Especially if they're newer to the industry or newer to the team. How about you, Scott?
Scott: [00:33:16] I don't think there's really much I can add to this. I like the idea of the self-evaluation. Let them speak first. Give them the opportunity. Give a sense of how they feel they're doing and how that aligns with you.
And on the other side, I really like the idea of maybe the expectations weren't clear enough. That's why they are not meeting it because they weren't clearly defined enough. And then especially for a junior person, maybe the expectations were a little bit too much for their experience of the role. How do you fine-tune that and go more granular to make it easier for them to achieve? The one thing that I'm thinking about in the thing, JT, that you hit the nail on the head. It's across a company. Is there really data that you can rely on across all teams? Sales, support are all based on data? Sales revenues, support tickets.
I think it's a lot easier to say here. "You're clearly hitting expectations or not." Obviously with context. It's COVID. The world is burning down. It might not be the best time for selling anything or might not be the best time for responding to support tickets. But perhaps on a product team is there as much data? Maybe around deliverable times. The expectation of this was supposed to be delivered by a certain date.
Is there that same data that's available to be able to use to clearly communicate those expectations? Again, there are no revenue numbers, there are no support tickets.
That's something that's on the top of my mind. Within a product team, a design team, or a marketing team is data always there, or is it something missing.
Tevi: [00:34:44] You always have to have an outcome. Whether it's charted data, that's instrumented within your product. Or if it's like, "We need to close three clients worth X MRR. There's gotta be something tangible that you could look at and say this was the outcome you were hoping for and we didn't get there. And that's what we're talking about.
Scott: [00:35:04] JT, the last question list that I have if you have some tips that you'd like to share and leave our audience with about providing one-on-one feedback in a remote environment.
JT: [00:35:16] I think I've hit the nail on the head with this, but I would say the constant check-ins in-between one-on-ones. Having a healthy balance of constructive and positive feedback because contrary to popular belief, not everyone wants to hear that they're the best person at their job. People inherently want to get better. So being able to identify, even in top performers, in whatever the role may be, areas that they can improve on. They want to hear that information. And ultimately I don't think it's ever what you say, it's how you say it, how you deliver it. Being very intentional and delivering it in a way that you would want to get it is always a good leading indicator of how you should deliver feedback, even if it is negative.
I would say the 24 hours shot clock or whatever. If you're a sports analogy, person. Is always good, especially if you have to deliver it. But more importantly, if you are receiving it, Scott, I think you alluded to that as well. Just taking some time to process the information that you want to deliver, or you have been given always good.
And then again, doing it in a video call setting or over the phone is always a good thing to do. So those would be my tips for up-and-coming managers or people that are seasoned in leadership because we can always get better.
But at the crux of it, it's being intentional. I think if you can be intentional and lead from your core, good things will happen. So that would be my takeaway for today. Would love to hear Scott and Tevi, what you think?
Tevi: [00:37:05] Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I don't have much to add. Those were fantastic. Thank you.
Scott: [00:37:14] I think you've nailed every point that I would bring up. If I were in a sales role, JT, I'd ask if you were hiring. The exact type of leader that I would absolutely love to be working for. That focus on building relationships, leading from the heart, being connected, giving that positive feedback, that positive feeling, building that relationship.
Tevi: [00:37:33] Thank you so much, JT. Thanks for joining.