 Cammie chaos That's right Cammie lives works parents and plays in the rainy city of Portland, Oregon She's had a love of WordPress and word camps since she stumbled upon the first word camp Portland when she became a reluctant and then excited volunteer She now works at automatic little company matter of it as a community organizer For the WordPress open source project where she gets to gets to work with word camps and their organizers every day Cammie chaos hi Welcome to you don't say the importance of earnest feedback one of my favorite places the importance of being earnest by Oscar Wilde and One of my favorite things currently is to talk about feedback and the importance of feedback and When I get nerdy about one thing I tend to like rope in other things that I'm nerdy about And so when I was thinking about what's most important in feedback. I kept thinking about being earnest and being honest And so you will have to bear with me as I loosely tie the importance of being earnest to this talk throughout it Before we dive in I always like to know a little bit about the person who is talking at me So that I can feel a little more comfortable So I'm going to introduce myself not that Dave didn't do a lovely job But I am Cammie chaos and he did pronounce my name correctly and yes, that is my real name And yes, it is spelled just like the agents of chaos on get smart if you happen to love that television show I'm a community organizer for the WordPress open-source project and I focus on word camps So if any of you are organizers or volunteers or speakers, I just want to start by saying thank you I grew up in California and In Texas But I did relocate to Portland about 25 years ago where I live with my partner my teenage daughter to very old cats And more plants than I'm comfortable admitting to you right now If you need to find me anywhere on the internet, you can find me as Cammie chaos almost everywhere except for Gmail Because someone took that before I got it And if you need to contact me for some reason you can email me at Cammie chaos at automatic comm And just so we get this out of the way. This is my very first word Camposie And now that you know some stuff about me I'd like to get to know you a little bit because I am going to do that dreadful audience participation thing This is the last talk before lunch and I'm hungry and I know all of you are hungry. So Who else is this their first word Camposie? You're lying put your hand down. Thank you Okay, is it anyone's first word camp? Welcome to word Camposie and welcome to word camps And it might be weird to have somebody welcoming you to a word camp when it's their first time to you But I'm gonna do it anyway So now that we know each other a little bit better. We have some trust and we have some common ground I want to talk to you today about feedback, which is not necessarily a common word camp discussion for people to have But it's become really important to me over the past few years To start to recognize the way that we both give and receive feedback not only in the open source project but within our work relationships within our interpersonal relationships and and so It's something that I've gotten nerdy about in the last year And it's something that I've gotten really impassioned about and I want to find a way to help other people learn to better give feedback At its most basic feedback is one human being attempting to help another human being No matter how obscured or confused that communication becomes because it can get really muddled It can be shouting it can be quiet It can be completely confused sometimes someone's giving you feedback and they don't even know that they're doing it but it is is Just basically a way to communicate something that someone else needs to know or something that you feel you need someone else to know So before we get too heavy into feedback I think we need to kind of seek out and acknowledge what our own personal relationships with feedback are and I'm sure that there's someone in the room who this isn't their relationship with feedback, but for me This is a visual representation of my relationship with feedback and some people might be like, oh my gosh, you got a Jackson Pollock slide It's amazing. It's great art It's not this is messy and it is scary and it is Confusing and I did it in five minutes because I needed a slide here and I didn't know what to do But feedback makes me uncomfortable It makes me nervous It makes me Like want to do the ostrich thing and stick my head in the sand and just pretend I can't hear what anyone's saying and that's giving feedback and receiving feedback So basically anytime I have a meeting in which I need to give a receipt feedback my impulse may first like natural instinct is to Cancel the meeting and like start coughing and pretend I'm sick because I don't want to say things to people that they don't want to hear and I don't want to hear things that I don't want to hear Right, but it's part of my work and it is Strangely enough, it's part of my entire life. I have a partner. I have a daughter I have a community a work community an open source community I've got school communities part of a startup community and feedback is In never-ending stream both receiving and giving so not having a comfortable feeling with feedback as you might imagine can make things a little bit difficult because What I would really like to do is bolster people and make them feel good about what they're doing And give them the skills and the information and the motivation to keep working on what they're working on Whether that is WordPress contributors whether that is my daughter whether that is my co-workers Or whether that is my partner who's an amazing chef and I would really like to give him that feedback So he'll continue cooking meals for me But sometimes that feedback isn't great and so when you're bolstering it's fantastic But you can't just say good things and expect feedback to work This is the last line in Oscar Wilde's the importance of being earnest But I'm going to call it a jumping off point I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being earnest and My take on this is completely different than the plays if you've seen it The importance of being earnest isn't the only thing to take away here What I want you to understand is that you can be honest and earnest without saying everything that comes into your head You can be honest and open without being cruel And that feedback isn't just something that you happen to be good at It's not something that you're like you woke up one day And you're like I can tell people everything and they will completely understand and they will be able to apply that and make Themselves a better person. It's not how it works. It is a skill It is something that you have to gain and that you can refine and that you can work on But for some of us it takes getting out of our comfort zones. So I've seen in this last slide How many of you would relate your feelings about feedback either giving or receiving More with this than with like the tranquil nature of seeing we see outside the window Does anyone love getting feedback? I'm not sure if I believe you but If it was someone else, did you say you like getting feedback? Yeah What do you what do you like about getting feedback seeing a different point of view and what about you good? So you relish it Yeah, all right You have to why do you have to and yeah, you have to adapt what you're doing to what they want So this is the audience participation time and I would like Anyone who's comfortable Please share with me the last time that you gave feedback and if you're not sure what that means I can clarify but when's the last time someone here gave feedback? Go ahead. Yeah, a week and a half ago. What was the feedback? Can you share that? Oh? No, you can't share that I Know what you're talking about. That's a sensitive community topic. I should not have told him to come in this room All right, so when's the last time someone who's not Adam gave feedback free Absolutely, I'm gonna talk about personal feedback in this talk Last night. What was the feedback if you can share it? Okay kind and constructive Excellent, when is the last time anyone here liked a tweet? Anyone here like a tweet today? Yeah, comment on a blog post Leave a Yelp review talk about french fries. Yeah Those are feedback. So anyway, what's the last what is the last feedback that someone else gave any kind of feedback at all? You in the back Someone was asking me about a friend of mine was asking about Template tags and wordpress. So I gave him feedback showed him a little bit of code Solved the problem and that was about a half an hour ago. Excellent. Well done And you over here. You had some feedback. Are any of you involved in a mentor relationship? Yeah, anytime you mentor someone or are being mentored. That's the giving and receiving of feedback Anytime someone hasn't done something that they should do That's the giving of feedback. There are three general types of feedback And so if any does anyone else have anything they want to share about feedback that they've given or received before we move on to The types of feedback. All right. So The examples that you threw out everything that I'm gonna talk about all falls into three categories appreciation Coaching and evaluation and they're all incredibly common. We don't necessarily think about What kind of feedback we're giving when we're giving it and I feel like it's common knowledge what each of those means but as My partner and some very very smart other people say common sense is not common. In fact, it's only common to you So I want to make sure that we have a common ground and a common understanding of what each of these three types of feedback are The first one is appreciation and this is where you tell me how much you like my talk Thank you. That's lovely feedback. Awesome Appreciation is fundamentally about the human relationship and connections But in a project like ours, it's very important work like making sure that you show appreciation is What keeps the wheels moving in open-source projects in volunteer positions? In nonprofits when you appreciate someone or something that someone is doing you're making sure that they feel heard You're making sure that they realize that their work means something to someone You're saying I see you and you're recognizing that they exist and that they matter The problem with appreciation is that sometimes we don't understand how to keep it appropriate and how to keep it on topic And so when you're appreciating someone make sure that you're appreciating them in a way that is Specific and appropriate to the relationship that you have with someone For as an example you walk around a word camp and someone says something really smart And it's fantastic to be like that thing that you said was life-altering it caused me to think about things in a completely different way Thank you so much. You're very wise. That's great Walking up to someone and saying hey your hair smells amazing when you don't know them It is appreciation It is awkward and it is not kind of a welcome source of feedback Unless that happens to be like your kid. Hey, did you change shampoo your hair smells great or your partner? So make sure that you keep appreciation appropriate to the level of relationship that you have With the person you're sharing it with coaching Coaching is aimed at trying to help someone get better or to grow and change Sometimes it's getting out of a box that they have placed themselves in sometimes. It's improving something that they're already doing But coaching is a way to take someone who has knowledge and gained experience and share it with other people So when we talked about mentoring earlier mentoring is is a form of coaching Coaching is obviously a form of coaching And I know I saw some hands earlier people who have like a formal mentor relationship. Yeah You look like you want to talk What am I saying so you're in it are you the mentor or the mentee I am the mentor And what are you mentoring on I? Train somebody to be a front-end developer from nothing to working in Marketing engine firm. He just got his job. So it's been two years of me working with him over the Internet's It's it's very fun and also quite frustrating sometimes I love him to death What is the what is the most rewarding aspect of that feedback the appreciation the feedback the mentor relationship? Seeing somebody gets something good for all their work And what's the most frustrating? Having to repeat myself okay. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I feel that one especially when I know that someone is very good at taking notes Yeah, and that slides into evaluation coaching and evaluation or like Anxiety and depression. They are best friends Coaching and evaluation often slide back and forth with one another Appreciation can sneak in there too, but evaluation should not be Emotional it shouldn't be Easy it should be based in context. It's an assessment It is an evaluation of how you're doing and this is the form of feedback that at least in America We start children with the very earliest you send a child to kindergarten and They get a report card and it might not be the letter scale, but we tell them what they're doing We evaluate their performance. We evaluate their behavior. We say hey You're doing this. Well, or hey, you're doing this poorly thumbs up. Good job thumbs down. Oh We need to redo the finger painting and then we keep moving on and we Strengthen and deepen the understanding of what that evaluation is with the letter grades a bcd. We skip e f And that's our earliest relationship for most people with Feedback and evaluation and but it's hard not to let evaluation be clouded It's hard to just objectively evaluate a situation or be objectively evaluated Without having some really intense emotions around it because unless someone is just saying yes You're perfect. Thank you Everything you have done is great. That's definitely not coaching. That's just pure evaluation or a everything is awful and you're fired Everything in the evaluation in between is a way to then move into coaching and improve what's happening Clear feedback under has an understanding of what kind of feedback you're giving So if you are in a mentor relationship, you should not necessarily be Evaluating them heavily you do have to do a little bit of evaluation because you need to know how to help them move on But the goal there is to teach them to grow and to help them move further along if you are Evaluating you should not be coaching or mentoring you should be letting them know the facts of what's happening And if you're appreciating someone, thank you. I appreciate that you appreciate people So if someone asks what you think of the design of their most recent site and you answer that question You are evaluating them If someone asks you how they can improve the design of their most recent site and you answer them You are coaching them if someone asks what you think of their latest site and you just say it's awesome Nothing wrong here. You go. It's evaluation and appreciation All right, but as I said before please keep all topics Relevant to what's going on. You don't want to get into a feedback loop with people that is not on the level of relationship that you have but also you need to be honest and You need to Not necessarily say everything that comes into your head Because sometimes our relationship with the feedback we're giving is more problematic for ourselves Then it is for the person that we are giving feedback to and this is something I haven't always been terribly good at So when I started learning about feedback heavily it was a class I took last year after my sabbatical and one of the Exercises that we did we were asked to think of a time that we had given feedback and Then to look back the feedback we'd given and figure out what job we were trying to do with it And so I'm going to tell you what I consider to be a large Feedback error on my part that I experienced just before I went on sabbatical last year I had been preparing everyone for the fact that I was going to be gone for three months and Letting them know that if they needed to talk to someone at my work They could email these the shared queue and if someone would help them a Particular person that I had been working with emailed the queue and said I Need to know who my contact is going to be while Cammie's on maternity leave and My teammates saw this email and went oh my gosh Cammie's pregnant and she didn't tell anybody and She really quickly assigned it to me so that no one else would see it And she sent me a personal message and she was like if that's true Congratulations, I'm happy for you But I wish that you'd felt comfortable sharing that with me and I had no idea what she was talking about And I went and I opened the email and I read it and I slammed my computer down and I stormed out of the room And I poured some tea and I was really mad. I was really upset I had a very emotional response and it came in two big parts The first one was that's the most sexist thing I've ever heard in my life Of course you think I'm going on maternity leave. I'm a woman and I stormed around ranting about that for a little while and I was very upset and then I was like oh It's because I've gained so much weight and it's true I had gained a significant amount of weight and I was like maybe he thought I was pregnant Because I've gained weight and then I realized that I'd never met this person face-to-face Because we work on the internet, right? And I I was just nothing could really calm me down But I did the hard work of trying to calm myself down and convincing myself that I had Climbed out of my feelings box and found a good calm place and I sat down and I answered the email and I Let off a feminist rant The likes of which no one has seen sense about how it's never acceptable To make an assumption about every reason that a woman would take time off work and how dare you I Earned my sabbatical just like every man in my company and by the way You're welcome to email this email address and someone will help you And I took that with me on sabbatical I took those feelings on sabbatical and then I came back and I took this class and That was the feedback that had stuck with me the feedback that I had given because it didn't feel right I was still upset But later on I kind of realized this poor man Didn't know me. I have no idea why he thought I was going on maternity leave Maybe he had me confused with someone else Maybe he heard me say that I was looking forward to spending time with my kid when I was on my sabbatical I'm not often specific about her age. There are any number of reasons. It could have been just an innocent mistake He just didn't know what a sabbatical was And the job that I was trying to do Turns out to be let him know that he had reached the right email address That's what I needed to do. Who is going to be my contact while cammy is gone We don't know but you have to send email to this email address and I take that Moment with me any time I give feedback now and it seems simple to say Oh now every time I have to give feedback I consider what job I'm trying to do but it's something that I've really tried to do Mindfully in all parts of my life And so I present to you an example that I think most people can relate to My kitchen is often very dirty It is not my job to clean the kitchen Because I have a teenager and that is what and the things that my teenager is good for It is her job to clean the kitchen But my kitchen is often not clean and in the past the conversation has gone something like this Me the kitchen isn't clean her okay Me please clean the kitchen her when I'm done with this video Do it now Her massive nuclear scale meltdown freak out. Ah, you're so mean. This is so unfair. What's wrong with you me? Why are you so lazy? I just want you to clean the kitchen. Why can't you get it done? I need the kitchen clean? And then like everyone's rolling eyes and everyone's blown out of proportion and the feedback I was giving my child is Evaluation you have failed To clean the kitchen that is your task And now I kind of stop and I say Kalia. Will you please clean the kitchen? It isn't clean and we can all accept that this is feedback, right? Okay, and She says when I'm done watching this video. She's watching probably a game walkthrough on YouTube Or she's reading a book and trying to change the world. It's one of the two with her And so I say please clean the kitchen and she says when I'm done with this video And I want to freak out and say why can't you just do the thing that you know you're supposed to do I want it done right now and Then I stop and I say camey. What do you want to have done here? Do you want to get in a fight with this person or do you want the kitchen to be clean the job that I would like done is to have the kitchen clean and So I stop and I say how long is that video and she says something like three minutes and 27 seconds mom and I stop and I say okay. The job that needs to be done as the kitchen needs to be clean Obama's not coming over Right. There's no reason that my kitchen needs to be clean in the next four minutes. And so I say okay And I walk out of the room and no one rolls there as anyone and miraculously usually within half an hour She is in the kitchen cleaning it up and there may be some evaluation there Yeah, there may be some evaluation She doesn't wipe the counters still She would prefer just to put dishes in the dishwasher and not wash the pots and pans but It's still getting done. I am getting the job done that I need done And I'm giving her feedback that she can accept because I'm doing it in a way that she understands and appreciates being respected So whatever the type of feedback we're giving Whether it is to our peer To our boss to someone that works for us to someone in the community to our child to our partner We should strive to give it in a way that respects the relationship. We have with that person and that is constructive and kind And when you are giving feedback that is specific to a project or to a task or to a goal You should make sure to keep that feedback about the project in no world Has it ever helped when I tell my teenage daughter that she is lazy When what I want her to do is clean the kitchen that is personal feedback I need to give her construction feedback the kitchen isn't clean Please clean it So please keep all of that in mind Now when feedback is delivered in anger what happened when I told my daughter all the things She responded negatively Her receiving of the feedback was broken. My giving of the feedback was broken So when we give heated feedback or angry feedback it creates a feedback loop It creates kind of a vicious circle where someone is more like a little lash out and pretend They can't hear you or ignore the feedback that you're giving as Incomplete or incorrect if you give someone angry feedback they can just blow it off. They're like, yeah, I don't like you either No, this is fine If you give someone concise feedback on topic Hopefully it is something that they will absorb when I receive concise feedback about a topic I am more likely to stop and rationally think what job were they trying to do there Or how can I apply this even if I don't think it's right? How can I apply it? so When you are respectful and kind people are less likely to block you on Twitter And you are more likely to give them good feedback and receive good feedback from them and return Because the receiving feedback and receiving feedback well as the flip side of the coin For every feedback that is given we also need to consider how feedback is being received And we've touched on that giving feedback in a way that the other person can take Sometimes you need to express yourself Someone will give you feedback in a specific way and it's not a way that you can hear Sometimes you need to say something sometimes I hear feedback when I'm in a conversation And I do much better when I receive feedback in writing when I can see What someone is saying when I can look at it and take the emotion out of it and understand what job they are trying to do What feedback do I need and when I can kind of absorb it? On my own time not everyone is like that. So if you are in a formal feedback situation It is always appropriate to give the person giving you feedback feedback on how you'd like to receive the feedback And I'm gonna say feedback four more times feedback feedback feedback Ultimately we have control over giving feedback, but that's best control the strongest control We have is how we receive feedback and also what kind of feedback we receive This is where I tell you That sometimes you don't read the comments It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should and what should not read More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read and I was having a great Conversation with a woman earlier today about things. She chooses not to read anymore because they make her stressed out They make her unhappy the feedback that she I see you back there. You're hiding. Yes And and I feel very much the same way about news about feedback about so many things when we bring in so much negativity Sometimes it's not something that we can cope with anymore And it's important not only to understand what feedback you Should bring in but what feedback you shouldn't bring in so when you receive feedback Make sure that you're being mindful of yourself and your relationship with that feedback Make sure that you are taking care of yourself and make sure that if it's feedback You actually don't need to have that you distance yourself from it and find a way not to receive it that being said in most cases any Feedback even angry feedback is something that can help you if it's an angry troll incorrect feedback It helps you learn how to ignore feedback if it's feedback that's angry But has a core of truth it helps you kind of understand. Wow something that I have said or done has really Significantly impacted another person's emotional state And they feel so deeply about it that they don't even know how to express that feedback to me It doesn't mean that they have the right to be angry with you. It does mean that you can learn something from what they're saying But in most cases, I do think we should just avoid reading the comments That's my prepared feedback section I Would love to hear any questions or for anyone here to share their relationship with feedback or talk about feedback If they're interested in doing that otherwise you can all sneak out to lunch a few minutes early. Oh And here's some phenomenal resources those two books in particular are fantastic anybody questions comments Desired ahead to lunch. I didn't want to end but I did have a question. Okay. A lot of times our feedback is generally negative Yes, how do you? Teach us to balance it out or so there's a thing I get big feedback. There's a thing I didn't talk about there's a the most common talk the most common type of feedback Coaching that people give is that it's the poop sandwich. Have you all heard of this form of feedback? Yeah, so it is people will say you should always buffer negative feedback with two compliments I Think this is the worst way that you can possibly give feedback because it makes you be insincere with someone So you're not being honest. You're not being open You're not telling them anything that it's important for them to know and you're kind of Discounting the important thing that they could really learn from so instead of spending your time thinking about two Positive things so that we can counteract that generally negative feedback. I find a way to make that feedback feel constructive But also it is really important to me to be grateful and thankful for the wonderful things that people do in my life So I tried to make a point of giving positive feedback and I wish other people would too it doesn't have to be like Oh, you look pretty today. That's a nice dress. I mean it can literally be anything. You look like you're in a great mood Yeah, you project I don't know why they put that microphone on you Yeah, just when when someone when someone does something that you appreciate Don't as long as it's appropriate. Don't keep it to yourself I mean where we ultimately are the people who decide how much positive feedback there is in our lives. I Sound like a hippie. I know it How do you give feedback to someone if they do not want feedback if they've closed their comments So in the social media age, that is what we use Twitter for most of the time I mean if they close comments if you do not have access to that person in person you cannot email them You can't leave a comment and it's something important that they know I would go ahead and send a kind DM I I understand the need for calling people out with things But I prefer to call in first and see if I can resolve the need to give feedback that way Mm-hmm. I I notoriously will tweet it companies when I'm not getting if I'm on hold for an hour and a half I tweet at them instead Yeah, this is perfect because I was gonna suggest that if you get good help from a company like Bank of America or the IRS Tweet it out. Yes, I've done it before and I even got response from Bank of America a Direct message to find out who that person was because they really wanted to think them personally. That's awesome I have been I I like shoes people. I like shoes. I'm not even gonna lie Zappos has the best customer service and I love I love to say nice things about them So yeah appreciate people appreciate companies And you know what appreciate the people that are close to you appreciate the people that you work with Appreciate as if you appreciate someone, please let them know. I appreciate all of you. You stopped through my talk. Thank you So my question was actually gonna be exactly that I'll let you be a hippie for a second How do you express gratitude in your life? And what is the appropriate mount not to sound like you're crazy? Okay, so that one I kind of probably err on the side of crazy sometimes And I admit that I try my best so in my personal life My partner is a very grumpy Man, he is very grumpy and very surly and everyone often wonders how We've got like the Mary Poppins and then the old man in the sea grump situation And people often wonder how that works out and I hope he's not watching the live stream, but it's true And so I make sure to tell him regularly Well, he is an amazing cook and he cooks for me all the time and that is one of the way that he appreciates me He knows that I work hard and he knows that cooking is exhausting me. He is appreciative of that He doesn't mind cooking. He cooks for me and then I tell him how good it is I regularly remind him that the work he's doing is really for the benefit of the community You kind of have to hone in there's like people talk about people having love languages Giving people compliments and giving people positive feedback can be a love language with my daughter She needs to hear that she's loved. She needs to hear that she is going to be okay She needs to hear that her generation can make the future a better place same with her her friends I have a really close relationship with several of my teenagers friends for some reason And I appreciate them with work. We have a kudos system But we can only give three kudos a month and so I make a point of like popping notes in slack When someone on my team does something awesome. I let them know When a checker at the grocery store is super nice to me and I didn't have to self scan I tell them how nice they are and you know how I appreciate that they smile every time I come in and I think we just have to work hard to Keep it relationally. We're like I was talking about having the relationship with the person you can always give positive feedback You know, he's give appreciation as long as you're mindful of the relationship you have with that person And I'm mindful of the fact that the drugs are downstairs Thank you guys so much