 Hello, everybody. Welcome again to the art of giving and getting feedback. I know there was a little bit of a mix-up and a printed program, so that's not where you want to be. I'm really sorry, hopefully you can still stay. But I hope that everybody will enjoy the session. Just let me introduce myself a little bit. My name is Anna Mihailova and I'm a director of technology at Kalamuna. I tend to speak really, really fast, so if I do speak fast, please raise your hand, and I will try to slow down. You also hear my lovely accent, which is my charm, because I'm from Ukraine. And so I apologize if something is a little bit unclear, also muffled by the mask, but I think we will roll with that. Very excited to be here. All right, let's dive right into the agenda. So today we will cover a few things like why the team might be underperforming, or a person might be underperforming. The fantastic four, I'll keep it as a mystery. The feedback formula, accountability dial, and how to welcome feedback as a manager or a leader. If you're not a manager or a leader, it's still relevant because you may understand how to welcome feedback from your team. All right, that's great, but before we start, please raise your hand if you absolutely love getting feedback, and this is the best thing that ever happened to you. All right, a few people, raise your hand if you feel like feedback is very stressful and you don't know how to deal with the situation. Way more, right? And do we know why? Well, usually this is because, not because people don't know how to improve, don't want to improve, don't want to grow. This is because feedback became such a stressful experience. So hopefully today we will dive into why it is stressful and how to make it less stressful for you and for people around you. So first we'll figure out why a person may not be meeting expectations. So why the team might be underperforming? Well, there are only two reasons. You may say, well, how is that two reasons? There are way more reasons. Well, that's true, but globally they all boil down to two main reasons. Reason number one is they don't know what great work means for this particular team. What that really means is they haven't understanding for great work, but they don't know specific expectations for that particular team. Let me give you an example. Let's say they're coming from a different CMS than Drupal and they used to have the different set of coding standards or, you know, different sets of requirements to paint wall if they are painters or different sets of writing curriculum if they are writers. And then they join the team. They might be doing a fantastic job according to their previous job, but they don't know the standards of your particular team. If you don't communicate those standards, they just don't know what the great work means for you and for the team. So it will take some time for them to adjust and start doing great work. So as managers or leaders or peers, it's our job to help this new person on the team to learn what great work means for the team. And for that, we need shared knowledge. So we'll talk about that today. And the second reason is the requirements of this great work don't work for their needs or values. That happens too, right? They all hear the understanding of core values or notion of core values for the companies and for the teams. And sometimes those core values just don't work for that particular individual, and it's totally fine. And in this case, the best thing you can do is basically help them find the team where the core values will meet their needs. For instance, if the core value for the team might be working late and meeting the deadlines because we just, you know, hackers, then a person who has strong values in privacy time and family and work balance, they may not fit in this team. There are people who may enjoy having this like big sports of overtime work and then rest after that, like in the startups. But that might not be for everybody. And that's totally fine. But if you're in a situation when requirements don't meet your needs or values, then that team is probably not for you. And this is okay. The point is to identify it early and work with your manager to understand if that's truly the case and what can be changed. So how to set those clear expectations? Well, as a manager, you need to over-communicate. You cannot stress it enough. It's not enough to say once in once. You need to over-communicate it and repeat it multiple times and deliver it through multiple mediums. So not just through the oral communication, but written in emails, written in wikis, in JIRA, in other company statements, in Slack, over-communicate. The more you communicate the same message, the bigger are the chances that people actually see that. Because we are so busy in a digital world, we have a lot of notifications and we're getting into notifications fatigue. And in the notification fatigue, a lot of messages are getting lost. So when you over-communicate, the idea is not to send more notifications. The idea is to provide information in a different form and in a different way so that you actually can deliver it in a format that may fit the majority of the needs of your teammates. Give examples. That's another thing of how we can clarify the expectations. It's not good to just say, create a pull request. If you don't give an example of what a good pull request looks like, then people may not know what that means. Create a good commit message. Again, give as precise examples as possible so people understand what exactly is anticipated of them. Model good behavior. So model it by yourself, leave it by the example. But also highlight when somebody on the team does it well. So if you want something to prosper, if you see somebody doing a good job, highlight that particular example and praise. You are basically getting two things resolved in this situation. You are boosting the confidence of a person who is doing it well. But you're also giving an example to the entire team of what your expectations are. And it's a very clear and precise example. And remember that common sense is not so common. I tend to tell a story. So when I first came from Ukraine to Canada, my husband and I went grocery shopping. And we really wanted milk. Day-to-day things, everybody can imagine milk, right? So we went in and there were two options. There was a big bag of milk and there was a small cardboard box of milk. And we thought, well, this big bag is three liters in a bag. So we don't have a pot big enough to pour all of the three liters from a bag. And when you open the bag, obviously, you cannot keep the milk in the bag. So we bought a cardboard box. And next week, we again went and bought a cardboard box. Every single week, the frustration was growing. It wasn't just growing, it was boiling inside. We were so frustrated that we were losing money on cardboard box milk, where we could have bought the huge bag of it and save. But we don't have a big pot. Finally, we splurged. We bought a pot. We brought it home, proud of ourselves with a big bag of milk. And we thought, yeah, now we beat the system. We opened the bag of milk and guess what? There are three small bags of milk inside this big one. So we didn't need a big pot. But it's a common sense for people who lived in Canada for generations. They saw their parents buying milk and seeing that there are three little bags inside a big one. We didn't. So the common sense wasn't so common for us. The same thing that actually somebody heard me giving similar talk and they improved it in my city. But I am sure you all were riding a bus at some point, right? And you wanted to request a stop. So to request a stop, you need to pull a yellow string or press a button. That's not how it works in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the bus stops on every single stop. So we got on a bus and the bus doesn't stop. And we need to get out. And we don't know how. And we're looking at other people and they pull in the string, but it looks really dangerous as a wire. What if somebody will call the police if we break the bus and pull the wire? So we're in anxiety, running around the bus trying to get out. Finally, like, I am brave enough. I'm pulling the wire and I learn that, yes, this is how you request a stop. Now, actually, in my city, they put a little sticker in there saying pull to request a stop. Thanks for accessibility over there. But it was really, really scary. But again, that was something that was common sense. The same we face at work. Whatever feels like common sense to you may not be common sense to your teammates, to your managers, or to your clients. So keep that in mind next time. And you're like, well, that's obvious. That may not be obvious. So clear expectations is a key. So what is the key part of the feedback cycle? Without what feedback cycle isn't possible? Who has an idea? What would be the key ingredient for the feedback? Anybody? Wild guess? Improvement is good, yeah? Any other ideas? Matrix, sure. Trust. Who said trust? Great. Yes, you're correct. Trust is the most important ingredient. Why? Well, you can avoid being blindsided by building a relationship founded in trust. That means that people will give you open feedback without hiding something or without being too cushy about it. And your direct reports can be completely honest with you because they know that you have their best interest and you care about them. So when you have trust, people know that your feedback comes from the place of care. And this is one of the most important things. And I give you an example. If you walk down the street and you see, and you wear a hoodie, just like me, right? And you see a person who is passing by and they're like, oh, your hoodie is so bad. It's like green. I hate green. Do you care? But how does it make you feel? You feel probably upset, frustrated, puzzled, but do you care to change the hoodie? Probably not. If you see your friend walking down the street and they have that, hey, Anna, I'm really happy to see you. How have you been? Oh, that hoodie, you know, green isn't your color. What's your reaction? Well, your reaction is like, oh, yeah, you know, you're right. Green, green wasn't the best choice, you know? So in this case, why the reaction is different? The substance of this feedback is exactly the same. Well, the reaction is different because you trust your friend that they care about you. And a random person on the street, well, you don't care. And that's why the feedback is difficult. So we omit this thing when we get into work settings. When we get into work setting, we expect to give feedback to our peers and to our reports and receive feedback from them. But we omit the situation that when we just meet each other, we don't have trust. We don't have relationship. At this point, feedback is not possible because you don't know intentions of these people and they don't know your intention. And in this case, we're getting in this stressful situation where we all drag feedback, we all drag performance reviews, and we don't know how to deal with them. That's because instead of focusing on the feedback and adjusting behavior, managers and reports and peers and coworkers need to focus on trust. When we focus on trust, we build the foundation for the feedback cycle. So you build your trust with your direct reports and peers. If your reports regularly bring their challenges to your attention. So when you don't need to pull teeth to get to their challenges, but you actually hear it from them on a regular basis, then it means you build trust. You also build trust if you get in critical feedback about you. You not only receiving the feedback as a manager, but you're also getting feedback about your performance from them, and you're not taking it personally. And your reports would gladly work for you again if you build trust. So how to build trust? Well, be human, relate, as I said, give examples from your work, from your life, but also relate to their challenges. When somebody brings the challenge to you, or you see their behavior, try to relate like, have you ever done something like that before? Respect and care about your person. Management is not telling what to do. It's not measuring metrics. It's caring. First and foremost, it's caring for people around you and caring for people you work with. So try to do your best to help them feel successful and fulfilled. And another thing that I try to bring home as much as possible is respect the person as a whole. What does it mean? Well, you know, sometimes when we do a fantastic job, our managers are really happy that you did a great job. It's awesome. We launched this site. This client is very happy and it's so easy to be excited about this particular thing. And when a person has a down day, we all do, suddenly the praise goes away and we are not, you know, as appreciated anymore in some situations. But at the end of the day, we are not one small win or big win. We are not a mistake. We are a person with complicated needs and feelings and challenges. So we need to be accepted as a whole and appreciated as a whole. And that means that we create an environment where we accommodate each other needs and strengthen each other's strengths, right? So when we start thinking of a person not based on what they deliver or not deliver on a team, but as a human being that brings diversity and perspective to your team, the vision changes and your appreciation for these people changes as well. Invest time in your direct reports and if you are not a manager, ask your manager for the time with you because time is the essential ingredient to build trust and connection because it removes proximity bias and you're able to actually build bridges, especially in remote environments. Admit your mistakes. Nobody's perfect. So if you made a mistake, make it clear that it's okay to admit the mistake. I had a situation at one of my employment where I was working with a junior developer and I asked them to style, to debug a style problem, right? And that style problem was written in an error message on the screen, a Drupal error message, I'm sure a lot of you have seen, and I asked them to debug and remove that. And they did. When I looked at the code, the reason how they did it, they put display none on the message. So the message was gone, but you know, the problem wasn't solved. And I asked why they felt the need to hide the message instead of reach out for help and help them debug it. And they didn't feel like they had an opportunity to admit that they didn't have a knowledge to debug and solve it. And how do we create a safe space? Well, by admitting your own mistakes. If a leader or a senior person on the team shows that this is okay to show that you don't know everything, that you may make a mistake, then it creates a safe place for everybody else to admit their mistakes. And be transparent about performance. Not about just performance of your direct report, but about your performance if true. If you drop the ball, say so. Explain that you did and say what you are doing to adjust it. That will create a foundation that having some hiccups is okay. And as long as we work on it together, we can solve that. So why is it even important? Trust and relationship can't you not just have a feedback sandwich a formula? Well, it's important because our actions and emotions are powered by hormones in our brain. And trust is actually one of the factors, one of the most powerful factors that we will see right now, that powers one of those hormones that create very positive feelings, accountability, and connections on the team. So what are those hormones? I call them fantastic four because they're really fantastic. And they've been with us since humans were running around chasing animals and hunting. So one of them are endorphins. So why do they exist? Well, exist to help mask pain. If you're a developer, you know that you've been debugging for a while or if you like work longer hours, you've been working on overworking yourself, but you just keep going sometimes. And that's because you don't feel physical strain or pain when you're in the flow, when you're trying to solve something. So endorphins help with that. In our past, when our ancestors, as I said, were chasing animals and hunting, that helped them to actually change the animal and not come back without food. So they mask pain so that you can get to your goal. Then they also released when you left, and they help you with your endurance. However, endorphins, as they call it, are selfish chemical. What that means is it's short lasting and it's very selfish. It's for you specifically, not for everybody else. And dopamine, this is the scariest one because a lot of developers in particular are kind of addicted to dopamine. Why? Well, that is a release of satisfaction when the task is done. So again, if you've been debugging for a very, very long time or solving something for a very long time and you've finally done, this is dopamine. The problem is dopamine is highly addictive and short lasting. So for instance, I'll give you an example. There is this popular tool called tacos and we use it too. And I'm not saying tacos are inherently wrong. I'm just giving you an example of dopamine. When a new developer joins our team and they learn about tacos, they're very happy. Oh my god, this is a taco. Then they get their first tacos and they over the moon. I usually get a lot of messages saying, oh my god, I got my first taco. This is incredible. And they feel really, really happy for a very, very short period of time. That's the dopamine got out. So they completed their onboarding task or the first task and they got a taco. Now they released something else and they got one taco. They're not as excited anymore. They want two tacos or three tacos. And soon enough, people start giving them more tacos and they obviously excited and they're not excited. And soon tacos are like, I got tacos. And that's because you cannot continuously increase any reward to fulfill the dopamine. But we as developers get very addicted to that because basically all day long, what we do are completing tasks. You know, we submitting Gira tickets, we merging pull requests, we fulfilling clients requirements and all of that supposed to release dopamine. But after some time, after you become intermediate developer, senior developer, you cannot get enough dopamine. And this is where people get an in burn out and disengaged. So teams that are highly focused on dopamine and under things, they have short lasting successes, but then it's really hard to maintain the same level of performance. So how do you actually overcome those? Well, you focus on two other hormones. Serotonin is the first one, which is a leadership chemical. So it gets released when people like and respect us. And it's supposed to be a genuine feeling of like of respect. So that happens when somebody is sharing in the team setting some positive feedback about us. We get serotonin. It makes us feel strong and confident because again, in the past, strong and confident leaders were able to chase the animals and get the mammoths to the tribe to eat. And it is released when we feel valued. And also when we put forth something that makes good for others. So it helps us contribute to the success of the team, not to our success personally necessarily. So it's a selfless chemical. And it's very long lasting. It also creates a way to responsibility when somebody did something good for us. So if your manager is investing their energy in you and your professional development in your growth as an individual, you have responsibility, you get in a feeling of responsibility to perform well because they invested in yourself and in your growth. So if you want other people on your team to naturally have responsibility and accountability, invest time in them, boost their serotonin so they feel strong and confident and then it will automatically boost the performance. And next to it goes actually to speak about leadership. Who has an idea what is the definition of a leader or top performer? There are some misconceptions. Who wants to try? Who is the top performer on the team? Good option. Any other suggestions? Leader makes top performance. Another great suggestion. Anybody else? Most efficient? Yes. So those are all things that you said. This is a perception that media culture and performance growth culture makes us to believe. When I was in one of my jobs, originally more like a junior person, I was very surprised that I didn't have any formal role and I didn't have any formal title, but people were just naturally starting following me and listening to my opinions, asking for my advice and supporting my ideas and I was very surprised. So what made them feel that I was a leader even though I was in a junior role and not having any titles? Well later on I learned in the research that we consider subconsciously, not as you noticed voiced, but subconsciously human beings consider leaders in top performance the ones who work the hardest to help others succeed. So what I was doing in the junior role, I was helping people. They needed a snippet of code. I gave them a snippet of code. They wanted a body to debug with them. I would stand next to them and help debug. I would stay a little bit later to help somebody who was struggling and staying late. So by the time when I didn't have this research, I thought that I was just kind. Later I understood that I was just the strongest supportive person in the group and that made me a leader. So a person who is willing to sacrifice time and energy so others can gain, this person becomes an unofficial leader. Yes, they may be efficient. They obviously have great skills and other things, but ultimately the group will think of a leader, a person who protects and sacrifices themselves for the best of the group because at the end of the day, again from the past, we wanted a leader to chase that moment and get us food. So oxytocin, it's a less chemical that we will discuss today. It's chemical of strong bond and everybody says, well, it's a chemical of love. Yes, but it's also a chemical of friendship and deep trust. So again, if you boost amount of oxytocin on your team, then that builds trust and trust, as we noticed, the feedback flourishes. So how do we do it? Well, it is released when we do something nice for others, but it's also released when others do something nice for us. It also helps because it is contagious. What does it mean? Well, if you walk down the street and you see somebody fall and you see another person come and help them to get up and get their belongings back, you are more likely to also help somebody this day because in watching somebody doing this act of care, it released oxytocin in yourself and you are more likely to help somebody else. That's why those chains and popular YouTube and TikTok videos happen, like I pay for the person behind me and then you see the person behind you going into the drive-thru and they pay in again and then again and again and this is how those chains work because they are releasing oxytocin. Oxytocin is also long lasting, meaning that if you saw something in the morning, the act of generosity, then it's more likely to last you a day or even a couple of days depending on how big that act of generosity was. So if you want to boost oxytocin on your team, brainstorm with them how you can demonstrate acts of generosity. It's very easy in the office. It's hard in the remote environment, but you can brainstorm together and figure out how to show other people that their teammates and leaders helping others to succeed. All right, well, there is one evil player in this hormone chain and this evil player can destroy all of these effects of those four chemicals that may help with feedback. Does anybody know what's the evil hormone that can destroy all the relationship? Yeah, that's correct. That's a cortisol. It's a first level of fight of light response. Well, first of all, when we are flooded with cortisol, it decreases creativity. It also increases aggression. So if you feel people actually starting arguing or bickering on the team, chances are they are scared. It can also cause permanent damage to our health system and it also increases our feeling of stress and makes us feel unsupported. If your team feels a lot of cortisol, this is the first time to do a performance review because they are not going to go well and it also reduces immune system. So if you notice in that your team suddenly all get sick and I'm not talking about global pandemic, but you see, say, you know, you're on a deadline and suddenly one person is calling sick and another person is calling sick and you're like, are you all just playing this together? No, they're probably stressed and cortisol reduced the immune system defense and that's what happened. So try to minimize the effects of cortisol and distress the situation. All right, so now that we understand what's happening on a biological in our brain, let's talk about how can we make things better? So we make things better by building psychological safety. So psychological safety in a format of we just discussed is increased serotonin and exotazine and decreased cortisol. So how can we do that? Well, we built a feedback culture. The feedback culture is something that is part of your team culture that doesn't make feedback an occasional stressful situation. So you need to set expectations early that feedback will be part of your day-to-day routine. So you can start your interviews as early as meeting a candidate and explaining them that people who excel in this particular team, they ask for feedback often, they share their feedback frequently and directly and they look for opportunities to learn and grow. It helps to set a baseline and expectations. And again, if somebody is not open to that level of feedback, they may understand that their needs are not being met in this particular team and not joined. And that's totally fine. How to foster it on your team? Well, create a template in your one-on-one where it allows for feedback. In our one-on-ones, we have the whole section. The majority of the meeting is actually spent on feedback. And feedback goes both ways from the manager to an employee and from the employee to the manager and also from the employee to the employee to themselves. And that's happening every week. It helps us reflect on how the previous week went and also understand where we can help each other. It also creates zero surprises when performance review comes and it actually makes feedback not stressful or as least stressful as possible because it happens frequently. So it's not a big deal. I have a conversation about something. It's just part of the routine. And the routine reduces the amount of courses all. We have retrospectives and debriefs. So when you launch something and release something, have retrospects. Allow people to speak about what went well and where we can grow. And if you do it all the time on all the projects, it again stops being a big deal and allows people to speak more freely and openly. Establish feedback expectations with no surprises. So you can't just say in the morning on Monday, like now we're giving feedback to everybody. People will be really upset. It will be unexpected. Try to make it as no surprises and set the expectations how, when, why and how often they're going to receive feedback. Will they have an opportunity to review it in advance? Will they have an opportunity to respond to it? Will they have an opportunity to give you a feedback back? Communicate it early to your team. And have it really built in in your day to day routine. Train all of your employees if possible on how to give feedback. Even if you can have a very big course, at least have a little bit of a webinar, a team meeting, a small presence that help other people understand how to deliver useful feedback. And develop user reminders for the feedback so that people remember to give feedback, to praise each other and to help other people grow. So let's talk about feedback formula. And if you're thinking about feedback sandwich, no, please do not use feedback sandwich. It does not work. To make your feedback as direct as useful as possible, first we need to make it actionable. What does it mean? Make it very specific. What I mean by very specific? Well, it doesn't matter if it is negative or positive feedback. It just needs to be specific. Basically, if I say, oh, you did a great job, that's not useful. Because what does it mean great? What makes my job great? Or did I do specifically to make it great? And how do I replicate it so that next time I do a great job again? If I say instead, you know, this function was very elegant, it had more than code, it was following coding standards, and it had comments, so everything is clear and somebody else can read through your code, then it's more specific and the person can understand what is valued on this particular team. Do not pad. And that's what I said about the feedback sandwich. It doesn't work. It decreases clarity and we don't want to do that. Everybody knows what's coming and it's just not direct and it's not sincere. So when you pad or have a feedback sandwich, you're protecting yourself, but you're not making a favor to a person you deliver feedback to. And another thing is give it once and move on. What I mean by that is, you know, you can tell a person like, oh, well, there was a corporate event and you came in flip flop and wearing shorts and it wasn't our dress code. That's fine. A person got your critique and maybe they're dressing well now. So on the next retreat, don't say, hey, remember when this Bob came in the flip flop? That was funny. And the next retreat in two years like, hey, by the way, remember when somebody showed up in flip flops? That's not good. It's not helpful. And the person is just stopped trusting you because you're bashing the feedback over and over again. And try to include impact statements. So when you're being told somebody, nobody is enjoying when somebody is telling them what to do. So when you telling them like, we need this and that, have an impact statement. Why is it important? How it influences others and the team? Because without an impact statement, it's unclear why is it actually a big deal. And if you find yourself that you're not able to figure out an impact statement, then stop and ask yourself, do I need to give this piece of feedback? Because if there is no impact for the team, then maybe this is just something that you don't like, but it doesn't actually have an impact. And maybe you just need to let it go. Make feedback balanced. What I mean by that is we all attuned to criticism and we are less attuned to the praise. So you need to work on noticing what people do well and strengthen their strengths. If we are focused, unlike popular belief, if you're focusing on our weaknesses, we're actually omitting the opportunity to strengthen our strengths. Let me explain. If somebody is a fantastic runner, and they're running really well, like Usain Bolt, he is a fantastic sprinter, and he's focusing on this 100 meter sprint distance. If his coach would come and say, now trained for the marathon, would he be able to do it? Sure. Will he be as good as the top marathon runner? Probably not, because his strength is speed, not endurance. So if we are focusing on other person's weaknesses and trying to only work on them, we are denying them an opportunity to grow even better and become super successful in the things, in the areas of their strengths. But you also don't want people to just, you know, fixing their weaknesses. Because we are so diverse, we are such a diverse community now, and with a lot of people working remotely, chances are there is somebody on your team already who doesn't have this weakness, and they have that as a strength. So balance it out and work together instead of making somebody focusing on their weaknesses and never having time to work on their strengths. I'm not saying don't correct bad behavior. I'm saying try to have a balance for you. And remember that when you give the critical feedback, you don't like the behavior, not the person. So you need to appreciate and like the person and respect the person that works with you, regardless of the behavior they exhibit. Because we are not defined by our behaviors. And a person deserves kindness and respect because they choose to spend their life with your team. Always keeping in mind before you're delivering any feedback. And that somebody chose to spend part of their life and sometimes significant part of their life with you. And that deserves respect. Have a balanced dialogue. So don't have it as a presentation. Have a dialogue. Ask questions. Ask for their perspective. Don't judge and don't argue. When you offer it for their perspective, listen. Listen to their answers and their position. So what are the qualities of good feedback? Well, good feedback is frequent. So again, it's not a one-year adventure where you're like, oh, hello, performance review. No, it happens frequently. It is precise and clear. It's actionable. So again, if, for example, somebody tells me, well, you know, you really need to work on your accent, that might be a great feedback. It's also very precise. It's not actionable. I cannot do anything about it other than, you know, turn the clock a little bit backwards and be born in a different country. But, you know, it's not actionable. So when you deliver feedback, figure out how a person can work on that. Make it objective and behavior focused. Again, don't focus on the person. Focus on behavior you want to change. Avoid bias and blur. Those are very difficult ones. But again, if you haven't talked to the person for a very, very long period of time, you don't interact on a day-to-day basis, check. Do you have proximity bias? Has somebody else influenced your opinion about them? And this is why you deliver the feedback? Can you reconnect with the person before you deliver the feedback? The same is your biological bias. Don't go and deliver feedback or have critical conversations when you are tired, stressed or hungry, especially if you're hungry. If you're hungry, you are not able to focus on the message you're focusing on your biological needs. So attend to your needs first before you deliver feedback. And don't blur. Basically, make it as clear as possible, as direct as possible with examples so they understand what you're trying to convey. And suggest productive behavior, but don't impose the productive behavior. Offer them a couple of ways and see what they think about it, and agree on good steps. Okay. So after that, what is the formula in action? Well, you can start with the situation, like I noticed and I observed. I noticed I observed always makes it more objective than personal. Then state the behavior, then state an impact, then reflect and allow them to give their perspective and set the expectation. For example, let's say I have an employee named Jane and I say, Jane, I noticed you missed our weekly stand-up three times in a row. And the team noticed that you are not there and they feel in like you are not interested in the participating and connecting with the team that makes them worried that you are disengaged and they can't build the trust with you. What happened on your end? Does the time not work for you? And then Jane explains to me what happened and they may say something like, oh, I didn't mention, but I have to take my kids to work. Oh, that's fine. Would it be possible for us to find the time that we could potentially reschedule the team stand-up so it works for your schedule and for everybody else in the team? Or you can set a clear boundary that we require you to be present in the meeting. What do you think can be done for that to happen? Agree on the next steps and follow up. Don't leave feedback hanging, even if it was a good feedback. So for instance, if I tell somebody you had a very good week yesterday or last week, you delivered a lot of issues. The clients were very happy in this particular instances and you planned a great next sprint. Next week I will also look in the sprint and see if it's still going well and we can reflect together if it's not. And usually we can celebrate the span of multiple sprints going really well because we keep coming back to the areas of success. The same with something that doesn't follow up and make sure that the next steps you agreed upon are still working. So if you offer it a productive steps and things are still not working, follow up and ask why they are not working. Now that you both iterate it and try them out, what is the feedback on the steps? All right. Let's say you tried everything and things are really not working. This is where we employ a accountability dial. That was developed by the management coach Jonathan Raymond. You can find his book online and I love it a lot because it gives this progressive escalation of the matter. So it usually starts with a mention. To give you back to this Jane example, usually if let's say an employee would miss a couple check-ins, not a big deal, but I would casually check in and ask if they were all right. So I would start like that. Hey Jane, I noticed you were not in a team meeting. Is there anything going on? Anything I can help you with? And they would usually say, well, I had to take my kids to school. They're like, oh great, are they all right? Yeah. Well, does the time still work for you next week? Yeah, that does work, absolutely. Okay, great. That would be the mention. So no stress. You pointed out there was some other expectations and they were not met. That's okay. Let's say next week, Jane also didn't show up to the team meeting. This is the time for a private chat. So you can either do it like in Slack or whatever messaging you use or have in person, but just don't make it superficial. Have a private chat, set more serious expectations. Hey, Jane, I noticed two weeks in a row, you are missing a team meeting. This is becoming very impactful on a team because they expect you to be there and they want updates from you. Is there something happening on your end? Anything I can adjust on our way to make it work for you? Let's say Jane said everything was fine. And next week, again, Jane didn't show up to the team meeting. This is the time when you create a conversation. So that would be an actual calendar invite. You will sit down and express the urgency of the matter. You express to her the full impact statement. You express your expectations that it is part of her job responsibilities to be at the meeting and ask for this next step. So that entire feedback formula usually in full fits in this conversation because it's more official. Let's say next week comes, Jane still didn't show up to the team meeting. This is a warning conversation. And that usually could be either with HR or as a manager because you are getting in this kind of danger zone. With the full disclaimer, the majority of people stop on step three and correct the behavior. So it's very out of an ordinary when people wouldn't be stopping at the conversation. So if the boundary is necessary, this is where you have a full warning conversation, your layout consequences, everything is documented and you help the person to get to next steps that would make them successful. And the last one is the limit. Let's say Jane still didn't show up to the meetings. This is a sign that probably things are not going to work out. Now again, it's not a termination conversation. It's just the limit that you will not have these conversations anymore. And if this continues to happen, then you have to part way, but you still give the opportunity to the person to adjust. So this is the last chance to adjust the behavior or at least show the attempts to adjust the behavior. But it's not all about you giving the feedback. It's also about you receiving the feedback. So how do you welcome feedback as a manager? Well, listen. The first thing you can do is just listen. My best managers in my entire career are the ones who were able to just sit down and listen when I was talking and asking other problem questions because they were able to understand that I had the courage to come to them and they appreciated me coming to them. Another thing that I didn't really understand before, but when I was a junior, I used to ask something like, why are our team does this? Why are our team does that? And before I got an answer from my manager, they would say, what made you think of it? And originally it was driving me nuts. I was really upset about that. But now I understand the reason why they were asking it is to dig deeper. Was there a root cause that would make me think of it, that I am not voicing in this particular question? So is there something else, a bigger process that is not working? Stay human. Again, relate and admit your mistakes. There is no try. I'm quoting Yoda here because if you promised something to your direct reports and you said, I will follow up or I will get this information for you, act on it and follow up with your direct report. The worst scenario could be, I will get this information for you and then you'll never come back to them. Even if you don't have an answer, come back to them and say, look, I talked to the leadership or I asked our HR or legal department and they are looking into that. And make it your to-do, follow up with those departments until you get the answer so that your direct report doesn't get hanging and they understand that the feedback they brought to you is valued, heard and acted upon. Give the space. So create an opportunity to welcome this feedback. It's intimidating to ask for feedback. If you ask feedback like that, I'll do have any feedback for me. The majority of time you would hear, no, not really, you're doing great. So to ease things out and to build this relationship with your direct reports or peers, you need to ask more specific questions. Do something like, hey, look, I'm really working on this improvement of giving more compliments. What do you think I can be doing to highlight more compliments to the team? And then in this situation it's less intimidating to give you feedback and create a shared space. The team needs to celebrate successes and struggles together, which will create a psychological safety and a space for everybody to understand that everybody is struggling or everybody has ups and downs. So that could be done in a quick stand-up when everybody shares what went well in the week, what didn't go well and how we can move forward together. Especially in remote environments, it's important to build those connections. And that's all I wanted to share with you today. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. If not, you can connect with us on social media and ask there. Thank you very much. Any questions? Yeah. So the question is, as a junior person, how can we build the connection with our managers to ask for better feedback when they might be busy? That's a great question. Well, ask them to, you know, ask them for a coffee chat, explain that feedback is important to you, ask for feedback on particular pull requests, ask for feedback in a JIRA comments and something, and just learn what works for them. Different people prefer different means of communication. Some prefer region, some prefer quick chat. Learn what works for them. It's okay to ask what works for them. Don't guess. And if they say, oh, look, yes, if you want, I can draw a quick comment on a code review or I can put something in JIRA for you. And that works. Just continue working on it. Open up and build the relationship, build the trust so they understand that you really want to grow. And that will help you to find the ways that would work for you and for them to deliver that feedback. Yeah. So the comment from the audience was to have an office hours or coffee hours where everybody can ask for feedback in a designated time and have one-on-ones for people to connect if they don't want to bring something in public. Any other questions? Yeah. So the question is what to do with these contractors and staff augmentation people who are not necessarily part of your team, but you have to work with them and they're underperforming. So it depends on what side of a staff org you are. So if you are the one who is the manager of people who are on a staff org, if budget allows and your organization allows, I recommend treating them as fully as possible as part of your team. So again, having the same one-on-ones, having such clear expectations so they don't feel as they are additions to your team or not necessarily involved. So if you can involve them in those 15-meter scrims where you create this shared reality of successes and struggles, do that. If you can invite them into those coffee hours or office hours, do that. If you can have a very quick one-on-ones, even if they are shorter and not as frequent as with your direct reports, have them so that they understand that they are valued here and they are not here to just kind of buy the duties. They're here to deliver value and they appreciate, they still need to feel appreciated even though they are not necessarily full-time employees of your company. If you are part of a staff org and you feel disconnected, reach out to people you work with, to the manager and say, look, I'm really working well when I feel connected as a part of the team. What can we do together to make me feel a little bit more integrated? Yeah, so the comment was also involved their vendor or their supervisor from another company into the performance conversations. Yeah, no, that's a good question. So the question was what if you are on the same level? How do you approach a person? Do you go to their manager? Do you go to them directly? How do you talk to them? Well, and again, the answer would be first build the relationship. Don't just approach them directly if you don't have close relationships. If they don't, like if the only time you talk to them is with this particular situation, then it's probably not going to go overly well. So try to build the relationship and trust. And then if you feel comfortable and safe, I recommend always going directly to the person. But first hear their needs out. Start with the situation. So like, I noticed that you are not tying your shoes. I was just wondering what's the story behind it. And then let them speak and maybe they have a very reason, reason about why they are not tying the shoes and your concern is actually elevated right after that. If that's not, you can actually point out like, Oh, you know, you may trip over your shoelaces. I heard that if you tie them like that, you know, it will be better for you. Do we need any help with that? Or like, you know, is there anything I can do to help you with that and see how they react? But usually when you hear their story and they feel hurt, they will be more open to your suggestions. Any other questions? Yeah, Mike, I'm okay if you don't make a cube. Mike is asking why what will happen if your boss gives you an impossible task? Tell your boss that you cannot complete the task and you can both decide who else can help you with this task.