B-Side: Feedback is Non-Negotiable

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;17;20

Patrick Campbell

What I don't think we realize is that feedback is hard to take when it grates against the stories that we tell ourselves about our strengths and weaknesses. And as a provider of feedback, we need to be cognizant of the times that we're giving feedback to someone that respects us about something that they hold dear about their identity.

00;00;19;09 - 00;00;45;21

Ben Hillman

From proper well recur. Its Protect the hustle where we explore the truth behind the strategy and tactics of B2B SaaS growth to make you an outstanding operator. On today's episode, we're diving deep on feedback how we use it to build greatness, the personal and emotional side, the foundations of feedback and why feedback is non-negotiable. Patrick Take it away.

00;00;48;23 - 00;01;08;11

Patrick Campbell

Welcome back to another episode of Protect the Hustle. The B-sides of what you're hearing is Patrick Campbell, co-founder of Profit. Well, and these B-sides, for those of you don't know, those of you are joining me and a lot of people join up last week basically in order for us and myself to kind of learn in public so that we all can become, you know, better B2B SaaS operators.

00;01;08;11 - 00;01;26;17

Patrick Campbell

And so we go through some different topics each week. Some of the topics are a lot more tactical data that I've kind of worked on, and some of those are a little bit more, we'll call it executive development, things about feedback that we're going to talk about today or ways to think or ways to kind of align your principles and these types of things.

00;01;26;17 - 00;01;45;18

Patrick Campbell

And so if you're not on the email, if you're only listening to this on a podcast form, would encourage you to go to the hustle dot com, sign up for the email list, you get all the materials, everything in written form, you can still listen and we're still going to do the audio version, but it's more of like sometimes you reference, you know, a bunch of different things that you can kind of forward your team or to yourself.

00;01;45;18 - 00;02;04;15

Patrick Campbell

For. A reminder, before we get into the main topic, we're going to be talking about feedback today. But before we get into that, let's go through a couple of housekeeping items. Praful is now SOC to certifying all of our products, which Wu Spring break is exciting. I don't know if it's an exciting. It was a really fun experience.

00;02;04;15 - 00;02;28;28

Patrick Campbell

I'll sarcasm intended and basically what this means if you don't know what that means is we got audited and accredited you know security expert oversimplifying this sounds really reputable, but we got accredited we got audited by an accredited kind of security expert, and then they certified us as SOC two, which is, you know, the highest security standard in the market right now or one of the highest.

00;02;29;08 - 00;02;46;10

Patrick Campbell

I'm sure there's a security researcher who might quibble with that, depending on what you ask. But it's kind of the most widespread one that software companies typically get. But it just means that, you know, we aren't kind of putting security on the back burner, but it's actually a high priority for us. And as a data company, you know, of course that needs to be the case.

00;02;46;23 - 00;03;04;19

Patrick Campbell

But I'm bringing this up not only to just be like, Hey, this thing that we went through says we're, you know, not idiots and we actually know what we're doing. But also because it was an interesting process, like none of our competitors have done this. So it's a little bit of a tougher decision because there were some market reasons we did it, but it wasn't because of, you know, kind of a, Oh, everyone has this.

00;03;04;19 - 00;03;24;22

Patrick Campbell

We have to have it too. So if you want like a breakdown of the process, you're curious about anything involved with that, Let me know. It was a really good experience and I'm really glad we did it for a whole host of reasons. But I don't know if it's interesting to share that from kind of a business perspective rather than from, you know, kind of a technological perspective which has been shared all over the place by many different companies.

00;03;24;22 - 00;03;43;25

Patrick Campbell

So let me know just by replying to the email. Also, we're looking for someone to lead our middle of the funnel, like our business development team. So kind of our VTR specialist team, as we call them here at Profile. Well, if you know someone who's kind of gone from not 0 to 1 because now we have an established team, we didn't have that basically 6 to 9 months ago.

00;03;43;25 - 00;04;01;22

Patrick Campbell

But if you're looking for someone who wants to go from kind of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 in terms of like steps, so not step zero one, step one through ten, that would be awesome. We're looking to scale that team pretty rapidly, so it'd be awesome to have an introduction. We're hiring in our Salt Lake Boston or even our ROZARIO office, depending on where someone is.

00;04;02;04 - 00;04;17;13

Patrick Campbell

And also I was thinking of doing an AMA episode for Protect the Hustle, if that would be interesting to you, just reply here with questions. I would love to kind of dig into some things and also just appreciate all the social shares on last week's post. It was a good signal from us. We're kind of measuring our success or failure by replies and shares.

00;04;17;13 - 00;04;34;12

Patrick Campbell

So if you're enjoying this, share it. Please get more folks into the fold and of course reply with, you know, any feedback at all. So I want to make sure that this is useful for everybody. But with that, let's talk about feedback. And feedback is one of those things that we all think we're good at giving and receiving.

00;04;34;29 - 00;04;53;18

Patrick Campbell

But oftentimes, you know that that kind of sentiment ends up being, you know, unintentionally hollow. You know, we have good intentions, don't get me wrong, but we know that the only way to get better is through feedback. The only way our teams get better is through feedback. But in most companies, we end up fearing kind of retribution of giving feedback, or that we're going to end up sounding too mean.

00;04;53;18 - 00;05;13;29

Patrick Campbell

And so basically politics ends up taking over feedback, essentially, and this becomes this contagion amongst a team. We kind of self-fulfilling culture where everyone kind of wants feedback and craves feedback, but we don't really seek it or give it. And the wheel kind of turns and no one gets better. Atrophy ends up setting in and then failure follows quickly thereafter.

00;05;14;14 - 00;05;38;22

Patrick Campbell

And what's really interesting is when we look at profile, well, we have found that we overindex on this kind of axiom or plank within our principle platform because we say, and we believe your feedback is non-negotiable. And we've had plenty of people come to us from different places because of the feedback culture, only to realize just how dramatically a feedback culture can be.

00;05;39;04 - 00;06;11;12

Patrick Campbell

You know, in terms of how dramatically different it is compared to kind of a corporate environment. And so it's been a learning experience over the years because we essentially respond to, you know, this by doing a lot of coaching or trying to do a lot of coaching. But even then it can be really taxing for folks. And I've been thinking about this past couple of weeks because we're in the middle of this kind of step level change a profile well, where, you know, if we take a step back, it probably started, you know, three or four months ago and it's probably going to go for another three or four months, if not longer, depending on

00;06;11;12 - 00;06;34;06

Patrick Campbell

what looks like. And that's just part of growth. But it also doesn't mean it's all sunshine and rainbows. And so instead, you know, there's a lot of feedback flowing in all directions, which is really, really good, but it can also be taxing. And so I find myself coming back and forth to this, you know, kind of internal memo that we're going to talk about today, you know, where we talk about feedback being non-negotiable.

00;06;34;06 - 00;07;06;11

Patrick Campbell

And this is basically a centralization of our thoughts around feedback and so we do these internal memos that basically act as kind of a bill of rights for our culture. So if you think about it kind of like the US Constitution, US Bill of Rights, it's like we have these central documents that don't necessarily like account for every situation or 1% chance situations, but basically ensures that, you know, you have a starting place for if you're being recruited, you're in, you're onboarding, you're developing as a leader, as a team member, all of these different things.

00;07;06;11 - 00;07;21;04

Patrick Campbell

And so we have these like, you know, internal memos. You know, the goal is to have one for every single one of our axioms. We're not there yet and then probably have like a podcast or something like that. And then, you know, I've gotten some feedback of also talking about these kind of in the context of decisions and things like that.

00;07;21;17 - 00;07;37;29

Patrick Campbell

And so it's been kind of interesting. And this one was not our most controversial one, but it's not the easiest to accept by a lot of folks and so want to share it with all with you. Authorship on this is shared by both Peters, Otto and Facundo here at Provo. Well, as well as myself, we publish these as a group.

00;07;38;05 - 00;07;55;03

Patrick Campbell

So some of us, you know, we end up doing more of the writing than others, but we publish everything as a group just because we want to be kind of that unified front as a team. But, you know, with that, let's talk about feedback being non-negotiable. So if we kind of start from first principles here, you know, nothing is more crucial to success than feedback, right?

00;07;55;12 - 00;08;14;11

Patrick Campbell

That's the bedrock of sanding down kind of our rough ideas and prickly traits in order to kind of smooth us forward with momentum. Feedback can be uncomfortable, though, right? It can be uncomfortable to give. It can be comfortable to receive. And that probably put the stake in the ground that no matter the discomfort, the act of giving and receiving feedback is non-negotiable.

00;08;14;24 - 00;08;40;24

Patrick Campbell

And so we're exploring that basically in this memo. And so whenever we're writing these memos, we want to really, really start with the why as much as humanly possible. And so we did that here, where feedback is the means through which we build something great. That's the next section here. And we talk about this like allegory, and there's been a lot of versions of this allegory, but a really good one is basically of, you know, the photography professor who splits his students into two groups.

00;08;41;10 - 00;09;03;06

Patrick Campbell

One group was instructed to work on one photo for the entire semester or like one actual photo, while the other was basically instructed to work on a new photo every single day. And both groups were allowed to solicit as much feedback from the professor as they wished. And so at the end of the semester, what's really interesting is the group that shot a photo every single day, they produced noticeably better photos.

00;09;03;23 - 00;09;25;15

Patrick Campbell

And it's because the repetition and feedback they received from those repetitions allowed them to get incrementally better every single day. Now, the group that only had one photo, they did improve over the semester, but they were only able to get feedback on ideas rather than actual work. And that's the important point there. The distinction of not only ideas but also the actual work happening.

00;09;25;29 - 00;09;54;06

Patrick Campbell

And as we all try to improve, we need to do as many reps and sets of what we're trying to achieve and then reflect on those reps and sets to make sure that we're moving in the right direction. When it comes to feedback, reflection is the key. After every attempt, after every, you know, new thing that you're doing, you can observe what what well, what didn't go well and what you're going to do differently next time to optimize further this introspective feedback mix with how successful you were in your pursuit.

00;09;54;06 - 00;10;14;19

Patrick Campbell

It helps you get better. And of course, you can also receive feedback from others with a different perspective, which then will compound your development further. Feedback is the only way to get better quickly because it improves the quality of and shortens the cycle to doing something great and the discomfort and time that feedback takes. Those are the prices that we pay for trying to be better.

00;10;15;01 - 00;10;47;17

Patrick Campbell

It's ultimately part of the journey. Now, I think all of us can agree intellectually. Feedback is great. Feedback is important. The issue becomes that even though those things are the case, feedback is tough and it's kind of tough by design. But that doesn't make it easier. It's tough because it's personal and it's emotional. And if you think about the feedback that you received in your career, some of that critical feedback probably just kind of cut you right through the heart and some of that positive feedback probably fueled you for days, depending on the source and depending on what it was talking about.

00;10;48;02 - 00;11;10;08

Patrick Campbell

It's a spectrum, but the continuum ends can be really, really extreme. Not all feedback is hard to take, though, if you think about it. So if you think about some of the critical feedback that you can easily accept, it's typically that feedback that you've come to terms with, no matter the gravity right? When people call me a curmudgeon, some of you don't know me personally, but I'm kind of a curmudgeon, you know, a pragmatist, but also an idealist.

00;11;10;08 - 00;11;33;18

Patrick Campbell

And it's a really weird combination to have because some days you're like everything sucks, and other days you're like, We're going to figure it out. Right now. It's not a positive kind of indication about me, but I'd have no problem accepting, right? Because I've kind of come to terms with, you know, that's kind of how I'm wired. But feedback is hard to take when it grates against the stories that we tell ourselves about our strengths and weaknesses.

00;11;33;18 - 00;11;56;15

Patrick Campbell

If Peter, for instance, told for Kuno that he was doing a deadlift like completely incorrectly in his form was off, you know, Cirkunov probably would have a hard time listening to that feedback because Facundo does deadlifts, you know, every single week, whereas Peter hasn't done a deadlift since college. Now Fuku could easily ignore Peter because who clearly knows more in this instance.

00;11;56;28 - 00;12;20;18

Patrick Campbell

Yet if Peter went to Facundo and said, Hey, you're a poor leader, something as vague and general as that, there really isn't clear expertise there. It's a little bit more of an amorphous concept. You need to get a little bit more specific. And also Faker respects Peter, so this would be much more difficult to hear. So as a provider of feedback, we need to be cognizant of the times that we're giving feedback to someone that respects us.

00;12;20;18 - 00;12;40;10

Patrick Campbell

And if we want everyone to respect us obviously, but also about something that they hold dearly about their identity and as a recipient of this type of feedback, we need to do our best to check our ego through cultivating healthy self esteem and of course embrace the beginners mindset where all feedback is a gift to get better. Feedback ultimately is going to hurt.

00;12;40;10 - 00;13;01;19

Patrick Campbell

Sometimes you're going to take it personally, and that's just because you want to do a good job. You're not going to want to give it. You're not going to want to give feedback because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. And while seemingly well-intentioned, the higher aim is to make everyone better. And of course, the only way to do that is through feedback.

00;13;01;19 - 00;13;25;13

Patrick Campbell

Now, when is feedback easier? How do we make feedback easier for our teams and even for ourselves? Well, feedback is easier when it you know it's from a source that cares. When you put feedback at the center of your principles as a company as we've done, and we reward those who, you know, constantly get feedback, I think we don't always realize this, we know this intellectually, but we always do the work of, Hey, that's only the beginning.

00;13;26;02 - 00;13;44;29

Patrick Campbell

We also need to make sure that those who are receiving feedback know the provider cares. This gets into the whole concept of having, you know, a psychologically safe environment where, yes, critical feedbacks flow and left and right and center and everywhere in every direction in between. But ultimately that those people know that it's not something that's, you know, attacking them.

00;13;44;29 - 00;14;04;12

Patrick Campbell

It's something that's there to help them in. The best way to do that is you got to build relationships, deeper relationships allow us to understand and respect each other's triggers. You're then able to give feedback at the levels the relationship supports. Because Facundo and I, we've been working together for a long time in a very kind of rigorous and just very critical manner.

00;14;04;15 - 00;14;24;18

Patrick Campbell

And so we're going to talk to each other differently when we're talking about feedback than if I was going to email a team member or a group who I don't interact with much and we naturally will build relationships. We have to make sure we're putting in the effort with our reports, our team and our manager and well, we don't hire people that don't inherently care.

00;14;24;18 - 00;14;49;06

Patrick Campbell

But since we encourage you to bring your whole self to work, we have to make sure that we're learning more and more about those around us. And the more we know, the easier the conversation ends up being, especially when you take your relationship into account when giving and receiving feedback and the relationship's not always going to save you, don't get me wrong, because you're not going to know the entirety of someone and something that, you know, they end up being sensitive to.

00;14;49;06 - 00;15;08;09

Patrick Campbell

But this is where we rely on things like the most charitable interpretation principle, which is something that we can talk about in another, you know, kind of episode at some point, but we ultimately can kind of recognize that reaction and not let it impact the feedback ultimately. And we're not always going to be perfect, but that's just kind of what growing is all about, right?

00;15;08;09 - 00;15;25;20

Patrick Campbell

So given the why and kind of examining, hey, this is when it can go really, really poorly or this is where it can go really, really well, here are some foundations of how to give feedback. And when giving feedback, your job isn't to tell someone what to do. I think this is where we have a problem. We have a different distinction.

00;15;25;28 - 00;15;44;11

Patrick Campbell

There's not even an obligation for that person to listen to the feedback that you're giving. Instead, our job as a feedback provider is to help someone get to an outcome and grow more effectively. And I think this is a really, really important distinction because oftentimes when we're giving feedback, we're kind of, you know, especially if it's a manager to, you know, an individual contributor.

00;15;44;21 - 00;15;59;22

Patrick Campbell

We run into this situation where, you know, we're not necessarily focusing on the outcome. We end up focusing on, you know, some sort of like form and it can get misconstrued and oftentimes very, very much misinterpreted. And then all of a sudden you might hurt the relationship, which then is going to hurt giving more feedback in the future.

00;16;00;07 - 00;16;17;26

Patrick Campbell

So as a kind of a giver of feedback, you got to focus on that outcome and focus on the growth as a recipient of feedback, your job is to take in and understand the feedback as much as humanly possible and then filter it to guide your decision making in the future. So in that vein, we may end up giving feedback on things we know very little about.

00;16;18;02 - 00;16;34;25

Patrick Campbell

If I go to Michael or Director of Engineering and I give them some feedback on something to do with our code base, you know, that's okay. But I can't like act as if, hey, I know everything, therefore I'm right. I know very, very little. Therefore, my feedback needs to be housed in. Hey, I'm not really sure about this.

00;16;35;04 - 00;16;52;29

Patrick Campbell

I'm sure you've thought about this, but just something that like keeping me up last night, you know? Have you thought of this? Right? And we have to realize that the recipient of feedback oftentimes will have more insight or closer proximity to the problem. So here's a few pillars to think through. I think the first thing is really embedding feedback in a performance culture.

00;16;53;10 - 00;17;20;11

Patrick Campbell

So we already talked about, you know, feedback being non-negotiable, like kind of go so far to the extreme to make sure it's ingrained in our culture, but it's also, you know, how we should, you know, embed this whole concept and how we think about performance. Those managers who proven effective at giving a receiving feedback, they tend not to last long infractions could include, you know, being duplicitous with feedback, you know, quote unquote, picking your battles, creating an environment where the team is uncomfortable receiving or giving feedback.

00;17;20;26 - 00;17;43;16

Patrick Campbell

This goes for those who aren't managers as well. But we can't breathe the benefits of feedback if we're not all on the same wavelength. So oftentimes from a performance standpoint, if you're not good at giving feedback, you're not going to last long, especially as a manager. We also need to make sure feedback has the right context. Whoever you're giving feedback to, no matter their role or seniority level, they should know why you're giving the feedback and how the feedback fits into the bigger picture.

00;17;43;25 - 00;18;02;18

Patrick Campbell

You're ultimately trying to help that person with answering what should they do more of and less than you want to give as much context as possible because you're giving them data to filter and make decisions around how to get better, not about telling them what to do. It's about giving that feedback in order to say, Hey, these behaviors seem to have the right outcomes.

00;18;02;18 - 00;18;20;19

Patrick Campbell

These behaviors seem to have the wrong outcomes, but you're the one closer to the problem. Here's the feedback. And like, let's talk deeper on. And if you don't understand or if you think this is something worthwhile, another big thing is focusing on the future. Non-judgmental feedback isn't about the present. I think that's a big, big thing. We mess up.

00;18;20;19 - 00;18;40;08

Patrick Campbell

I mess this up a lot too. It's about the momentum that you're gaining to be better When you dwell on the bad or the good, it doesn't really do much to reinforce or help fix anything. You got to focus on outcomes. Feedback is rarely about being right or wrong. I mean, oftentimes that's what we want to make it just as, you know, reactionary humor humans, but it's more about effectiveness.

00;18;40;19 - 00;19;04;05

Patrick Campbell

Make sure you understand the outcome and speak in terms about how you think a certain behavior or lack of one is making them less effective in other things, being clear and direct or discomfort with giving and receiving feedback. It's sometimes makes us generalize or keep things vague. You're not doing your job or helping someone if they leave the conversation, not understanding your feedback or thinking something completely differently than what you meant.

00;19;04;23 - 00;19;30;26

Patrick Campbell

Be clear and direct. Our discomfort with giving and receiving feedback sometimes makes us generalize or keep things vague. You're not going to do your job properly or help someone if they leave the conversation. Not understanding your feedback or thinking something completely differently than what you meant. Now, one of our favorite examples of this, and you don't have a lot of context on this, is in the early days, Peter, who is kind of the most lovable exec we have.

00;19;31;10 - 00;19;56;02

Patrick Campbell

You know, he'd give critical feedback and the person would actually think that Peter was giving them positive feedback. You know, you need to be clear. Really good test of this is making sure you get alignment. Ask that person, you know what they're taking away from the conversation and confirm. And then kind of going into this to last point, feedback needs to be positive to a lot of this conversation was really focused on critical feedback, and that's because that's typically where we have the most difficulty.

00;19;56;15 - 00;20;14;00

Patrick Campbell

But positive feedback is so, so important because studies have shown that critical feedback is only effective when coupled with positive feedback, It doesn't mean the compliment sandwich. That's not what I'm talking about though. But it doesn't mean that if you're not receiving positive feedback, the critical feedback is going to wear on you or the person that you're giving the feedback to.

00;20;14;11 - 00;20;30;26

Patrick Campbell

You got to make sure your teammates understand positive feedback. And this goes along with, Hey, what should I do more of? And oftentimes these are some of the best managers that they're focusing on. Hey, here's what you should do more of. This was great. Do more of this. It's also important for learning because it helps us reinforce what we're doing.

00;20;30;26 - 00;20;52;29

Patrick Campbell

Well, remember, it's about doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. You can't know what's working unless you get positive feedback. And the final piece here is this something we say a lot of we probably could say more is that feedback is non-negotiable, but the way you receive feedback is very negotiable. We all have different personalities and backgrounds and you got to know what's the best way to receive feedback.

00;20;52;29 - 00;21;11;08

Patrick Campbell

And some of you have never really thought of that. A lot of us think we're, you know, warriors who can handle critical feedback in front of a group and you don't really get brownie points for the intensity of the environment. You're receiving feedback. You really only get points for receiving and using the criticism to get better. It's okay to not want to receive critical feedback in a public setting.

00;21;11;16 - 00;21;29;26

Patrick Campbell

It's okay to want to get on a zoom to talk through things versus doing things through Slack. It's okay to tell your team that you're sensitive about certain topics. You know your emotions better than anyone else, and you'll know how to receive feedback in a manner that's best for you. Just make sure to tell those who give you feedback your preferences.

00;21;29;26 - 00;22;01;01

Patrick Campbell

If someone who normally gives you feedback is sending some your way, it's okay to ask them to change the venue or give them a call. How you receive feedback is very negotiable and we put that together mainly because we started getting feedback. Well, what's really interesting is when you have this kind of overindex type mantra, feedback being non-negotiable, at least in my opinion, you need such an intense kind of stake in the ground is because when you kind of cede ground on some of your values, you end up kind of opening a giant hole when it comes to those values where all of a sudden it becomes something that you say but you never actually

00;22;01;01 - 00;22;18;00

Patrick Campbell

do. And when you put that stake in the ground, you avoid that problem. But the consequence is oftentimes you end up kind of getting bugs in a little bit of a different way where people think that, you know, everything around that particular value isn't negotiable. And so we wanted to talk through like, Hey, the way you receive feedback is very negotiable.

00;22;18;00 - 00;22;38;26

Patrick Campbell

You just got to get the feedback. And I think that worked out fairly well. But we have to coach so much more than I think we're doing right now, especially with, you know, certain types of folks who naturally aren't inclined to, you know, get this feedback smoothly. But to kind of close this out, if we're all trying to improve the most effective way to do so is through feedback.

00;22;39;10 - 00;23;03;03

Patrick Campbell

It's the heart of our jobs at profit. Well, and I think it's the heart of your jobs as an operator in the world of SaaS. It could be uncomfortable. It's going to be uncomfortable. Like most things, you know, achievement has some sort of discomfort. You want to work to improve your resilience, to feedback just as a human. And you got to lean into this whole concept of most charitable interpretation where you're not just assuming everyone has it out for you and assumes the worst.

00;23;03;20 - 00;23;27;01

Patrick Campbell

And if you both of these, you know, profit well, and I would argue your business will easily become the part of your career where your learning curve was the steepest. You'll not only do better and achieve more, but you'll just be a better person. I know for me personally, I have grown so much through feedback where, you know, just emotionally I've been forced to kind of face so many different things, which was great over the past decade.

00;23;27;03 - 00;23;47;01

Patrick Campbell

It was awesome to basically focus, but ultimately feedback, it just helps you do better. And so with that, I hope all of you have a phenomenal rest of the week and weekend, depending on when you're listening to this. If you have any questions, obviously reply to the email, make sure you're signed up at Protect the Hustle dot com, but make sure you're doing well.

00;23;47;01 - 00;23;55;09

Patrick Campbell

Make sure you're doing your introspection, make sure you're getting that feedback and make sure you're given that feedback. But we'll talk next week. We'll see how.

00;23;57;27 - 00;24;32;16

Ben Hillman

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you left a five star review of this podcast or the equivalent rating wherever you listen or watch. Also, make sure you subscribe to and tell your friends about Protect the Hustle, a podcast from Al Roker, the largest, fastest growing media network dedicated to the world of subscriptions.