00:00:00 Paula: Welcome to “TesseTalks” with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and co host me, Paula Okonneh, where we share with you top leadership and management strategies. This continues to be a journey of discovery, where we are learning that leadership is not just personal, but it’s also professional. And we hope you, our listeners, will walk with us in this adventure. So today our guest is Debra Allcock Tyler and let me tell you a bit about her. Debra has worked in the charitable and voluntary sector for over 30 years, amongst numerous other roles. She’s a co chair of the Small Charities Coalition alongside General Lord Dannett. She is a trustee of InKind Direct, one of the Prince’s Foundation’s charities, and a trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation. She’s also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for Women and Girls at Risk of or Affected by Female Genital Mutilation, or “FGM”, and has served as a trustee of several charities, including being the co founder of the Small Charities Coalition, and was its first chair. Wow. The theme today is the power of feedback. Welcome to “TesseTalks” again, Debra.
00:01:40 Debra: Lovely to be here Paula and Tesse, it’s so nice talking to you.
00:01:42 Tesse: Hi, welcome Debra. You know, you were one of the first guests that we had on the podcast, and we’re so glad to welcome you back. You know, I was reading a lot of your pieces during the summer, and you had this awesome piece on feedback. And I was like, wow, we’ve got to get Debra back to talk about feedback. And I’m really curious about your thoughts. What makes effective feedback, Debra?
00:02:07 Debra: Oh, gosh, that’s actually quite a hard question, Tesse, I think, because, you know, the thing feedback is, feedback is about the person who gives it and the person who receives it, and both have got to be in the right space. I mean, I always joke about it. I’m sure you know, you read it in my piece when I was saying that when I give a speech, you know, I always say to people, but I don’t want any negative feedback. Like, don’t tell me if I did a rubbish job. I will know that, you know. Only give me feedback if the feedback is great. And of course, people always look terribly shocked by that. You know, like, how can you say that, Debra? You’re supposed to like, you know, want every single piece of feedback going. But I’m like, I always think the thing about feedback is, are you telling somebody what they don’t already know? Like, if the person already knows it, how is you reinforcing something they know about themselves helpful? You know, how is that going to help them to move forward really? So that’s like kind of joke about only tell me nice things. If you tell me anything negative, because if people say to me, you speak too fast. I know. I’ve been speaking too fast for 59 years. You know, do you get the point I’m making? So the other thing I think about feedback is you’ve got to think about who are you actually giving the feedback for? Sometimes I just think we give people feedback because it gives us a sense of power. I’m able to tell you how you can be a better human being or a better leader or better worker or whatever. And actually, sometimes I think, is the feedback even necessary? You know, in my experience, Tesse, honestly, often people know, people are highly aware of their own faults and their own failings and what they’ve done wrong. So I think successful feedback is about understanding, why are you giving it? You know, people say like, I’m giving it to be helpful. Or are you? You know, are you giving it to be superior? So you’ve got to really be thinking about is for the other person, what’s going to be the best thing for them? And if you’re telling them something they already know. And I remember years and years ago, this was, I was a colleague, I worked, we used to get quite negative critical feedback and say, I want you to see this as a gift, my gift to you. And I want you to say a very rude word back, Tesse, do you know what I mean? It’s like, it feels like a weapon. You know, so I think sometimes we can interpret, or we can use feedback as more as a weapon without necessarily meaning to, you know, so I’m not saying people deliberately set out to do it. But I think, you know, we’re told as managers and leaders, it’s your job to give feedback, you know, okay, to what end? You know, and also sometimes people are just people, they just are who they are and they don’t need to be told that a particular thing about them is difficult because there’s something difficult about all of us. Anyway, I don’t, I think that sounds a bit wiffly I think.
00:04:34 Tesse: What you’ve said is really incisive as always, reflective in the sense that who, feedback for who, if it’s a gift, what gift? Paula, did you hear Debra say what she said, what comes to your mind?
00:04:46 Paula: You know, I like that phrase, if it’s a gift, then what type of gift? So in other words, you’re saying we need to check our motive before we give that feedback. That’s very important.
00:05:00 Debra: Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:02 Paula: So how can we check our motive, to make sure that feedback is not received unfavorably? Because, you know, I may be thinking about really and truly I want to help this person. But how do I make sure that I’m helping them?
00:05:20 Debra: Yeah, again, really good question, Paula. I don’t know what the actual definitive answer is. Well, I think a couple of things I would say, like, are you giving feedback from a place of humility or a place of power? So are you giving feedback knowing how absolutely rubbish you are at stuff as well, where you failed, or are you giving feedback from, I’m really good at this and I’m the boss and I know how to do it right so you need to pay attention to me, if that makes any sense. I can always stop by. Do you like this person? My test for me always is when I’m talking to people or giving them information or giving them feedback for want of a better word, I always test it against, what would I say to somebody I really liked? Like, if they were somebody I absolutely adored and thought were the most wonderful person in the world, how would I give the feedback? And I try and give the feedback to everybody as if they were the person I loved most in the world. Because we are kinder and warmer and more loving and more supportive and more generous with those we love than with those who we are just colleagues or who are managing. And the truth is, we’re the best in the world. All of us have people we work with, we manage, we work alongside, or we work for, who we find slightly more challenging than others. You know, and it’s naive to say, I love everybody exactly the same, because that’s absolute nonsense. You’re lying to yourself if you say that. There’s always people you find more difficult. So for me that’s the way of doing it. It’s like, if I wouldn’t say this in this way to somebody I really care about and who I think is absolutely brilliant, then should I be saying it at all? And if I am going to say it, then I need to think of that person in those terms.
00:06:52 Paula: I love that way of looking at it. So sometimes feedback is not necessary depending on, you know, not just your motive, but are you saying it and how are they going to receive it, you know? And yeah.
00:07:04 Debra: Yeah, exactly. Like, what’s the point of telling people something that they’re not going to do anything about? Just so you say, well, I told her. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like to make yourself feel better. So yeah. And it’s also, it’s kind of the thing about power. You know, I think that as managers and as leaders, we have an enormous amount of power of other people. And, but the biggest power we’ve got is over their emotional state. Like we can ruin somebody’s day. You know, I always used to joke, I mean, Tesse will know because I’ve told her this before, but I also used to say, like, if you really want to scare a member of staff, send them an email at five o’clock on a Friday saying, please come and see me first thing, Monday morning, you know, without giving them any more information and you will ruin their weekend, you’ll ruin it. And then when they come on Monday, you say, I just wanted to tell you, I thought you did a really good job last week. I mean, I am joking, never do that. But that’s the point of the power of your boss. All your boss has, all you have to do is get an email from a boss and say, oh, can we have a quick chat? And instinctively you as a human being assume it’s going to be bad. When you get an email from your boss like that, you never think my boss is going to tell me how fantastic I am. You always assume you’re in trouble or something. So yeah, I think, and I think we can wield feedback so inappropriately, because we have power and we forget how much power we have over. I mean, we can make our stuff utterly miserable just by saying, I don’t think you could do a very good job without thinking about the context of it, the support and all the rest of it, you know. So yeah, I would, I think, I mean, my grandmother used to say, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And I think that’s very true. I know all times I’ve been given critical feedback or negative feedback about my performance, about the way I speak, about the way I behave, about the way I dress or any of those things. It’s never worked. I’ve never changed when somebody said you’re not good at this, ever. I don’t know why I’ve tried to, but I’ve not been able to. But when somebody said to me, they found something good in me, I’ve worked really hard to emphasize the good. You know, I remember years ago, like literally probably 35 years ago, 30, no, longer, 37 years ago when I was first a manager and I was working with someone, who this was their first job, and it was my second job, I think. But it was their first job and they’d come straight out of university and we used to have quite strict dress codes at the time. You know, you’re expected to present yourself in a certain way. And this particular individual dressed like a student still. And my boss kept telling me off about the appearance of this particular individual. And, you know, I kept telling her, you don’t dress appropriately. It’s not right. And it just conflict and battles. I was the supervisor at the time. Anyway, and I remember, but she bought this dress and she’d worn it to work one day, and the dress was fantastic on her, it really, really suited her. And completely, not manipulatively, but genuinely, I said, oh my God, that dress is fantastic on you, you look amazing! Absolutely amazing that. And I swear on my life, she went away and bought the same dress in all the different colours. And she started to change her general presentation at work. And what I learned from that was all me telling her how, you know, how terrible she looked changed nothing, but me focusing on that one time when she got it absolutely right, that’s what changed the behavior. So in my experience, it’s also always been, if you can like, focus on what feedback, focus on what people are getting right, and they will work really hard to get it right. And even if they only get it right once and the rest of the time they’re getting it wrong, the more you focus on that one time they got it right, they’re going to concentrate on doing that more and more often. And then gradually the stuff that they don’t do right will start to disappear. Anyway, that’s just been my experience. I’m sure there are others who are saying, you’re not telling the truth, but you know, human beings.
00:10:37 Tesse: This is amazing, Debra. And one of the, you remind me of some work by Ken Blanchard, you know, the guy who wrote the One Minute Manager. And then he wrote he’s written some more stuff, you know, because he keeps working, working, working. And one of the things he wrote in a recent book was, “catch someone doing something good and tell them”.
00:10:57 Debra: Yes.
00:10:57 Tesse: So exactly what you’re saying, catch them doing something good and tell them. That’s good feedback. And he called it powerful feedback.
00:11:06 Debra: Don’t just tell them, tell other people. You know, because if I say to a member of my staff, you’re doing a really good job at whatever it is, then of course, typically they’ll probably be pleased, but also they know it’s my job. Like I’m supposed to tell them I’m doing something good. If I, however, I say in a room full of their colleagues, I just want to point out what a brilliant job Tesse did at that presentation yesterday then it’s meaningful, because I must mean it if I’ve not only told them if I’ve told a whole room of people. If I then tell their bosses, if I then, you know, if I’m emailing a member of staff and saying you did a really good job on that and I cc their boss and our chair of trustees, clearly I mean it. So it’s not just about, it’s not enough just to tell the individual, tell everybody. And all this, I remember years ago I was telling somebody about this and they were saying like, oh, you know, but you should, you know, it just makes other people feel uncomfortable if you praise publicly. And I’m like, tough, they’re adults, they can deal with it. You know, and if you can’t handle somebody else getting praised, that’s your problem of the manager or the other person. It’s like, yeah I think sometimes, especially with feedback, actually we treat people as if they’re not adults, as if they’re, you know, tiny toddlers unable to cope with reality or, you know, and actually people grown ups. We can have much, much more honest adult conversations with people than we ever give credit for, because ultimately we may have the role chief executive or director or manager or whatever the job title is, but we’re not better or cleverer than them. We just have a different job title and we might perhaps have a little bit more experience. That’s the only thing that differentiates us. So what on earth gives us the right to stay in judgment on other people in that way? Anyway, there you go.
00:12:46 Tesse: Love it. Actually love it. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s really interesting that you should say that, you know, lots of things come into my mind. And one of the things that comes into my mind is another piece, which you were busy writing in summer. You were really busy and I was reading it as other people were. But you know, one of the things that really struck me was when you were writing about when people are told by people who might be from minority groups that something that they did or something that affected them caused them harm, caused them hurt, or actually kind of gaslit them. And this piece you wrote was actually about how people who feel that they’re being treated unfairly needed to be listened to. But also that the people who are getting that kind of feedback need to work on, you know, ways of responding, you know, proactively rather than being reactive in that. So I kind of like interested in you unpacking that bit a bit more, because for me, that was one of the best pieces I’ve read on calling out stuff, but also on the responsibility to listen and to use that as a platform to build relationships.
00:13:55 Debra: Oh, bless you, Tesse. I think for me that was really about, particularly when it comes to anything to do with, you know, isms, like racism or obiasm, like homophobia or anything like that, or any of those things where people are othered and they are, you know, they’re micro aggressed, but that’s not the right, they experience microaggressions and that sort of thing, as well as outright racism or homophobia or antisemitism or whatever the example where everything happens to be. And one of the troubles is, is that when you’re told particularly as a white person I’m speaking now, I can’t speak from any other perspective. But as a white person, when I’m told that something I said was racist or, you know, or, you know, in some other way discriminatory, there’s a visceral hurt and a visceral defensiveness. You immediately feel that you’re being accused of being a racist person or a homophobic person, and that’s incredibly difficult to deal with. So your instinct is to lash out and to blame the other person. I think in the piece you’re referring to, Tesse, I wrote about this particular experience where this individual, I said, I called out this individual for slightly racist language. I didn’t call him a racist. I said, I think what you said is quite racist. And immediately got horribly defensive because he said, you’ve accused me of being racist. And then everybody else in the room, including, I have to say, people of colour sided with him against me. So suddenly I was the baddie and he was the victim, because I’d hurt his feelings because I’d accused him of being racist. And it was thinking about that and thinking about the fact that we don’t teach people to understand. All of us are born into a society that others, people who appear to be different to us, and it’s not our fault. We didn’t choose to be born that into that society. We didn’t choose to learn it. We didn’t choose all those unconscious biases that are shoved into our heads. But once we’ve learned them, once we’ve understood that that’s what’s happening, then we then have the opportunity to not react so personally to say, you know what, that absolutely was racist. It was, you know, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to, I hadn’t realized, you know, I know better now. One of my favorite sayings, is it Maya Angelou, that thing is, once you know better, do better. And I think that’s what my point was, is that we don’t teach people how to deal with feedback about their discriminatory language or behavior. And so therefore they don’t know how to process it. So if we teach them, if we have them understand this is your biases, these are your prejudices, this is where it’s all coming from. Now when somebody says to you, what you said is hurtful or discriminatory or whatever, don’t take it personally. Own it. But don’t be defensive about it. Recognise and say, you know, yeah, so I think that’s what I was, that’s the point I was trying to make. It’s, you know, learn and do better. Don’t be defensive and automatically react as if people are, yeah. Anyway, I don’t know if that was the answer to your question, Tesse.
00:16:43 Tesse: No, no, no. It’s really beautiful because actually what you did, because when you were talking, we have enough time to unpack it a bit more, is to build on that just as the same way we resource people to do other things in terms of microaggressions and those kind of things. There’s a learning edge to how to, and it’s the lack of the learning edge, you know, leaning into the curiosity, actually inquiry and embracing that space to build relationships. That I’m taking away from what you’ve said. And it’s beautiful because the way that people weaponize stuff doesn’t help. It doesn’t help.
00:17:17 Debra: Well, did I tell you about the Charity Treasurers Group? So I was to speak to a group of charity treasurers, and they’re typical of, you know, charity boards, Tesse, in the UK, as you know, 70 percent white men, wealthy white men, from a good background, you know, connected, you know exactly what people I mean. And they’d asked me to come and talk about good governance, basically. But, and they were very open, they said, we want to talk about diversity and inclusion. And I said, yes, of course, happy to do that. And so we did, you know, we talked about it. And then one of the chaps in the room said to me, Debra, he said, you know, you said this is a safe space, may I say something? At which point my heart sank and I thought, oh dear God in heaven, what is he going to say? Only he said to me, he said, I just need to say that I’m really fed up of being everything that I say and being discounted and dismissed because I’m an older white man. And then he sort of folded his arm and everybody in the room folded their arms and looked at me so much as if to say, well, come on then, answer that missus talking about diversity and inclusion. And I don’t know what happened, it was a gift from the universe. But what I said was, that’s brilliant. That’s the best thing, feeling you could possibly have. Because now you know what it feels like. You’ve experienced the hurt, the anger, the frustration, the powerlessness you feel when you’re being judged on your colour, or your age, or your gender, or your sex, none of which is any fault of your own. And because you’re a decent human being, you don’t want anybody you come into contact with who you deal with, who you work with, who experiences your organization feel the same way. So celebrate that feeling, because now you can genuinely say, you know, a little bit of what it feels like to be judged in that way. And I honestly, there were 17 of these chaps in the room. And honestly, all of them had sat with their arms folded, like, you know, go on then answer that literally unfolded their arms, leaned forward and you could see on their faces, them going, ahhhh, like suddenly getting it, suddenly realizing what it feels like and being able to make some kind of connection.
00:19:11 Tesse: Wow. This is so powerful. Paula you’re looking pensive.
00:19:15 Paula: Yeah. I’m not. I’m probably more in awe of how she handled that, you know.
00:19:22 Tesse: So am I.
00:19:23 Paula: Yes. You know, you didn’t get defensive because when things like that happen many a time, as you say, our human instinct is to lash out, to be defensive, to, you know, give a reason for why we said or did whatever we did. But by owning it, in the first instance you said, you know, by saying, okay, I’m sorry, you know, what was your own perspective? Or in this particular case, making that Individual know that, hmm, the way you feel is human and that’s how everybody else that’s marginalized or, you know, feels made them really look into themselves. That’s what I’m thinking of the depth of that and the wisdom that you were given that day. I’m marveling at that. And so.
00:20:09 Debra: I’m marveling at it as well, Paula. I have no idea where I came from.
00:20:12 Tesse: You’re born with it. You’re born wise.
00:20:17 Paula: And so, you know, and how do you think that plays out in the biggest world, like with the boards? How do you encourage them to have more inclusion and more diversity, you know?
00:20:30 Debra: Yeah, it’s really tough. You know, these conversations are difficult to have, largely because of stuff because most boards don’t think that they’re racist or homophobic or Islamophobic or disablist or any of those things. Most board think we’re really good human beings and we like people, and mostly they’re right, they are decent human beings. The part of the problem is because the boards in Britain tend to be older, they tend to be of a particular background and a particular sort of, you know, way of being in the world. Many of them haven’t been exposed to different ways of thinking. So very few of them actively go on. For example, unconscious bias training or, you know, or any kind of active anti racism work or any of those kinds of things. Because they think they’re, and we tend to do that as human beings. We sort of think, well, I’m a decent person. I don’t believe I’m racist. I don’t believe I’m homophobic or whatever. And so you never think you’ve got to learn. And so, but once you think you don’t have to learn, it’s really, really hard. I mean, I can remember sitting, I won’t name names because, you know, it’s uncomfortable people. But I was in a healthcare setting and one of the people in the room, we were talking about the fact that some of the healthcare service weren’t accessed very much by minoritized groups. And this particular individual said, well, you have to recognize that that community is quite self effacing. We’ve got to encourage them to speak up more. Or words to that effect, I kind of, my heart sinking at the time in thinking, and unfortunately it wasn’t an environment where I could say anything. I did feedback separately later to the chair, but it wasn’t, it was like that whole sort of, it’s their fault. Instead of starting from, if people aren’t accessing our services, we need to change the accessibility of our services. They don’t need to change, we need to change. We’re the ones who need to change, not them. But it was his complete unconscious, like, but if you said to him, that was a racist remark that you just made. He would be I’m not racist. I’m not racist. I, you know, I like these people. I care about these people. Do you know what I mean? So I think with boards often you’re fighting the fact that they haven’t, and it’s not willful, not learning either. There’s some arrogance in it, definitely, but it’s not deliberately I don’t want to learn. It’s they genuinely think they’re all right. As do most of us. Most of us, I mean, before I started really properly learning about this stuff, I thought I didn’t have a racist bone in my body. Me, my grandmother’s mixed race, Anglo Indian, however, ever dare anybody accuse me. And then when I started reading and learning out to my absolute horror, I realized how prejudiced I am in so many aspects of my life. And it’s a constant, constant work. I haven’t arrived, you know, I probably never will. But you’ve got to keep teaching and learning, and I think we’ve got to find a way to try and convince boards to do that, which is why I’d love to see, for example, in the UK, the Charity Commission, you know, mandating this kind of training for boards, you know, I would love, because there’s no required training for boards at all. You don’t have to go on anything to learn how to be a trustee, and I understand why, because they don’t want to put people off. But on the other hand, I think that’s what perpetuates some of the appalling, you know, stuff that we see going on, because you’re not told you simply must train this. But I mean, as you know, Tesse, DSC is trying to convince chief executives and boards to do this kind of training. Our governance app has the whole section of it which is about diversity and inclusion. But yeah, so I don’t think it’s you know easy win to be honest, Paula, I think we are battling. However, you know, life will make it change, to be honest, because boards are automatically going to change, because some of these people who aren’t aware and self aware and learning are going to die or leave, and it’s going to be filled in with younger people who, in my experience, well, I feel when I think of young people, I’m so full of hope, you know, I mean, they’re not all great. Some of them are awful, but the vast majority, and they’re so much better than my generation.
00:24:02 Paula: Yes.
00:24:02 Debra: Much more socially and environmentally aware. There’s so much more conscious of difference and, you know, acceptance and that sort of thing. So I feel massively hopeful about boards of the future simply because boards of my age and older are going to, you know retire or die off. And we’re going to be filled with younger people who are going to take over who in my much better, much better human being than we’re
00:24:25 Tesse: Deborah. It’s always so, yeah, it’s always lovely so lovely to hear you. And you know, as we come to the close for this, I’m just curious as is Paula, aren’t you curious? But what you did to relax. Because you work, you work, you work, you work. You know, what is your go to place for your own relaxation and recovery?
00:24:45 Debra: Well, firstly, when you love your job, it doesn’t really feel like working that way. And that’s so true, I think. So I love writing and I love listening. I love talking to people and I, you know, I love all that. Having said that, however, you do have to have your switch off moments because I’m too much. And I have to admit that at the moment, my go to relaxing thing is Korean dramas. Well, rom coms they are. So I’m absolutely addicted. It’s called K dramas and they’re like, they’re romantic stories of love and family. And they’re just so beautifully shot, and I watched them in the original Korean with subtitles obviously I wouldn’t dream of saying. But I find them I just lose myself in these programs, which are, they’re silly and they’re fluffy, and they’re about human relationships, and they’re also hilarious. Because in, you know, in most of the ones, they’re supposed to be romantic comedies, but there’s always a death or a suicide or a serial killer or some, some awful human state. I love them. Absolutely love them. Addicted.
00:25:41 Tesse: Funny. Paula, your reflections.
00:25:45 Paula: I love, Tesse knows why she’s laughing too, because she was drawn into that by my niece. Recently my niece and I were saying, she would say, Auntie Tesse would sit down for hours and say, and so what happened? And then go watch it, I mean, privately on her own. What’s that?
00:26:02 Debra: Korean dramas.
00:26:03 Paula: Yes, K dramas.
00:26:06 Debra: Oh Tesse, sis to the soul, I’m going to send you a list of my favorites. Strong Girl Bong Soon, I love. King the Land, oh my goodness. Suspicious Puzzle, I love it. Business Proposal. Wonderful K dramas there. And I just love them. And they always end with so much hope and love. And I like happy endings.
00:26:26 Paula: Yes. Yes. They sure do know how to draw you in so that you go on to the next one.
00:26:31 Paula: Like what happened? And so to our amazing audience, wasn’t Debra just wonderful? We heard, we were filled with love. I mean, she has such a sense of humor that even the most serious topic like feedback, have us cracking up here. And so if you like what you just heard, we ask that you subscribe to our podcast on “Google podcast”, “Apple podcast”, or anywhere else that you listen to your podcast. And we would really love if you wrote us a raving review. And if you have any questions or topic you’d like us to cover related to leadership and governance send us a note. Remember, it can be personal as well as professional. And if you’d like to be a guest on our show, “TesseTalks, please head over to our website, “tesseakpeki.com/tessetalks” toapply. This has been absolutely amazing. Thank you, Debra.
00:27:33 Tesse: I’m laughing so much. You know, you’re just brilliant, Debra. I love you.