Sugarcoating Is Sabotaging Your Career (and Your Team)

Andrea (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas and this is Practiceland. This is not Your doctor's podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to Practiceland. So happy you're here. Thank you again for listening and sharing. This has been an amazing journey for us. We're so excited to bring you this content week after week. Today, again, we have Kelcy Heringer with us. Can't get enough. If you've been listening to the podcast for some time, you'll probably hear a familiar voice here. Really excited to have her back. She always has some great insights for us. Kelcy, I wanted to start off with a story, a personal story of mine as a manager here and hopefully get into the topic that we're going to discuss. It really surrounds feedback and for me, there's one situation that I had to deal with as a manager that really left me feeling pretty guilty, which was I had an employee who did well, I think he was, this person's a performer, not the top performer, but they're kind of middle of the road and came time to give them feedback.

(01:19):
We'd have these check-ins every eight weeks or so that you've brought up too. And so I'm chatting with this person and I just let 'em know, Hey, you're doing fine, you're doing great. No notes nothing. And so when in reality I knew of things that this person really needed to work on or the perception that this person maybe had with other colleagues or other leaders in the company and I didn't give them that constructive feedback, I took the easy route. I took the easy road and just went with, no, you're doing great. I don't really have anything for you right now. Keep up the good work. And where the guilt set in was the third or fourth time this person got passed over for a promotion, I started to look inward and go, this is my fault. This person coming to me and saying, Hey, what do I need to do to get better?

(02:07):
What am I missing? And I didn't give them that difficult in the moment feedback. I wasn't transparent with that person. So today I want to talk about feedback. I want to talk about not sugarcoating those things, having the difficult conversations. I think this works both ways, right? It's feedback up or feedback with a colleague and then as a manager or as a leader, having feedback with your employees and making sure that they understand where they really stand with you and with the rest of the company. So why is giving feedback one of the most powerful things you can do to build trust and authority?

Kelcy (02:41):
Your story really hit home with me. I have found myself and people that I coach, it's very natural because sometimes we confuse directness, not equating to being able to still be kind. And we think the kind thing to do is to be silent or to not hurt their feelings. But to jump back, to answer your question, I think if we think about feedback and why it's important, very simply put people respect people who respect themselves. And when you give somebody clear, honest feedback, especially when it's hard feedback, in that instance, you're signaling two things. You're signaling one that you are confident in your own voice and opinion, and two, that you care enough about the relationship or the outcome to say what needs to be said. And I think that's the shift that is not talked about as much is that the minute that you give somebody direct feedback, especially if it's hard, you start being seen as a leader and you start building trust and authority when you quit worrying about being liked by everybody and you ensure that you're telling the truth where it counts.

Blake (04:00):
Yeah, it's this little bit of this don't take shit type of mentality, gets you that respect. All of a sudden people respect that. Right?

Kelcy (04:08):
Completely.

Blake (04:10):
Do you have any personal experiences where you really felt the cost of sugarcoating it and not giving feedback?

Kelcy (04:16):
So many. Seriously, so many. And I would actually say this is the number one thing that changed my career trajectory more than anything was learning how to give hard feedback. If I could pick one thing only, it would be learning this skill. That's a little off topic, lemme go back to what you asked me, which is sharing.

Blake (04:36):
I think that's so bold though, that whole idea, because we've talked about a lot of things and I think there's been some amazing topics that we've dove into. So that's huge to say, this is the thing, this is the most important thing, the largest impact to your career is being able to have that difficult conversation, whether it's with a colleague or if it's with a boss or whoever it is, being able to stretch that muscle or get strong in that area. So to me, that's probably the biggest thing I'm going to take away from today already is just that.

Kelcy (05:10):
Yes, I'll give you an example of when I did not do this well and what it led to. To go back to your question, so I was in an offsite years ago and I had a colleague, peer, and he really loved the sound of his own voice, and I think we all know the one of those. He presented an idea and it was totally off from what the customer needed, and I knew it. Many other people in the room knew it, but instead of challenging it because I knew that if I did, he was going to get super defensive, I was afraid of that conflict and confrontation. And so I just danced around it and my tongue, I sugarcoated my thoughts and I gave up my power. That is what I did. His idea moved forward and we wasted a year to a year and a half of thrash on something that was really off the mark. And to make it worse, my boss asked me, why didn't you push back or shut this down? And I could tell in that moment, he perceived me as super weak and responsible for this and my team. I think it's what I feel the most bad about is it caused so much thrash for them of trying to make something work that we all knew shouldn't be there for customers and was the wrong thing from the beginning. And then of course my team also was the one that had to clean it up after the mess happened.

Blake (06:47):
All the collateral damage from it.

Kelcy (06:49):
Totally. And so that was a big learning moment for me that by being silent, I was saying yes and giving permission. And I also by holding back trying to protect my reputation, it actually really hurt it and underminded it.

Blake (07:10):
I love what you said earlier too, just a second ago about giving up your power and how just by not giving that feedback in the moment you're releasing that and you lose, I think that's an amazing thought and something that's going to stick with me for a little bit. I'm going to remember that in those moments where it's like, I need to have a difficult conversation here, and if I don't, I'm releasing all that power. I'm like, I don't have that anymore. Wow. I think too, a lot of times when we need to give feedback, it's due to an incident. There might've been a situation where you're in a meeting, you're at a board meeting or whatever it is, and someone disrespects you and says, maybe they throw you under the bus, they may blame you for something that they were fully responsible for, and in the room don't understand it and you're kind of stuck with it. Maybe what's your go-to move in that moment to handle a situation like that?

Kelcy (08:07):
Yes. So for people who have not built the feedback muscle, this one's going to sound extra hard. So we can talk maybe a little bit about where to start and how to practice. But this one is a hard one because you're in a group setting and it feels like you just got put on blast. And so how do you in the moment correct that and give feedback? And so I think it is really about two things. Number one, staying calm. And I immediately think through my response in my head, I never just open my mouth because that's when you'll get in trouble, that it comes out as reactive or defensive. So I take a moment to compose myself before I speak and ensure that I quickly think through my one to two lines of delivery so that I don't come across as dramatic or overly emotional about the situation. And then I think the most important thing and the hardest thing is you have to address it in the moment. So letting it go, we all know when somebody gets walked on in a meeting and then they don't stand up for themselves, the credibility that they lose from the rest of the people in the room because they didn't stand up for themselves. So don't wait for later. And it's also kind to the other person. Sometimes these people don't even know that they're disrespecting you.

(09:29):
And so I like to use phrases like, oh, let's pause for a moment. That's actually not what happened. Here's the full picture. Or, I want to clarify that point because it seems like there actually is a big misunderstanding here. So it's really important to correct the record immediately, not escalate it, but to protect your own credibility and authority it's super critical that you pause and do it in the moment.

Blake (09:58):
I think for me, the hardest thing is that first part where you're saying pause or reset the emotions, you're in that moment. So it could be so much pressure or heat or whatever's going on in that instance where, man, how do I stop and take a breath here before I just react emotionally and get angry or get defensive speak from a place of calmness. That to me is really difficult.

Kelcy (10:25):
It is, but I think if you, and it is for me too all the time because sometimes you're like, you want to just be like, WTF, are you kidding me? What the, but if you can make it more objective and assume positive intent from the other person, no matter how many, no matter what the situation so that you can keep it objective. And when you do say things like, oh, actually I think there's a misunderstanding here. It takes down the temperature, but lets them know, Hey, we need to pause and have a discussion about this.

Blake (10:53):
Yeah, we're not just going to let this fly.

Kelcy (10:55):
Totally.

Blake (10:57):
For me too, I am the youngest of three children and I think I have kind of that mediator mentality. I'm the one that just wants to make the whole resolve all the fights between the family. I'm the person that comes in and tries to make everyone happy. So for me, being direct when I'm hurt is difficult. That's not a natural position for me. If someone offends me, I am the people pleaser. I just want to make sure everybody is good. So what advice would you give someone like myself who's like, that's not a natural position for me to be direct or be, get in someone's face a little bit, but we don't want to get into their face. We're just talking about being calm. But what advice would you give someone like myself?

Kelcy (11:40):
I love that place that you hold in your family immediately. I was like, oh, it's just like my little brother. But I would say a couple things. One practice with low risk conversations. So start by trying to be more direct in your everyday lower stakes situations. So whether it's clarifying a point in a meeting or offering feedback to a colleague, like practice, getting to the point, and again, this is a habit that you're going to have to build and habits only come out of practice. And so you will build your confidence up every single time you have a tough conversation, and it's going to take some time. So being patient with yourself, but also making sure that you practice this one, this next piece of advice is the one that helped me the most is prepare for tough conversations and you will get better and better at it every time. So before any difficult conversation, take a few minutes and write bullet points out, type 'em, send yourself a slack, text yourself something like focus on the couple of key points that you need to make and stick to them. And sometimes I would even get feedback on what I was going to say from mentors if it was a really big important conversation that I'm like, I got to get this right in terms of my delivery. And so finding a mentor that's like, Hey, can you take a read at this? This is the situation that's going on, what would you say? And it always amazed me like, Ooh, that's like I had a blind spot here. So until you feel comfortable, I think also really thoroughly prepping yourself. Obviously when you have the group meeting and it's in the moment, that's a hard thing to do. But if something happened and you have the time, take the time to be thoughtful and prepare.

(13:33):
And then I would say third is just, again, going back to this is a habit, and so when I have to create a habit for myself, I love calendar invites. So if this is something that you want to work on, I would probably say send yourself a calendar invite for five minutes at the end of each day for two weeks. And in your calendar invite, it says, did I give feedback when I should have today, so that you're building the habit of being direct and being introspective and retroing on when you probably should have done it so that you're growing and learning and holding yourself accountable because we aren't going to get better until we make it a regular practice.

Blake (14:17):
I love this idea of it just being very deliberate with your actions. If you really want to build this up, you need to take some action. You need to hold yourself accountable. You need to be prepared for those types of situations because so many times you can get lost in the conversation and you forget and if not prepared, you're not going to stand a chance that's going to get bulldozed over and you're going to miss what you really wanted to accomplish out of that. So we talked about a lot of stuff today. Always want to give people at least one thing that all the stuff we talked about, maybe what's thing that we should always remember about giving feedback.

Kelcy (14:54):
It's as simple as start today, put the notes on your calendar for the next two weeks or the next month and check yourself on how you're doing. Find a mentor if you're struggling. And I just think that practice is the only way here. It will create a habit. And when you make it a habit, as I said, it was the thing that was the most game changing for my career trajectory when I started looking at it is my job, whether you are the secretary, the doctor, the founder, my peer, it is my job always all day, every day to be giving feedback. I cannot tell you the freedom that that gave me from freeing myself because you're telling the truth, but the helpfulness that it gives to people when you are truly kind and direct and honest with them and the trust that it builds in you and the authority that it creates in you as a leader.

Blake (15:54):
Amazing. That's amazing. Kelcy, thank you again so much for being with us again. Also too, thank you so much for the product placement. We got to call this out.

Kelcy (16:02):
I love my swag. Thank you.

Blake (16:03):
For those that are listening, Kelcy's got on an amazing PatientFi sweater right now. It looks fantastic. Thanks again so much Kelcy, and as always, where can we follow you? Where can we learn about what you got going on?

Kelcy (16:16):
Yes, TikTok or Instagram, and it's Kelcy_Heringer for Instagram and would love to have you follow me. I drop a few weekly tips on there every week. So Blake, thank you so much for having me.

Blake (16:28):
Awesome. And those listening too, if you have a question for Kelcy you want her to answer, you can always send us a message at practicelandpodcast.com. Everyone out there at Practiceland, good luck and Godspeed and we can't wait to talk to you again. Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise, no cheap swag here.

Andrea (16:54):
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