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 235: The Politics of Feedback - Sue Anderson  image

235: The Politics of Feedback - Sue Anderson

E235 · The Politics of Everything
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83 Plays3 months ago

If I said I’d like to give you some feedback, how do you immediately react inside? Welcoming? Hostile? Something more nuanced? That is today’s podcast topic and I have to be honest; I have had to get better at both giving and accepting feedback from others over many years in workplaces and personally. It can be hard at times especially when it's not good!  Sue Anderson is obsessed with what she calls “feedback fitness” and she is my guest on this episode. Sue has worked across many industries including with Leaders in government, education and training, manufacturing, mining, electricity, gas, water and waste services, transport, healthcare and finance. Sue has developed the world-leading and unique Feedback Fitness framework that provides a step-by-step structure to ensure feedback conversations promote psychological safety. Sue also provides mental skills coaching for elite athletes and is a qualified Mediator. In her spare time, she is a runner – and says we should also mention her husband and 3 kids.

Hear from Sue on:

1. How do you define feedback?

2. Is feedback more than some words and a scorecard? Paint us a picture of the variety or types of feedback common now in businesses you work with.

3. What are the best ways leaders can learn to be more confident and courageous in their conversations with staff that improve performance at work, and not bulldoze through this because that is also not ideal?

4. How do you view 360 feedback – is it always necessary and helpful for workplaces?

5. If we have legacy cultural issues, or toxic team members who may be there for years and/or be our “top performers” is that feedback process likely to be different? How?.

6. How can feedback become more about shared success vs a tick-and-flick HR exercise that can leave people in organisations feeling deflated, cornered or not valued even if they may be meeting their KPIs overall?

7. Takeaway: What is your final message for us on The Politics of Feedback?

Connect further:

https://www.sue-anderson.com.au/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sueandersongood2gr8/

POE listener offer: Zencastr is my podcast platform of choice. Use my special link (zen.ai/thepoliticsofeverything30 [http://zen.ai/thepoliticsofeverything30]) and use code "THEPOLITICSOFEVERYTHING" to save 30% off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr

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Transcript

Introduction to The Politics of Everything Podcast

00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the politics of everything. I'm Amber Danes, your host and podcast producer. This is a half hour of power podcast dropping every week where I unpack the politics of everything from money to motherhood, nutrition to narcissism, startups to secularism, the environment, quality and much, much more.
00:00:22
Speaker
Our guests are seasoned in the field of topic of their choice, even if you've not heard of them yet. This is a nonpartisan show. So while I love exploring varied views and get a buzz from a healthy debate of ideas, this is not a purely blue, white, green program. Please subscribe, tune in and enjoy the politics of everything.

Exploring the Nature of Feedback

00:00:46
Speaker
If I said I'd like to give you some feedback, how do you immediately react inside? Welcoming? Hostile? Something more nuanced perhaps? That is today's podcast topic and I have to be honest, I've had to get better at both giving and accepting feedback from others over many years in workplaces and personally.
00:01:05
Speaker
It can be hard at times, especially when it's not good. Sue Anderson is obsessed with what she calls feedback fitness, a term which I love. And today she is my guest on this episode of the politics of everything. Sue has worked across many industries, including with leaders in government, education and training, manufacturing, mining, electricity, gas, water and waste services, transport, health care and finance.
00:01:29
Speaker
Sue has developed the world leading and unique feedback fitness framework that provides a step-by-step structure to ensure feedback conversations promote psychological safety. Sue also provides mental skills coaching for elite athletes and as a qualified mediator in a spare time. And she is a runner. um She says that she'd also like to mention that she has a husband and three kids. And I love this topic of feedback. We haven't done it yet. So warmly welcoming Sue to the politics of everything.
00:01:56
Speaker
Thanks. And thanks for having me here. I'm excited. This is like my favorite topic to talk about.

Endorsement of Zencastr Podcasting Tool

00:02:03
Speaker
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00:02:28
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It's so easy to use Zencaster. I'm not tech savvy and you don't need to be either. There's nothing to download. Just click on the link and off we go. Zencaster is all about making your podcasting experience easy and with everything from local recording to automate post-productions now in their toolkit, you don't have to leave your browser to get that episode done and done fast.
00:02:49
Speaker
I have a special offer for you and I hopefully you can experience what I have with Zencaster. Go to zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my VIP code, the politics of everything, all lowercase in one word, to get 30% off your first three months of Zencaster Professional. How good is that? I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story.

Sue Anderson's Career Journey

00:03:15
Speaker
It's amazing, isn't it? And it's something we all have to have to get to grips with. But I will start by asking you what you thought you might want to be when you're a lot younger. do you Do you have a bit of a backstory that maybe connects the dots for us of how you've ended up where you are today? I don't know if it connects the dots. I was a very keen athlete as a junior. So I was, you know, thinking I'd like to be a ah coach one day, which, you know, I am now a mindset coach. So I guess that's connecting the dots.
00:03:45
Speaker
Then I went through, you know, the dietician stage. Then I went through the sports psychologist stage. So anything to do with sport was what I was really passionate about. um So I did study exercise science at uni. And we had back then, this is 30 years ago, we had a stream, you know, if you could pick your stream. So I went down the sports psychology stream and really loved it. Ended up doing extra units in psychology, did extra study.
00:04:14
Speaker
with all intentions of going on and becoming a psychologist. But then my dad sadly passed away. My mum had already died when I was younger. So I was like, Oh gosh, I need to, I need to get a job. So I've always had that interest in human behavior and brain. I actually ended up getting work in disability. So still to do with brain, but not necessarily sport.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And i I think that all kind of does make sense in terms of what you're what you're doing now. And, you know, I guess you still do the running piece so of fitness as part of your life, which I think is really important and something that's really important to me as well.

Impact of Feedback in the Workplace

00:04:50
Speaker
How do you define this topic of feedback because as as I was saying ah in the introduction, even I got some emotional response and in the intro that I've even written myself because it can be difficult and it isn't always seen as something positive. But how do you define it from a very generic point of view? I think if we were to take just a narrow workplace approach to it, it's really the exchange of any information that can be formal, it could be informal, and it's normally about performance or skills or your ability to work within a team. That's, you know, the transactional definition, if you like. I think it's far more than that. I think it is such a juicy topic. We're talking about the beliefs that people have about themselves, about, you know, even the word feedback, as you were saying, can just, it can be anxiety inducing. We're talking about performance relationships.
00:05:50
Speaker
for us having the courage to speak up, having the courage to listen. We're talking about people's sense of self-worth and whether their their work is linked to their worth, boundaries, safety, emotions, connection. There's just so much to it. So when sometimes HR will contact someone from HR from an organisation might say, you know, we've got a we've got a feedback problem. I think, hmm, do you? I think there's far more to it than that. It's maybe you've got a culture where courageous conversations aren't happening, where people are really fearful of the emotions that are attached.
00:06:28
Speaker
to feedback. So it's it's it's a huge topic, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And I love the way that you've unpacked that for us quite simply, but it is something that's quite quite big and can be very deep. I guess feedback can be more than just you know words or a scorecard, particularly in corporate life. I think of those kind of feedback, 360 feedback opportunities often that they talk about, or you've got your six-month review, those sorts of milestones, if you like.

Continuous Feedback Culture

00:06:55
Speaker
Paint us a picture of the variety of the types of feedback that you see across businesses that might be a little bit beyond that that kind of basic level of, you know, here's here's your annual review and these are the bits that you've done well and these are the things you need to improve. And we've we've kind of scored you, which I kind of remember when I worked in corporate was always terrifying and it often was just delivered so blandly without any emotion, particularly 20 odd years ago, I think, you know, we've come a long way, but it certainly was something that it felt like it was just numbers and and a few, few words that they could say, and then you're supposed to go back to normal. But I think that it's bigger than that, right? Yeah, I like to think of feedback as a series of conversations, I think. And ah so I was a leader in state government, gosh, 20, 25 years ago. And
00:07:47
Speaker
Probably similar to you, it was very, you know, here's your once a year annual performance review. I used to have something called supervision and I don't even think feedback was on the, you know, we used to fill out a pro forma. I don't even think feedback was on there as a topic to talk about. And of course, back then, the only framework that I remember using was a particular kind of sandwich and you might know what type of sandwich I'm talking about. It's not a nice one.
00:08:15
Speaker
And it used to be, you know what I'm talking about. and I do. The whole generation are like going, wow, who are these people? But I do know. It was a framework and it was developed. I forget the guy's name. I did look it up once, but it was just talking about communication in general, not specifically for feedback, but it was sort of latched on to feedback. And it was, you know, start with something positive. Say what you really want to say, but you're probably afraid to say it and then finish with something positive. but So as a leader back then, that's the only framework I knew. So I, I used it. We have, you know, we've moved on, we've got lots of more awareness around things like empathy and compassion and connection now. So we don't have to use

Feedback Fitness Framework Overview

00:09:00
Speaker
that sandwich anymore. We've got much better frameworks. So back then it was, you know, the, the once a year that the way that industries are moving now, it's more and more common that we're going to have ongoing
00:09:14
Speaker
conversations. So I like to think of them as conversations rather than a speech that you're going to prepare. yeah and so nothing Yeah, the Feedback Fitness Framework, it's all about the series of conversations that you have. It's an ongoing and it's all about setting up these conversations for success right from the start. So, you know, when you're recruiting, hey, if you want to come and work in our team, that's fantastic. We've got this culture where we have feedback conversations, we really value two-way feedback conversations where we really listen. And then, you know, in the interview, ken you you might like to ask, um you know, can can you share what's important to you about feedback? So you're really starting to understand the person's beliefs about feedback.
00:10:05
Speaker
And then, you know, during induction, Hey, welcome to the team. Once you settle in, we're going to have a conversation about feedback. I'm not going to offer you any feedback yet. We're going to have a conversation about it. So I love to work at the belief level because if you have not very useful beliefs about feedback, feedback, scary, awful means I've done something wrong or If I offer this person feedback, oh, it's a bit risky. You know, I might damage the relationship and they might then avoid me. Trying to change behavior around feedback conversations when you haven't addressed the beliefs that hold those behaviors in place won't work. So the feedback framework is very much based on let's look at your beliefs ah about it so that you don't have a fear response.
00:10:52
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. that's That's what we're trying to get to, I guess, because we know we're never at our best if we're in that you know that flight and fright kind of feeling when you're sitting there across from someone or over a Zoom or whatever the forum might be. And you're just taking this in, but you're not really listening sometimes. You're really out of your body when you feel like you're the person that's being critiqued, if you like. So what are some of the best ways that leaders can learn to be more confident and courageous, if you like, in those conversations with staff. Because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We want a great performance at work. We want people to have an awesome some work culture. We don't want to bulldoze through this because then you lose people, even if they stay physically, you're not necessarily, you know, taking them on that bigger picture journey and making them part of your

Building Courage in Feedback

00:11:39
Speaker
team. They're just perhaps going to be a bit diminished if it's not done.
00:11:43
Speaker
in the right way. But like like you say, like, you know, courageousness has got to be part of this. It can't just be about the niceties. So how do people get better at this? Because some people are not natural communicators. They would find this quite hard as a leader. Yeah, you're right. And it can be hard as a leader. Gosh, I remember back in the day, you know, those when I was talking about being a leader 20 years ago, I know that I avoided offering feedback to people in my team.
00:12:11
Speaker
Or, you know, I may, I would make a joke about it, which is super confusing for people. that yeah i think i yeah Yeah. If you're the leader, I think the, one of the first things you can do is quality check. And what I mean by quality check is how useful are your beliefs about offering feedback? Because if you believe, you know, could, could go pear shaped, I'm not, you know, it's a big risk. What if they put in a complaint about me?
00:12:40
Speaker
That's going to, you know, you'll you'll hold back from offering feedback. Yet doing that, we know that you're not going to then have the the conversations that you really need to have. And that's where we see that avoidance. And you might've experienced this or even seen this, Amber, where people are just moved from one team to another team. Yes, they're doing it now because no one wants to offer them the feedback.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah. And especially in big businesses where that's a possibility, it's harder in a smaller enterprise. But yeah, that's definitely one of the responses, I guess, to sometimes this feedback avoidance. And what's your view of something like 360 feedback? Is it always necessary and helpful for workplaces? Look, I remember doing, you know, being a participant in 360 degree feedback. I think in some organizations, it's a nice It's a nice tool to do. i'm I'm not a massive fan to be honest. Tell me why. I think if you set up the culture and the environment where feedback doesn't have to be anonymous, I think that's, you can get more out of the feedback rather than, you know, here's some anonymous feedback. I would rather, let's talk about feedback. Let's set up a safe culture. Let's,
00:14:01
Speaker
work, you know, look at our relationships so that we can have these feedback conversations where we're both very clear on our intention. We're both very clear on our permission. We're coming from compassion. We're coming from care, respect. We're very clear on our boundaries so that we can have feedback conversations. The other thing that can be really tricky with a 360 degree feedback is you're asking peers to judge peers.
00:14:31
Speaker
And i I think that's a really hard, you know, it's hard to be someone's peer where you want to be very supportive of them, but then also be their judge. So I just wonder, are peers the best people to, you know, are they qualified to offer feedback on your performance? They can definitely share their experience of working alongside you. Yes. But I don't know that they're qualified to judge your performance. And if we, if we think about, you know, the three different types of feedback, the first one's acknowledgement, which is, you know, this is what you're doing really well. And it's more than just praise. It's, I'm going to acknowledge that half our team have been on leave, you know, or we've got 50% of our team of vacant positions at the moment, or we've had five different general managers in the last 18 months.
00:15:22
Speaker
or we're dealing with flood or fire. Yeah. So very specific to the moment, if you like. It's not just that broader. You're doing well and you're a great essential part of the team, which can feel like platitudes. Yeah. Yeah. So acknowledgement feedback has its place. It's if someone's new to the role or new to the the particular skill, absolutely marinate them in in acknowledgement feedback. So that's when as a leader, you step into cheerleader rock.
00:15:48
Speaker
So your you're all about encouraging and motivating and connecting and reassuring. That's the first type. And the research says always start with that first type. Then we've got the next type, which is evaluation feedback. And this is the one that most leaders have, they they feel least confident in. So evaluation feedback, that's when you're letting the other person know this is where you stand. This is how you're going. And this is the important bit in relation to expectations.
00:16:18
Speaker
Now, if you haven't had what I call a warmup conversation, which is where you talk about feedback, but you're not offering any feedback and those expectations aren't very clear and you haven't said to the other person, and this is how we're going to measure them. This is the the metric. This is, you know, how we're going to let you know how you're going. You come to your annual performance review and it's really, really difficult to then offer evaluation feedback.

Structured Feedback Techniques

00:16:45
Speaker
And that's when, as as leader, you're in the role of qualified assessor. So acknowledgement feedback, always start with that one. This is what you're doing really well. You're in the role of cheerleader. Evaluation feedback comes second. You're in the role of qualified assessor. And that's where I think with the 360, you know, especially the peer-to-peer feedback. And then the third type is guidance feedback, where as leader, you step into the role of coach, mentor, trainer,
00:17:14
Speaker
teacher, and that's talking about how you can improve. So there's definitely three different types. And the order is super important. The research says always start with that. Right. So there's ah there are building blocks. There is a roadmap, if you like, rather than saying there's a script because I don't love that idea that you're just, you know, memorizing what every other manager might be saying to their team. You've got to personalize it, but there is a there is a a best way to do this. Yeah, that's that's the process of you know, the middle bit, which I call the workout. So being an athlete, I've used the metaphor of always do a warmup. So your warmup is a conversation. It's a meta conversation. You're asking them, what's important to you about receiving feedback? What do you believe about it? What does it mean to you? You're talking about your intention. So you're being very clear. You're talking about boundaries and you're asking permission, which sounds a bit strange, but it absolutely works. Hey, is it okay if I offer you some feedback?
00:18:13
Speaker
on or about the way you've formatted the Jones report because, and then we've got, so that's a separate conversation you have about getting into, you know, understanding the beliefs. You're tailoring the feedback to each individual person in your team and you're making your intention very clear.
00:18:34
Speaker
the workout, that's when you're offering the three different types of feedback, acknowledgement, evaluation, guidance, and make sure that you're, as leader, you're comfortable with those three different roles because you can't just do one. You have to you have to do it all. And that's probably takes a bit of courage and confidence and practice as well, right? Like nobody's great at something the first time they do this. Exactly. And that's, you know, be open to, and that's the the last bit of the framework is,
00:19:02
Speaker
or the metaphor is the cooldown. So the cooldown is all about psychological safety. Brené Brown would call it circling back. You've been courageous and you've offered them the feedback. Hopefully you've listened to them. They've listened to you. Now let's get return on investment from that. So that's the cooldown is when you go back and you ask, Hey, how are you feeling about our feedback conversation yesterday? Now that you've had a chance to think about it, process it, reflect on it.
00:19:31
Speaker
Is there anything else we need to talk about? um you know Is there anything else you need from me? what Is there anything else that we missed? And then a week later, hey, how did you go implementing that feedback? So you're getting the most return on your investment. I've done my own research, Amber, around, and it was you know it was a survey monkey ah research around people feeling, you know, most confident and less confident.

Confidence in Feedback Scenarios

00:20:02
Speaker
And it's probably no surprise, most leaders feel most confident about offering the acknowledgement feedback. This is what you're doing really well. They feel next most confident about guidance feedback. This is how you can do better, you know, that role of coach and mentor. It's the evaluation feedback. This is how you're going in relation to expectations.
00:20:26
Speaker
specifically when people are underperforming, that's the bit where, you know, you mentioned courage before, that's the bit that most leaders struggle with. Yeah, absolutely. i could I could imagine that. That makes perfect sense really when you put it like that. If we've got legacy cultural issues or those toxic team members who may have been there for a long time, they could even be the top performers if you're just looking at, you know, overall things like, you know,
00:20:54
Speaker
sales, profit, those sorts of metrics, if you like. Is that feedback process likely to be different? Because they might have come through a culture where this has never happened before and suddenly we've got this new framework and this new way of doing things or generationally there's been a shift in leadership and so this is, you know, this is the way which the workplace operates. How might that be treated, if you like? How can we manage and accommodate that?
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, that can definitely happen. You've got these high performers who have maybe been told how wonderful they've been praised, you know, their whole career maybe, or they've had leaders in the past who have been reluctant to offer them the feedback.
00:21:38
Speaker
Because their personalities may have been not, you know, i open to it or like, yeah, it's just a tough one. i I've worked in workplaces like that. And then suddenly there's a whole, you know, there's a new way of working and they don't necessarily love it. yeah And they sort of, there's that legacy kind of behavior which happens, I think. And yeah and we don't want to we don't want to lose them because, you know, they're fantastic with our clients.
00:22:02
Speaker
Exactly. yeah And so when they've got that history. So like, how do you manage that? Like, is there a way in which that gets incorporated, if you like, into this feedback fitness framework? Yeah, so that's that's what we would cover in the warm up. So the warm up conversations, the conversation you have before you offer any feedback. And in that warm up conversation, you're asking meta questions, m e t a questions about feedback. So I've designed a ah bit of a we call it a ladder.
00:22:32
Speaker
the value letter, where you can ask someone, hey, how, what do you, first of all, what do you believe about receiving feedback? And, you know, generally, and they'll answer, they'll probably say, Oh, you know, I love it.
00:22:46
Speaker
People tend to lie. Well, they they genuinely love it because, you know, it's, they're probably thinking about positive, um, feedback when they're doing really well. So then you can say, um, on this ladder and it goes from resilient at the top to feedback rejecter at the bottom. So we've got resilient under that receptive in the middle, reluctant under that resistant and then rejecter at the bottom.
00:23:11
Speaker
So you show them the ladder. So this is, we're having a conversation about feedback, but we're not offering any feedback. You ask them, you know, where in general, as you think about feedback, where would you rate themselves? Where would you rate yourself? Sorry. So you, you get them to do a bit of a self-assessment and then you get more specific in the context of our team, you know, where would you rate yourself? If someone offered you feedback on your performance,
00:23:39
Speaker
And that's important that you say on your performance and they'll write themselves. And then if you've if you've got a, you know, psychologically safe and you've got a good relationship and you and there's trust there, you can say, when I offer you feedback on your performance, where would you rate yourself? So you get them talking about, um you know, when would be a time when you might be a bit reluctant to be open to considering feedback.
00:24:03
Speaker
So you get them to rate themselves and you have a conversation about when they say it depends because they will. Yeah. That's gold. You want your team members to sit there and say, well, it depends, Amber. And you say it depends on what and they'll tell you their filters, their criteria. So they'll say things like it depends who's offering it, how it's offered, when it's offered, what's it about? Do I value their opinion?
00:24:34
Speaker
That's gold for you as a leader to know, because then you can tailor your feedback to what they're saying. Then you might ask, have you ever had a leader in the past who offered you the most useful feedback? And they'll say, yes, Sally, back when I used to work, blah, blah, blah. She was awesome. And you ask, what was it about the way that Sally offered you that feedback that it really landed for you? And so again, you're drawing out from them.
00:25:03
Speaker
how they like to receive feedback. Now let's go back to what I said before. Feedback about your performance. Sometimes people who have feedback rejectors, they're at the bottom of that ladder. They make feedback about them, the person. So their whole worth and their whole esteem comes from their work. You then offer them feedback on the way they formatted the Jones report. They take it as a personal attack.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yes. So now I'm going to armor up. I'm going to avoid you or I'll blame you. I'll say, you're not very good at offering feedback. You're not a very good leader, are you? So that's why it's really important in that warm up conversation to say, Hey, as we work together, let's talk about our feedback conversations both ways. When I offer you feedback, it's definitely about your decision, your planning, your formatting, your work. It's not about you as a person.
00:26:04
Speaker
because what I find is people, it's not even the feedback that they're reluctant or fearful of, it's how they feel when they receive that feedback.

Learning Feedback Skills

00:26:15
Speaker
And so a lot of the work I do is helping people to be more empowered to choose the meaning they give to the feedback so then they can choose how they feel about it. That's a big part of my work.
00:26:27
Speaker
Absolutely. I love that. And I think that sort of encompasses that idea that it's more than that tick and flick exercise and people and organizations can actually get to understand, I guess, what this this process is going to be like. And like anything in life, like preparing for a marathon or any kind of activity, the more you've done it, the more familiar you become, there's kind of a new kind of sense of ease, even if it's sometimes feedback that's hard to hear. That's my experience anyway. Would you would you agree with that? Yeah, you can build confidence in your feedback, offering and receiving skills. And so that cool down conversation that happens after you've offered the feedback, that's a great time if you're open and willing to say to the person you've offered the feedback to, um how did I go offering the feedback? You know, can I have feedback on my feedback?
00:27:19
Speaker
You're right, Amber. It is absolutely a skill that you can learn. And with any skill, we build our confidence up through repetition and feedback. Sorry. Yeah, yeah absolutely. I'm going to change tack a little bit. What at the moment are you using in your business or it could be in your personal life, a bit of a hack or a tool or an app or something that you're really loving and how is it helping you? Oh my gosh, I'm totally

Project Management with Asana

00:27:45
Speaker
addicted. No, I shouldn't say that. I have choice here.
00:27:50
Speaker
Asana. Ah, yes. And what's what's it helping you with? How's it helping you? It's just been incredible. So I run lots of different workshops and, you know, coach a lot of different people working on a lot of different projects. Asana, it's a project management system. I think it's like Trello, although I've never used Trello. Yeah. What it's done is it's got everything out of my head.
00:28:16
Speaker
and it's in a system. And so now I have a system that I trust. So I, I used to lie in bed, Amber, and I'd lie in bed and I'd go, have I sent that to the printer? And then dig through all my emails you know to the printer. Yes. It's out of your head. I love that. And the fact that you can tick off tasks and every now and then it sends a little unicorn rainbow across your screen. So you you get the feedback that you're doing well and you're on track and you've done that. Yeah, that's cool. I use something similar. So I totally hear you as a, particularly as a small business owner, it can be hard to switch off. And if you don't have to wake up at three in the morning and wonder if I've sent that thing to the printer, your life will be a lot better. Your biggest life lesson to date and why has it been important to you? Ooh, ask more questions. So um why is it important?
00:29:13
Speaker
I grew up in a family where with communication wasn't a big thing. um That sounds really strange. we We were very loved, but we didn't talk about a lot of things. And there were a lot of... As a big generational, I would say, I'm late to that. Yeah. And there's a lot of things where, you know, people think things were said and I just sort of accepted it. And it's not about, you know, being um challenging. It was just, I wish I had of asked more questions.
00:29:41
Speaker
Asking questions for me, I step into curiosity, which helps me get out of judgment. So instead of, I can't really explain it. I just, I think if I come from a, I just want to learn more. I just want to understand more lens. I'm more likely to be in curiosity and compassion rather than judgment, which is, you know, why would they do that? Why would they think that? That makes no sense.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yes, no, I love that. I think that's really important for people to kind of, you know, i get their head around, particularly as I think as we get older, I think we settle into that a little bit too, which is which is always helpful. And how do you define your own version of success these days, Sue? Oh, for me, it's all about healthy relationships. So during COVID, I really started to value the importance of my relationships, you know, when we were cut off from everyone and also health. So For me, success is, you know, if you won Tat Sloto and you never had to work again, would you still get up and do what you're doing now? And do you have the energy? So it's healthy relationships, but also healthy body to have the energy to wake up and go, I love the work that I do. And if I won the 20 million midweek Tat Sloto, I reckon I'd still do it.
00:31:03
Speaker
That would be success for me. Absolutely. And just a final takeaway message for us on the politics of feedback.

Perception of Feedback and Personal Growth

00:31:11
Speaker
Just because someone offers you feedback doesn't mean you have to be affected by it. You have choice. You have choice in what you make it mean, whether you take it on board or not, you have choice in how you feel about it. So just because someone offers you feedback doesn't mean you have to be affected by it.
00:31:33
Speaker
Awesome. I've loved our conversation and I'm sure the audience has too. And of course, if you do want to connect further with Sue and find out more about what she offers, there will be some details and links on the show notes. Until next time, take care.
00:31:47
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening today. If you've enjoyed the politics of everything, I thrive on your feedback. So please add a short review and share the podcast with your network through Apple, Spotify, and all the usual suspects. I'm always on the hunt for new and diverse guests. So if you or someone you know has a fresh idea, you're busting to get out there, please email me at amber at amberdains.com and my crew will get back to you very soon.