The Art of Giving Feedback

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership, case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. If you’re a leader, you probably know how hard it is to give someone the kind of feedback that motivates them to improve, and you also know how critical feedback is to your team’s success and growth. Today we bring you a conversation about how to give good feedback – with the help of Therese Huston, a cognitive scientist at Seattle University who specializes in giving and receiving feedback, and Jessica Gomez, an elementary school principal who se job involves observing teachers and giving them feedback. In this episode, you’ll learn what to prioritize when you give feedback, how to make sure your message is clear, and how to both lay the groundwork for these difficult conversations and follow up afterward. This episode originally aired on Women at Work in May 2021, as part of a special series called “The Essentials.” Here it is.

AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo. Giving useful feedback is a critical part of being a good manager. But let’s face it: no one really likes to give feedback. We worry that even mild criticism will make someone angry or upset. Or that our feedback will demoralize them instead of motivate them. It’s also hard to know what to prioritize and how to make sure your message is clear. And if we are working remotely, how do we carve out the time? Being a woman can make this challenge even more difficult. We know from research that employees – both men and women – react more negatively when receiving constructive feedback from a woman as opposed to a man. So, sure, giving feedback is complicated, but it’s manageable. And for the next half hour or so, we’re covering the essentials of this important topic. I’m joined by two other women who are bringing their expertise and experience to the conversation. First, Therese Huston, who’s a social scientist. Her latest book is Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower. Therese is the founding director of Seattle University’s Center for Faculty Development. For years she’s helped college professors improve their teaching so that students can learn more from them. Which is similar to the work my second guest, Jessica Gomez, does. She’s an elementary school principal in Southern California. A lot of her job involves visiting classrooms – sometimes virtually – observing teachers, and then giving them feedback on how well they’re engaging students. Therese, Jessica, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Thank you for having us.

THERESE HUSTON: It’s a real pleasure to be here. Amy, thank you.

AMY GALLO: So, Jessica, you’ve been in a managerial role for 13 years now. So, you’re probably giving feedback all the time. What aspects of the skill do you still find challenging?

JESSICA GOMEZ: Well for me personally, it’s getting the time to do it. Because if you can imagine, if you’re walking from class to class, just say you visit 10 classes in a one-hour period of time, or maybe 10 minutes in each class. Coming back realistically to sit down, write down your notes, find the time to find that teacher to go over that feedback and so, time passes and like oh shoot, I never got back to her or him. And then right now over virtual, it’s this awkward thing versus usually I bump into them in the hallway, or I bump into them in the, right. So, it’s so easy, and this way has to be a very intentional meet up.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. So, finding the time. Anything else you find challenging?

JESSICA GOMEZ: Sometimes I think when it has to be a little bit more difficult of feedback, where sometimes there might be several things I need to give feedback on, without overwhelming the person. There’s this, this, this, this, and this. How do you just kind of streamline that and say, “OK, do I go for the most important piece that I think is going to make the biggest difference?” Or do I go for the feedback that is maybe going to make the quickest wins? And the quickest that I know that they can be oh, it’s just a little tweak. So, which one do I go to first without having to layout a whole list of things? Because I know that if I was given that it would be really challenging for me to be able to address them all.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. The laundry list of our flaws is never easy to listen to, right?

JESSICA GOMEZ: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. So, we’re going to address some of those challenges with Therese’s help. But Therese, I want to just lay the groundwork first. I’ve always thought about giving feedback as one conversation, but you split it into three categories: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Are these actually three separate conversations, and why do you think it’s important to make distinctions between those?

THERESE HUSTON: So, those are three different kinds of feedback. Appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. I get that language from Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen who have a great book, Thanks for the Feedback. Which is a book on how to hear feedback more effectively and be more receptive to it. They don’t necessarily have to be three different conversations, but let me first distinguish what they mean. So, appreciation is what most of us think of as positive feedback or praise – that’s telling someone what you want them to keep doing, or do even more often because they do it well, and it has a positive impact. And then coaching is advice that’s in Jessica’s case, helping someone figure out how can they keep students more engaged when they’re doing all their learning from home on their computers? But that would be advice – how to adapt, how to build, how to learn, how to grow. And then there’s evaluation which is the part that most of us will hesitate to give and maybe only give at annual performance review time. And evaluation is letting someone know where they stand. Are they inline for a promotion? Are they inline for a merit raise? Are they where Jessica expects them to be two months into their first teaching job? Are they meeting expectations? You asked, do these need to be separate conversations? No, not necessarily and in fact you should be giving a lot more appreciation than you should the other two. That builds trust. It helps the person see what they’re doing well. But it is very possible to combine the two. For instance, in an evaluation conversation, if you’re letting someone know where they stand, you wouldn’t want to just say, Emily, you need to improve blank because you’re not performing where I’d expect someone in their second year of teaching to be, and then end the conversation. You’d want to offer some coaching after that on what Emily perhaps could be doing to improve or adapt. And the tricky part is that the reason I emphasize separating these two is all too often employees will come in saying, Jessica could you give me some feedback on my teaching? And Jessica’s like of course. And Jessica assumes they want one kind of feedback when they really want another. So, the advice I would have for principals, for Jessica, for anyone in a management role would be to say: “I’d love to give you some feedback. What would be most helpful to you right now? Do you want me to let you know what I love about your work? Would you like some coaching and advice, or do you want to know where you stand?” And the other person might be really surprised because no one’s ever asked them that question. But there’s a good chance that because you invited them to get specific, they can now say, “Actually what I’d really like is some coaching. I’m having trouble with my math curriculum.” Or “no, I would like to know where I stand. Would you be willing to tell me?” And so, if you open up those possibilities, it’s especially hard to ask for appreciation. No one, everyone feels needy if they’re asking for what am I doing well? So, to offer that, to say: “Would you like, would it be helpful to hear what I love about your work?” Just about anybody would love that question.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Yes. And just having that vocabulary to be able to have what can be a challenging and difficult or very uncomfortable conversation, really opens it up to being a very comfortable opportunity for me to be able to highlight all the amazing things they do, because they do, do a lot more amazing things than areas of growth.

AMY GALLO: What I like about it too is that one of the things that I find difficult about hearing feedback is that I’m not sure what’s coming. So, when someone says, can I give you a piece of feedback? I of course am bracing myself to hear the worst. But if they say, can I give you a piece of coaching feedback, or can I show you some appreciation for the work you’ve done? I’m more in the right mindset to hear what’s about to be said to me, which I think is a big part of what you’re describing to me.

THERESE HUSTON: It is. And one of the things you’re doing when you ask the other person what kind of feedback would be helpful to you is you’re putting them back in the driver’s seat and so they’re much more receptive to whatever you’re about to say.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: Let’s talk about Jessica’s challenge around trying to decide what to focus on.

THERESE HUSTON: I’m so glad you brought this problem up Jessica because I know one of the mistakes I used to make early in my career in giving teachers feedback, because one of my rules is to give professors feedback, is that I would give them the whole laundry list. I’d have 11 different suggestions, and I would just go down every suggestion, and the other person would either be collapsing, you know they’d be shutting down, or they’d be getting angry because they’re so overwhelmed with their work that they’re like, how could I do all these things? You’re just adding to my troubles. What I really like to draw upon, there’s a great book called The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. And what they point out is if you want to keep people motivated, because I think that’s one of the issues that you’re addressing there Jessica.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Yeah, exactly.

THERESE HUSTON: How do I keep their motivation up if I’m offering them feedback? And what Amabile and Kramer found was that the number one thing that motivates people is a sense of progress. Managers often think that the thing that will motivate people is appreciation and recognition, but the truth is when they analyzed work diaries of different participants in their research study, what really, the most motivating days people had were days where they felt they made progress. Not that they reached a huge deadline, but that they made progress on their important goals. So, what I take from that is if you’re trying to figure out which of the 11 things should I point out if I’m only going to point out two or three, don’t give the hardest ones, and don’t give the easiest, but give something in the middle where that person is going to be able to see some immediate gains. And also you want to help them see their progress. So, if you can identify something that’s in the middle there, that’s going to be an easy win, they’ll be able to make some progress, but it’s still important, and then you can circle back to them and say, “Hey, two weeks ago we talked about how you were going to be doing this with your third graders. I’m curious, how’s it going?” And then that person can say, it worked. I tried blank, and you wouldn’t believe it, but the students were so much more engaged, and it was a Friday afternoon at 2:00, and they were still paying attention. And so, you’re both getting to acknowledge the progress. So, that’s what I would suggest. Start with something where they could see immediate progress and check back with them to find out how the progress is going. Because that also gives you a chance if they’re not making progress to do some coaching to help them problem solve.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: I want to ask about that list of 11 things that Jessica’s talking about and you had said Therese that you want to focus on something they can make progress on. So, you’re not doing the easiest thing and the hardest things, but when do you give the feedback about those other 10 things, including the hard ones and the easy ones?

THERESE HUSTON: That’s a good question. I would say if there’s a big issue, a really complicated issue, or an issue that you think is deeply intrinsic to that person’s personality, I once worked with a professor who’s very shy, and it was getting in the way of his teaching. And the first time I gave him feedback we didn’t start with his shyness because I thought that was going to be overwhelming to him. In the second or third conversation, I brought up, I noticed that you sometimes seem reluctant to make eye contact with students. Was that just that one day that I happened to be in the classroom or have you noticed that before? And he shrunk down a little bit, he said, oh no, this is a real challenge for me. And I was like oh, let’s brainstorm together. What would be a workable solution for you? Do you really think it’s getting in your way? And by the end of the conversation, he was so grateful that I brought it up, he was so embarrassed about it that it felt unmanageable. But we were able make the unmentionable, mentionable. Which really empowers people. So, I’d suggest moving to those bigger issues after you’ve had that sense of progress and some successful wins and built up that trust that you’re on that person’s side. That that would be the time to start bringing up the challenging issues. And you might even be able to, depending on your relationship with the teacher, to make it a joke. I do this with my husband where I’ll say something to the effect of, I have bigger feedback. Is this the time to bring it up or not? And he can come back and say definitely not. Or, he can say, yeah, I guess. And then we can get into the harder issues. But definitely you want to get to those bigger issues, but get something in the bank first. Get some easy wins behind you.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Therese, I’m wondering how does trust build into that? As Amy said, when do you get to those bigger, maybe that bigger list of laundry, those harder conversations? Where does trust come in? Because I have the privilege of having nine years with my staff. So, we’ve established some fabulous rapport, and they can trust me as a leader. But as a new leader or a new manager coming into organization, does trust matter I guess is my question.

THERESE HUSTON: I would say yes trust matters. But trust can feel like something like you said, you build over the course of nine years. And you want to be able to give feedback in your first year of being a principal. You don’t want to have to wait until year nine or even year four before you start giving feedback. So, in my book, Let’s Talk, I did an interesting research study that identified there is some much simpler things you can do to improve how someone hears feedback that’s unwelcomed. I surveyed people around what would have made a bad feedback conversation better? And it was really interesting because one of the options that they had was I wish I had trusted the person giving me feedback more. And that was actually ranked number 10. I expected it to be ranked number one or number two. It was ranked number 10. And the top five responses were basically different variations on I wish the other person had listened to me. I wish they’d ask for my perspective. That would have made a hard feedback conversation go so much better. And, that’s a way that you can build trust. I mean basically you’re building trust by listening first – getting their side of the story. Giving them a chance to say well here’s what I would do exactly the same way the next time, and here’s what I would do differently. That’s a great question to ask is so, if you found yourself in the same situation again, what would you do the same way and what might you experiment with

AMY GALLO: Yeah. What I think about how uncomfortable many managers feel with giving feedback, a lot of it is: “I just have to get this out. I have to finally say this. I spent so much time ruminating or preparing, I’m just going to say it.” And so, it becomes a monologue rather than a dialogue. And Therese, could you talk a little bit about the role of questions in giving feedback?

THERESE HUSTON: I’m so glad you brought this up Amy because you’re so right, especially if you’re someone who’s a bit conflict avoidant like I am. You’ll spend a lot of time in your head deciding, do I need to bring this up? Is this a big enough problem? Maybe it only happened that one time. OK, even if it only happened once, it can never happen again. And you spend way more time. You might spend three hours thinking about the problem, and only 20 minutes talking with that teacher. So, what’s happened in that situation, I like to call it, you sided with the problem. And what you really want to do is side with the person, not the problem. And one of the ways, and that doesn’t mean that you’re saying the problem isn’t important. That doesn’t mean you’re letting that person off the hook. It means you can imagine swiveling over to their side of the desk and the problems over there and we’re looking at it from the same perspective. What do we need to do? What would make a difference? What would you be willing to try? That’s a question I often ask people is, what would you be willing to try and what’s off the table? And it’s really fascinating because people will often have things where they say, I absolutely won’t do X. And I’m like, well maybe, you know, maybe I do X prime. And then they’ll back it up. They’ll soften it. So, asking questions is important because if you’re the only one talking that’s called broadcasting. Two people talking that’s a conversation. So, you want this to be a feedback conversation, not feedback broadcasting. So, questions are the way to get the other person’s perspective. There’re a variety of questions that I love to ask. The first thing you want to do is you want to find out how well they self-assess. So, for instance if someone’s made a mistake, you want to find out do they see it as a problem. It’s going to be so much easier to work with them if they agree that was a tricky situation. So, let’s say you get a complaint about a parent teacher conference. You have a parent call in, contact you or send you an email saying that a parent teacher conference didn’t go well. So, I would start that kind of conversation by saying something like, how do you think parent teacher conferences went? Did you have any that were particularly tricky? And then you find out, oh, you know what? The one that was really hard was blank. And now you can move so much easier into that conversation saying, well you know what? Actually, I heard from Mrs. McCormick. She called me, and then the teacher can roll her eyes and say I’m not surprised. But now you’re brainstorming together on what happened, why might that parent have that perception? If you can figure out questions for self-assessment, is this person aware of the problem? If they articulate it first, you’re in really good shape.

AMY GALLO: Therese, what if the person doesn’t see that there is a problem? How can you use questions to help them develop their awareness about what needs to be worked on?

THERESE HUSTON: It’s a great question Amy. And so, you won’t be able to only rely on questions. At some point you’re probably going to need to point out the problem. But let’s take an example here. So, let’s say that you heard that a call to the London office didn’t go well. And you weren’t on that call so you’re just hearing this second hand, but you’re concerned about it because this is an important collaboration that you have with the London office. So, you might say to the person, “OK, so Amy, how did the call with the London office go this week?” And Amy you say how well it went, all these fabulous decisions that were made and negotiations that happened, and Amy you’re not bringing up the problem. So, then I move to well I’m asking because actually the perception was that there wasn’t enough research done on your end to be prepared for the call. And why do you think they might have thought that? Or even before that I might ask, so how do you see it, Amy? So, I say they were concerned that perhaps you weren’t as prepared as you normally are for these kinds of calls. How do you see it? And then Amy you can now tell me like oh, you know, I wasn’t as prepared as usual because I thought the call was on Friday and it was actually on Thursday. Or, you could say, no I was prepared. I have no idea what they’re saying. Right? But I’m asking how you see it, and then I might move to OK, so there was that perception. Let’s say we, you tell me I was prepared and I can say OK, well there was a perception that you weren’t prepared. Where do you think that perception might be coming from? So, we’re really trying to figure out was it a real problem or was it just a perception problem? Either way it’s something that we need to address, but let’s at least come to agreement whether that really was a problem or it was the perception, but the perception is still an issue. We don’t want to run into that again. You are going to at some point probably need to say, here’s what I heard, or here’s what I saw, here’s what I noticed. But then immediately move back to so how do you see it? Why do you think people had that impression? And then other questions that you can ask, questions that I really like to say are things like, Amy it’s uncharacteristic of you to be unprepared for a call or for people to even think that you’re unprepared. Help me understand what happened. That gives you the affirmation that I know this isn’t you. This isn’t typical. Is there a way that I can help you? Is there a way I can support you? And the other thing that I also like, another question I like to ask, is I’m guessing that you faced a tradeoff. So, what factors were you weighing? Because there might have been some tradeoff where you’re like I can either prepare for the London call or I can prepare for this presentation that I’m giving to the VP’s this afternoon. And so, then it gives you a chance Amy to say like well here’s the dilemma that I faced. What would you have done? And then the two of you can say, actually you made the right choice. So, that would be another question that I might ask.

AMY GALLO: I love the reframing story in particular that this is not how I typically see you. I see you as someone who’s very prepared. What happened in this case? Because I think a lot of times again, if I think about some of the constructive feedback I’ve received, my identity gets really threatened and I’m someone who doesn’t make mistakes. I’m someone who’s always prepared for meetings. I’m someone who keeps my clients happy. So, hearing that I haven’t done that starts to make me question my own identity. And I think what you’ve done there is you allow the person to retain their vision of who they are, while still addressing the behavior or the situation.

THERESE HUSTON: You’re so right. Because we have professional identities, and they can easily be threatened, which is not what the principal or the manager’s trying to do when they raise this problem with you. But that’s what gets triggered, and you’re reacting to that and then you can’t, you’re not a good problem solver under those circumstances. You’re under high threat. So, simply saying like that’s not how I usually see you, and I love your language. So, what happened in this case? Because it really makes it an isolated incident because what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make sure it’s not a repeated incident. That it indeed was an isolated time, and it’s not going to happen again.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. So, Jessica, your school district has been virtual for almost a year, or I guess over a year now. And you’re having to do a lot of this feedback over Zoom I presume.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Yes. Yes. And the way I look at it is I always try never to forget what it’s like to be a teacher. Or any role if I’ve been in that role. Because I want to come from it from a perspective of: what are they dealing with right now? You have kids who have a spotty WiFi. You have their own teachers who have spotty WiFi. So, if the students are not engaged is it because the teacher’s WiFi keeps going in and out? Is it because they are getting spotty WiFi? And for me that’s what I’m finding challenging with the feedback right now is how do I give that feedback that is appropriate for the learning environment that we’re in right now? Not only that, so let’s say I do have feedback, when do we give it to them? When do I give it to them because they’re working all day? They’re either prepping lessons, or they’re doing small group instruction, or they’re having office hours. And so, for me would be like at the end of the day when they’re exhausted. So now, by the way, meet me at this time because I really want to talk about what I saw.

AMY GALLO: And we’re going to get on yet another Zoom, right?

JESSICA GOMEZ: Yes. And I’m Zoomed out. I’m burned out. So, it has been this constant battle that I’ve been having with myself of: how do I let them know they did an amazing job, but also to let them know, OK, let’s think about it from this perspective? Maybe you want to try this particular strategy. That’s been challenging for us as educational leaders right now, to be able to give effective feedback. And to be honest with you, as a leader sometimes I feel ineffective right now because things are so out of my control, and, I just feel like I should be doing so much more, but there’s only so much I can do from where I’m leading.

AMY GALLO: Therese, Jessica’s not alone in this feeling out of control right now, right?

THERESE HUSTON: Absolutely not. Jessica, you raise an excellent point around how do I make sure I give this feedback soon enough, but not exhaust the person and also perhaps not to catch them off guard. One piece of advice that a lot of managers are finding helpful is to make it transparent ahead of time that let’s set up that feedback conversation before I even come to observe your class. So, that might be, if you’re observing on a Thursday to say, would it be better for you if we set up 10 minutes at the end of the day on Thursday or 10 minutes at the end of the day on Friday? Give them the choice. And then they can say, well neither’s great, but if we’re going to do it let’s do 10 minutes on Thursday. And that way it’s transparent that we’re going to do this, and when you come back together it may just be a virtual high five, or it could be OK, so what would you do the same and what would you change? Here’s what I was thinking you might want to try. Would you be open to that? But you’re scheduling it ahead of time so that the person doesn’t feel that it’s going to be punitive or that this is going to be remedial because they made a mistake, but that they know ahead of time that this is coming. And that also gives them some control because they decide when they want to have that conversation.

JESSICA GOMEZ: So, I don’t know if in the corporate world if it works this way, but there’s the informal and then there’s the formal feedback.

THERESE HUSTON: Absolutely, yep.

JESSICA GOMEZ: So, in the education world, when I’m talking about going through informal class visits on a daily basis, those are not formal evaluations or more coaching opportunities, appreciation opportunities. And so, do we always want to give feedback at every time that you visit? So, because I want to try to visit as much as I can, but should we set up a culture where every time I do that that we should give some feedback? I think the answers yes, but I’d love to hear what you have to say.

THERESE HUSTON: Well, there’s a great research study by a team at University of Michigan that finds, now they weren’t looking at educational context, but they found in industry, the highest performing teams receive 5.6 pieces of praise for every piece of criticism. So, it’s not two pieces of praise for every one piece of criticism or even three, but almost six pieces of praise. And so, what I would suggest is every opportunity that you get, say what they’re doing well and be specific about it. Why something works, what impact it’s having, how it’s benefiting learning or how it’s saving time, or whatever it might be. But in terms of do you need to give coaching every time? No. Definitely not. But appreciation, just give it every chance you get.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Always. Any chance I get is exactly what I do.

AMY GALLO: I want to ask Therese about clarity. Because I’m thinking about a friend who’s a manager who I helped prep for a very difficult feedback conversation she needed to have with one of her direct reports. And it went really well from her perspective. And then nothing changed. So, in fact the next time they spoke the direct report did not express any understanding or comprehension of what they had talked about before. And I’m curious, how can you make sure that what you’re saying is clearly heard by the other person?

THERESE HUSTON: So, some things that I like to do at the end of a feedback conversation, a couple of different questions. Like OK. What are your top three takeaways? We covered a lot of ground here today Amy. What do you hear me saying? What are your top priorities based on what we talked about today? A thing that I like to ask is what was most valuable to you out of this conversation? And that’s fascinating because you might find that the thing that they thought was most valuable to you was really obvious, but to them was a light bulb moment. And that can really help you adjust. Oh, OK. Gosh, wow. That wasn’t the main takeaway. Let me come back to it. Let me say it one more time.

AMY GALLO: So, let’s assume you’ve followed all of your advice Therese. This conversation has gone pretty well, or not disastrously, and you leave the conversation. What do you do to follow up? How do you make sure that what you’ve given the feedback or the coaching about actually is carried through?

THERESE HUSTON: Well, ideally when you’re having the feedback conversation, if there’s a concern that’s coming up, I advise people to say, let’s touch base in two weeks. Or you can give the other person control and say, so Amy, when would you like to circle back on this? I want you to be able to tell me problem solved, or problem more complicated than we realized. If you forget to do that because we’re all busy, and it’s easy to forget things, you can still come back two weeks later and say, hey Amy so two weeks ago we talked about how you were going to make an effort to come in earlier. That you were going to log in on email earlier, let’s say. Or, that you were going to do some different preparations for the negotiations that you go into. I’m wondering how that’s going? What’s easier than you thought? What’s harder than you thought? And giving them a chance to really let you know the landscape that they’ve traversed. And they may, you know, maybe that person’s going to come back to you and say, I know it’s important. These past two weeks have been crazy at home. I haven’t been able to do the extra prep that I expected. But then you can say OK, great. So that happens. We all find ourselves there. I understand. Given that, what do you want to do differently going forward? Maybe, is that situation changing or is it going to be the reality from now on? But I do suggest as a manager, it’s very important to circle back and find out what progress people have made. Again, it gets back to what we talked about earlier. The progress principle. Helping people see that they’ve made progress. Giving them a chance to articulate the progress they’ve made. And that might even be the direct question that you ask. What kind of progress have you made? What’s been easy and what’s been hard?

AMY GALLO: Jessica, do you find you have time for those follow up conversations?

JESSICA GOMEZ: You know, as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, well that would be ideal to be able to circle back with everybody, because in my mind I was thinking, so if you are leading a team of, I don’t know, 75 to 100, I mean at the high school you’re dealing with employees up to 150 employees. These are just the adults. These are not even the kids. But as the adults, and so as you were talking, I thought to myself, how would I ensure to circle back with everyone? And so, what I started to envision was, I need to put it on my calendar so that ahead of time, and say OK, put it out two weeks in the future so that I don’t forget. Because if you need to have multiple conversations with multiple people, if you’re anything like me and the world takes, you know, life takes over, you’re going to forget. And, but putting I think calendaring it just to remember to come back and circle back. I do that also to say, if someone’s going to have an important doctor appointment or an important, something big in their life, I calendar it like a day or two after. I make sure I ask them about that. Because I will forget about that too. But I think that might be a great strategy. As you were talking, I thought, I need to do that. I need to do that to make sure that I don’t forget it.

THERESE HUSTON: And it’s not something you can do for all 150 employees. But you can tick those people who you either think A, need more encouragement. They want to make sure you see they’re making progress. And so that’s a way you’re offering appreciation to them. So, it’s either the people who need to have that motivating conversation with you, or B, the problems that you’re thinking, whoa this has got to change and I’m just going to circle back with them and make sure that change has begun. Those would be the two groups to prioritize.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Yes, yes.

AMY GALLO: Therese and Jessica, thank you so much. This has been such a useful conversation.

THERESE HUSTON: Thank you so much.

JESSICA GOMEZ: Thanks so much.

HANNAH BATES: That was social scientist Therese Huston and elementary school principal Jessica Gomez  – in conversation with Amy Gallo on Women at Work. We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review. We’re a production of the Harvard Business Review – if you want more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, find it all at HBR dot org. This episode was produced by Amanda Kersey, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Tina Tobey Mack, Erica Truxler, Adam Buchholz, Maureen Hoch, Adi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.