WEBVTT

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There are certainly times during our
feedback process where the messages being

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delivered are difficult.

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They can be ones that are so difficult it
might end up eventually having the person

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who's getting the feedback have to leave
the company, either by their own choice or

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the choice of the team.

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What we try and encourage people
to do in these feedback sessions

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is to think about some fundamental things.

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Number one, is the message I'm
giving that person the truth?

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Can that truth be delivered in a way
that's helpful rather than hurtful?

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And so all the truths we're expressing,
we're trying to do and

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we're not perfect at any of this,
we're always practicing on this.

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But can I deliver this in a way that you
could actually grow from rather than

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simply deliver some message that's gonna
be leaving you in fear after the session,

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and quite frankly, is the truth necessary?

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Is this particular truth important enough
to bring up in something like this?

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Now those are the broad sort
of aspirational goals for

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these feedback lunches,
but we're all human.

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We fall short in these ways, and
quite frankly, you are learning every

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step of the way because you're on both
sides of this equation as we go forward.

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Everybody gets a chance to practice this.

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Everybody's coming to these
feedback lunches at one time or

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another and they will be on
either side of the equation.

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Quite frankly, the way you learn to give
better feedback is to see how it felt when

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you got feedback that might have been a
little less than stellar from your peers.

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And I think this is probably as close
to the lifetime journey of every

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individual at Menlo as how to get better
and better and better at doing this.

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And we have to assume everybody's gonna do
it poorly at first and every time we try

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this we, both individually and as a team,
are gonna get better and better at it.

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And sometimes, it doesn't go well.

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Sometimes we struggle
with how to deliver this.

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Sometimes we have to apologize later for
something we said.

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We try and keep ourselves humble enough to
realize that if we made somebody cry or

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we made somebody feel bad about something
that we probably didn't deliver

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on those earlier three aspirational
goals of the feedback lunch.