Practical Strategies for Building a Culture of Feedback in Your Team

Learn practical ways to build a culture of feedback at work, whether your team is new to honest conversations or already open to input. Emily Sander shares examples like using simple "what did we learn?" discussions after meetings, asking for feedback on your own actions, and starting anonymous pulse surveys. Tips include using "we" language in reviews, modeling how to accept feedback, and structuring shout-outs and team evaluations to encourage constructive dialogue.

Link Mentioned:
Radical Candor by Kim Scott

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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.

Time Stamps:
00:41 Radical Candor Recap

01:43 Why Feedback Cultures Fail

02:59 Start Small and Be Patient

03:36 Ask What Did We Learn

05:46 Model Feedback on Yourself

07:37 Debrief Story Example

11:14 Pulse Surveys and Follow Through

13:00 Structured Group Feedback Loops

22:29 Wrap Up and Next Steps

Transcript

0:06

Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you.

Radical Candor Recap

Why Feedback Cultures Fail

Start Small and Be Patient

Ask What Did We Learn

Model Feedback on Yourself

Debrief Story Example

Pulse Surveys and Follow Through

Structured Group Feedback Loops

Wrap Up and Next Steps

emily-sander_1_03-13-2026_143426 0:25

In this episode, I wanna go over some tactical and practical ways to build a culture of feedback. So we've talked about, how feedback is important and how asking for feedback and how providing feedback and making it specific enough to be actionable. Um, all these different things about feedback. I've mentioned the book, radical Candor by Kim Scott. Really quick recap. Radical candor is this concept that is, is combining caring about an individual personally, so caring about them as a person and communicating directly. So if you care about someone as a person and you communicate directly, that's radical candor. And the, the funny example from this book I always remember is if you see someone with their fly unzipped telling that person is caring about them. As a person and also telling them directly, like, don't beat around the bush. Like, hey, like, you know, what do you like in someone's wardrobe? Or Hey, um, you know, how do those pants feel on you? It's just like, Hey man, like the, the horse is outta the barn. Like, zip it up. Or like just, Hey, your flies unzipped. Like I'll open my jacket so you can have a minute to get yourself in order there, or whatever it is. So that's just like a funny but memorable way to remember. Okay. Yeah. Radical candor. Yeah, could be a little bit awkward, but it's gonna help that person to say something. Okay, so how do we actually build that? How do we actually build that in a team where maybe there hasn't really been a culture of feedback, or maybe it's been 180 from a culture of healthy feedback. Maybe it's been a, everyone put your head down, it's a dictatorship and you can be lucky if you don't get fired today. Maybe, maybe that's been the culture, quote, unquote culture. And so people are like extremely reluctant to say anything, certainly say anything critical or constructive, and they've been conditioned. to act the way they act. And that's human nature, right? We're gonna adapt to the environment around us. What do I need to do to survive here? What do I need to do to succeed here? And if that's, keep your head down. And when the boss says jump, you ask how high and you do it the best, then that might be who's left. I've spoken with loads of people who have inherited teams like this where it's like, okay, Emily, I know I'm supposed to build this culture of feedback in two way, and I want feedback and I wanna be able to deliver feedback without people getting offended or getting scared for their jobs or whatever. But I'm, I'm coming from this. So like, how, like how do I get from here to there? Like, help me. So, here's a few things that I tend to talk through with people. The first is, you don't need to do this all at once. So if you're going from, keep your head down or you're gonna get shot to, uh, radical candor esque levels of feedback, uh, that's not gonna happen overnight. That will likely not happen in a year. Just to be very honest, just to be very candid with you, that's a process. That's an ongoing process. Doesn't mean you shouldn't start, doesn't mean you shouldn't be intentional about that. Doesn't mean you shouldn't say, okay, in a year from now, I wanna make sure we're as close to radical candor as possible, or whatever. Kind of your, your, your goal is there with the culture of feedback. so it could be something like, okay, uh, let me just start small and start demonstrating. What I mean, and it could be, in meetings you talk about what did we learn from that? we like the pronoun we is powerful. Like, not what did you, what did you do? Or here's what I did. Amazing. Like, let me tell you all about that. You know, uh, what did we learn from that? Just, you know, as a team meeting, what did we learn from that? Say this, ask this after something, quote unquote negative happened, and after the team had a win. So in both cases, or even, maybe it's not a good or bad thing, it's just a thing just asking that question over and over, like that specific question or variations of the question of like, huh. Hmm. Yeah. That did not go the way any of us planned. No, no, no, it did not. Oh, no, no it did not. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. What did we learn? What did guys what did we learn about that? Um, you know, maybe a follow up question in there, or inherent in that question is, huh, what can we do differently next time? Like that that did not go to plan? What was in our control? Was anything in our control? Could we have done anything differently? If the answer is yes, identifying that and talking that through as a group in a non-threatening, non blaming way builds that culture of feedback. Right. Oh my gosh. Builds it so much. If you can, Talk about a team win. Like everyone's happy. Like yes, yes. Like a big deal came through like, yes, we got that partnership or whatever it was awesome. Like, the deal team did this and we did this. Uh, RFP, like, you know, what did we learn about that? RFP process. RFPs are not sexy things to talk about. So if you could make it like, Hey, we did the tough work. I know it wasn't pleasant, but what did we learn about that? All right. We learned, you know what? We need to streamline that process. It does not need to be that painful. Honestly, we can improve that internal process for collecting RFP data so much. And what we learned is it is worth it. It can be worth it. look what just happened. This is gonna make our, 18 month plan. It's gonna put us in a totally different position than where we were before.'cause we did that RFP successfully. Okay? So what did you learn? What did we learn about that? A really good one is, uh. If you can ask for feedback for yourself in a non awkward way, meaning if you can. Demonstrate how to provide feedback and have you be the recipient of that. So you're not starting with your team. If they're like not ready for that or they're gonna shrivel up into their shell and put their defenses up. If anyone even gives a whiff of let's provide some feedback now. Oh, direct that to yourself. Find ways to direct that to yourself. and you might need to be creative with this because if it's like, alright team, give me feedback. You might get crickets and tumbleweeds.'cause no one's gonna raise their hand and be like, well boss, here's what you, here's what you messed up on. Everyone knows it, but here's, I'm gonna be the one to say it. You might not get that. So you might have to be creative about that. It might be one-on-one settings, it might be, um. Asking for a specific, uh, a specific piece of feedback, and maybe it's not about you, maybe you use the, the phrasing of, for this project, uh, for this approach. Can folks tell me some ideas about how we can, do that differently? And the we as like an implicit, like, how can I do that differently or how can this approach. Um, be different next time, something like that. The find your own words and, and make it work for you. So it's not super clunky or super awkward, but the, the key points here are direct it towards yourself and show people that you're willing to take on feedback yourself and you actually want it. You're actually hungry for it. It actually helps you and you're actually going to do something with that. All of those are great things to get across. Um. I am trying to think, I'm trying to think of an actual example. Uh oh, I know. So, so, so, um. Okay. I was leading a team called the deployment team at one company, and then we had another account management team, and there were some handoff workflow issues to say the least. We'll just put it generally like that. And so I was talking to leadership, the account management leadership team. About like, how are we gonna do this better, dah dah, dah. And they were like, the relationship was not great between these two teams. And I had my managers there. I was, in charge of the deployment team and I had my, uh, three managers there. And then the account management leadership team was there and it like. This conversation did not go well. I mean, it was, uh, it was still within the realm of like professional, but it was like, this is cantankerous. This is, um, uh, this is just not, not a good tone and not a good thing. I was like, Hmm, okay. Well I had my talking points. I had thought this through, but clearly that did not go down Well, clearly that did not get, that did not land how I intended it to land. And I asked my management team, I was like, And one of the first questions I asked was, Hey, you know, what could have happened differently? To prep me for that call and not like you didn't prep me for that call, like what could I have done differently in prep In preparing for that call that would've helped me, helped me in that call, and helped me have a better outcome for that call and helped build that relationship instead of like potentially make it worse or just reinforce the contention we had between those two teams. And that was a question that I put forth to my managers'cause they knew the situation. They knew the players. they knew me and, uh, they had different perspectives and that was part of our debrief conversation. So that could be a key step in the process as well. So we've got, alright, this might be. A long tail process to build a culture of feedback. I should start now, and maybe it starts small. Maybe it start asking the question, what did we learn about that? Just anything. Just anything. What went well? what didn't go well? Um, what, uh, oh, just like, here's a, just a observation. Oh, Hmm. Yeah. It didn't think about it that way. That's a cool observation. Not good or bad, or do this differently or do this, uh, the same next time. It's just like, oh. You notice that? Okay, cool. Oh, you see it from that end? Oh, I didn't even think about that factor. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. we actually do need to think about that and, oh, I'm glad it went well for that group this one time. Very cool. Very cool. It could be, pointing the feedback spotlight on yourself to start with and asking those types of questions and your response to those, to, if you ask for feedback and then people actually give you feedback, your response to that is key, right? So even if it's like, ooh, like. I don't agree with that at all. But I asked you for that feedback and you gave it to me, and I wanna foster this culture of feedback, so I'm gonna react neutral or positively when you do that. Right? So I'm not gonna be like, oh my God, like, uh, that's actually not the feedback I was looking for. Okay, here's how you give feedback. Mm. They're not gonna give you feedback. Again. The rest of the team that sees that reaction is like, I'm not gonna give her feedback'cause she's gonna call me out too. So thank you so much for that feedback. I gotta think about that. Hmm. I gotta think about that now. You might think about that for two seconds, but like, that's total BS or like that is, uh, definitely like not important or not. What, the thing I was really asking about was, but you asked for feedback and someone gave it so. Like, oh my gosh. Like, thank you so much for that feedback. That's a good point. Or just, if it's not a good point, like I hadn't thought about that before. That's my go-to one, by the way. Oh, okay. Yeah, hadn't thought about that before. Thank you. And moving on. Okay, so you kind of build that rapport and then there's. There's other methods you can collect feedback through. So a pulse survey is a common one. So a pulse survey is like a very non-threatening thing. It's, you send out a little survey, it's three to five questions, maybe it's one question and like it sounds like you just get the pulse of the team and you just check in with the team and you get the team used to the fact that you're gonna check in with them and that you wanna know how they're doing and that Okay, if I. If I answer these three questions, is something gonna happen? Like, uh, something gonna happen, nothing happens. And if something happens, it's good things. Oh, like now we have, the snacks we want in this, in the snack room, or, uh, now we did, you know, take a look at that workflow. Oh, um, the expense software we were using. Yeah. That was crap. And now we have a new one. Okay. Thanks for the feedback. Oh. Okay. Okay. It's not scary, it's not threatening. They're not gonna come back and bite me for something. They, but they do listen and they do collect that. Um, it might be a, Hey, we, we did a poll survey. Here's the results anonymized, but here's the roll up results and here's the things that we're able to action right now. And oh. Mine's on that list, but it's not one They can action, but they have it on the list, so they heard it. And the explanation could be like, we're gonna action these three first because of X, Y, and Z. this one's easy, the timing's right for this one. We have the funds for this right now. Um, the team does not have the bandwidth to work on this project, but we have it on the, on the docket for, next year. So thank you for your feedback. we've heard you, so any exchanges like that, any. Asking for feedback and then following up on the feedback. Even if it's we heard you, but we, we, we can't, or we, we won't do anything right now, but we heard you and it's on the radar. Anything like that is positive. And then I think you can get into, um, maybe some more. Formalized, if that's the right word. More, uh, more structured feedback. And maybe that can be for teams or groups within a team. So meaning like I, uh, let's go back to that deployment, deployment team. So I had like three, um, just. Three groups within that team. And we were all, we were all like one team. There was no division or rivalry amongst these three teams. We all worked together very well. And so, one of the things we would do is in our monthly leadership meeting, we would go around and do a round robin of updates, and then we would also give, uh, a shout out for things that had. Been done well, or like, oh my gosh, I wanna shout out this person on another team.'cause like, uh, Sydney was awesome. Like she covered for me on this one call, or she covered for our team, or she teed up this data for us and we were able to have this call on the go with this, with this stakeholder type of thing. And then, um. We would also, so we would do that kind of an individual just like, rah, rah, rah. give some kudos to people, uh, on, uh, on a team or on a group that you are not on. So that was one thing. And then we also did this evaluation of the groups as. Groups. Um, I'm, I can go into like the, the details and names of all these things, but for our purposes, there are three groups and basically if there was group one, then group two and three would provide feedback on, group one. And basically for the last month, how would the projects or their piece of the, their piece of the, workflow and the handoff. Had gone. And there could be things like, here's what, um, we think did well, here's what we would probably do differently next time. Here's some feedback on the group. And the dynamic across that team was such that we could have the conversations about the groups and it was all in the spirit of we wanna make the team better. We wanna make the overall team better. And so I might give you some like pointers or suggestions or, hey, like, what if we did it this way next time, let's, let's try that together. And it's okay. Yeah, yeah. No, that sounds good. It was in the spirit of that. So if you can set up opportunities for that, if you can model that, If this is brand new, you might speak with some individual group members or team members offline or kind of back channel and say, Hey, you know, I think that it would be really helpful for us to start exchanging, um, you know, some conversations like this or just being able to have some dialogue back and forth with this and get like two or three, you know, people on board. Like, yeah. Like, yeah, absolutely. Like we would totally be down for that. We just couldn't do that before. But maybe you have like the leaders of the group who are more, more inclined to, to lead those discussions or participate in those discussions and you pull them aside and say, Hey, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can do that. Oh yeah. Like, I don't know why more people don't do that type of thing. And you say, okay, so at the next team meeting, I'm gonna ask for this. And I'm gonna start with you guys and then you're gonna do the back and forth, whatever, and then I'm gonna open it up to the rest of the team and the rest of the groups. So it might be okay, I am gonna tee up and not manufacture in an artificial fake way, but just tee up some folks who are gonna know how to have the conversation in a way I wanna demonstrate to the rest of of the team. And just have them queued up and have them start and then let the conversation unfold. And then. Open that up to others, to have that conversation. And it might be, I'm just thinking out loud. I'm just, I'm gonna roll here. I'm riffing. Here we go. It might be you tee that one conversation up and say, here's an example of what I want our groups to do going forward. So next month or next week or whatever, um, you know, do a different permutation, do a different mix of people like you saw what they did next, next time I want group two, uh, to talk about group three or whatever it is. have it be different. Like, oh, okay. So they know it's coming. And they also just saw it demonstrated where it's not a threatening thing, it's not a beat down. It's like, oh, you can have that like two-way civil, like pretty happy conversation and it's good. It helps the team get better. Those are golden. So you can do that and then you can just build momentum from there. Right? Then it becomes, um, maybe. Maybe you just narrow that focus down. Maybe it is individual feedback, maybe it is. Hey, like feedback is the breakfast of champions, all right? Like if you wanna get better and if you wanna grow as a person, as a leader, you gotta get feedback and you gotta get comfortable with that. So it might be even just having that conversation, Hey, I know that. You all are wanting to grow and learn, and I, I've, I've seen you take things that you've learned and run with them. Like you, you take an inch and you make it a mile and this is awesome. So I wanna give you more data points like that. I want you to have more information like that to action, to grow as leaders for you as a person, certainly, but also for the team. The team needs us to step up now, right? So like you're getting close to that. End of year mark next year we've gotta step up as a team. I need to be able to put you in places and I, I go off and do other things. I trust you with that. I need you to develop these skills as a leader. And so taking feedback in that way where it's oh, this is a way for me to get better. And if you have people who wanna be promoted, then it's easy. I mean, it's, it's, it's relatively straightforward. I should be promoted, I wanna be promoted. Emily, what do I have to do for next year to be promoted? Um, you gotta develop these skills. Okay, well, I, well, what do you mean? I don't know how to do that? Yeah, let's talk about it. let's have some conversations around skill building, and maybe you don't even call it feedback. Maybe it's, let's have ongoing conversations about building that specific skill over the next year so that you can be in position to potentially be promoted. You just built in a feedback loop with an individual. So all these different things you can model. sometimes I've mediated this, between teams of, of how to give feedback. Some people want to give feedback and they don't wanna be mean, and they don't mean to offend people. They just don't know how to give effective feedback. That's a skill, that's a learned skill. Like anything, you don't come outta the womb knowing here's how to give perfect feedback. Here's a compliment sandwich, here's a whatever. So sometimes it is, oh, all right. The, the soil is now. Fertile enough. It's not a dry wasteland anymore. It's fertile enough to be able to do some more things in terms of feedback. But I've gotta plant the seed and build the stalk of the plant, whatever the analogy is, of here's how to deliver feedback, here's how to receive feedback effectively, and here's how to deliver feedback effectively. there was an HBR study years ago that said 97% of people wanted more critical feedback when delivered effectively. So that's like pretty much everyone, like at least nine outta 10 people want more feedback. We're hungry for more feedback and input. How am I doing? What can I be doing differently? Do you have ideas? How do I get better? They wanted that when it was delivered effectively. So if you can build a whole team of people who can deliver and receive feedback well and build that as a skill, you might not be perfect out the gate. That's okay. We're gonna give you a little grace. We're gonna give you a little leeway. Cut you a little slack. No problem. We're all here to learn together, but we are. Going to work on getting better at this over time. Every single one of us as individuals and as groups, and as teams, and as a culture, we're all gonna get better at this. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing to learn how to get better at this. Um, then I think you can just start building these feedback loops where it's like, all right guys, um, you know, te tell me, tell me what went wrong there. Tell me what to do differently type of thing. And you're like, boom, boom, boom. And it's not a big deal. you can be as point blank as that, it could be. Okay. Um. Can I give you some feedback? No, actually I'm like that. I'm, that's raw. I'm hot off it right now. I know that call did not go well with that client. I know it. Okay. Just give me like, just gimme 24 hours. No problem. Take a week. No problem. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And then they might come back and say, okay, now I'm ready. To receive feedback and everyone knows what's going on. Everyone knows she, she's not avoiding it, she's not putting her head in the sand, she's just knows where she's at. And every, everyone, everyone's been there so she knows where she's at. Everyone's gonna give her time. We collect our thoughts, we make sure we're gonna deliver that effectively because we know it's kind of sensitive. But now in a week's time, she's in a good spot. She's come back to us and we're ready to go. So that's where it can get to. Um, and a lot of people go like, Emily, like, are there really teams that. That do such things. Yeah. Yeah. There are. They're awesome. They're super awesome. Does it take a lot of work to get there and to even and to maintain that? Yeah. I mean, at least for me, at least in my experience, yes. but it's well worth it because then you have, then you stop having these like frivolous surface level maneuvering. Like, I don't wanna offend you. Are you perceiving it this way? Conversations, you just are like straight up, boom, boom, boom, boom. Does this feel good all the time? No. There were things I was like, oh, I've built this culture of feedback and now someone is giving me feedback. And it stings like that. Stings, it's true, but it stings okay. Don't like being wrong. Didn't do that. Well, great. All right. And then you breathe through it and then you move on and then people pick you up and all that good stuff. So anyway, um, hopefully there have been some tactical and practical ways to build a culture of feedback. If the team is coming from. A desolate wasteland of no feedback or horrible things happen when feedback is given. You might have to build a process to that, and you might got, you might have to work that process slowly, but consistently and deliberately over time. If you're kind of starting in the middle ground like, Hey, Emily, like everyone is chummy. Everyone on is on good terms. We have benefit of the doubt. We've got people's backs. It's all good. Then you might be able to start in leader stages where it's like, Hey, um, let's all read radical candor and then talk about it. Cool. Uh, let's all have a, um, kind of a feedback session about like how to do feedback and different ideas and kind of have some fun games and have some, you know, funny examples with that and all that good stuff. So you could start there and that's all well and fine, but, Building a culture of feedback. Certainly part of a chief of staff job, and sometimes their, uh, chief of staff is dual hatted as a chief people officer or HR officer or like, you know, culture. Uh, there's different names for these things now, but if you're in charge of that, then make this a deliberate process. So audit where you are right now. Take inventory, take stock. Most people know they can feel the culture, right? You can feel the room and then go, okay. We're starting here. We wanna get here. Let's start. Let's start demonstrating that. Let's start building this into conversations. Let's start putting a little more structure around that, giving people the skills to do it. Then let's start doing that more regularly and like, okay, this is just what it means to be on this team. This is just the culture that we have on this team. Alright, so hopefully you can pull out some tactical and practical pieces for building a culture of feedback. Woo, my voice just cracked, building a culture of feedback, and I'll catch you next time on leveraging leadership.

24:25

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