Feedback promotes growth and development, increases self-awareness, and strengthens relationships by fostering open communication and mutual understanding.
When we talk about foster and grow talents, what topic could be more interesting than feedback? Reghu Ram Thanumalayan, SVP Magenta Voice Program & Product Innovation is our guest in this episode. He talks about Voicification Technology at Deutsche Telekom and how candid feedback helps him to reach his goals.
So, what did they discuss?
Hanne Lindbæk
So hi, guys. Well, what topic could be more fascinating to dive into if you are discussing how to foster and grow talents? What topic could be more intriguing than feedback; feeding back to others, receiving feedback, whether it be compliments or corrections and how to create feedback culture in your teams? What makes us shy away from feedback? All of these topics are just so well covered in what we are about to discuss. So, Svitlana, tell us about the guest we just had here.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Yes, we have Reghu Ram Thanumalayan, who is senior vice president of Magenta Voice Program & Product Innovation in Deutsche Telekom. And he’s stating that in 2020, he discovered “candidate feedback”. So in the year of pandemic, that it was really tough for all of us, he discovered candidate feedback. What was his journey and what exactly mounts? These are the things you will hear in this podcast!
Hanne Lindbæk
What a wonderful, insightful, calm and lovely man. I just cannot wait to share this one with our listeners and viewers.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Welcome to human centric Podcast. Today we have a very special guests Reghu Ram Thanumalayan, who is senior vice president of Magenta Voice Program & Product Innovation in Deutsche Telekom, you know, magenta voice is actually how Deutsche Telekom works with voice suffocation. At UCLA, you’re also one of the top technologists in this area of versification. So it’s a pleasure to have you here with us. And actually to talk about voice, more from Voice of organization feedback. But firstly, welcome.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Thanks a lot, it is a pleasure to be here. And I’m looking forward to talking about all of my favorite topics.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Feedback is interesting. I think one of the reasons why we decided to invite you for the podcast was a feedback post you did in December on LinkedIn. And I found it fascinating, because you mentioned that in 2020, you found candid feedback for yourself. Yes. And I was thinking no 2020 difficult year, you know, it’s a pandemic here, where we are disconnected from each other. That’s all of a sudden, the beyond Multan, the offices. And here you are, you know, finding candid feedback in 2020. So I really want to talk to you about it.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Definitely. I mean, thinking about the beginning of my career, I used to say shy away from a lot of these difficult conversations or sort of critical feedback. And call it strange enough. Last year was really the year I discovered this whole thing. Maybe it was because, you know, I was so much away from people that it sort of gave me all this, me time to think about how to put some of these things into practice. But yeah, last year was really the year when I got more candid with my feedback. Well if I go back to like, why I was shying away from feedback, I could trace it to a couple of things honest, this notion that I had, that I don’t want to, let’s say offend people. Also, this notion that I wanted to be liked by people, you know. So these are some reasons why I typically used to shy away from these feedbacks.
Hanne Lindbæk
I think this is so high Reghu and, oh my, how great to have you on the show, just to kind of get my voice heard to you, as you’re discussing one of your favorite subjects. I think you’ve touched a lot of really valuable stuff already. When you’re saying this past year. I do believe it’s so right. For many of us, it has been a chance to examine our habits a little, and to think again about how we’d like to be wiser when it comes to showing up in our teams and as leaders, or whatever, and I see that you are stating that you want to be more courageous. Am I right? In approaching people?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Definitely. I mean, and if I think more about it, deep inside I actually hate conflict; you know, conflicts are usually really tough for me to handle. But over a period of time, I mean, having been in different leadership roles, I also came to realize that, you know, holding such critical feedback from people is actually, let’s say, detrimental to the performance of the team. And that’s when I started to set, let’s say, take these more heads on, having this courageous conversation. So yes, it takes, indeed, a lot about courage.
Hanne Lindbæk
So am I right, guys, this goes to both of you really? Here we are talking about this topic of feedback. And I, over the years, I’ve grown to learn that a lot of people will kind of go, oh, yeah, feedback, that’s nice. And then we just, we shy away from even having a conversation about creating a feedback culture. And part of it, which you’re already putting words to so beautifully Raghu the idea that we don’t want to offend other people are frightened, maybe have not been, like frightened of ending up in difficult emotional territory. Would you recognize that as well? Svitlana?
Svitlana Bielushkina
Absolutely. I was also growing into openness to feedback, you know, an openness to receive feedback, because you have to want to be self-aware, you have to welcome that feedback. And you have to ask for that. So very often it is easy to close and not even ask for that. So the first option is to grow and learn to accept it, and accept it in a way that sometimes it might hurt. Yeah. Thus, when somebody gives you the feedback, you kind of go, Oh, my God, this is not me. How can you see me that way? But that’s openness to be vulnerable. And to be curious why in you’re seeing that way? Or why is the person giving this feedback? What is the intention behind? That’s one thing, which I think you have to grow into? And the second one was Reghu, who talks about discovering candid feedback from others. Yeah. How do you get it in the best way?
Hanne Lindbæk
So I know, I had to look it up on Google. I was like, what does that actually mean? And it’s actually a phenomenon, isn’t it? Can you just explain it to us in like, really easy-peasy terms, what does it actually mean?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
So there was something which Atlanta was just mentioning, being afraid of hurting others, and also that feedback hurting you? So it’s a bit of this. When you think about radical candor, right? It’s radical candor only works. When you have a certain level of trust and genuine care built with people. There’s always a balance between how open can you be, how direct you can be with someone? But that fully depends on how much do you care for that person? How much trust level do you have with that person? And I like this term, much more than honesty, because candor, I think it applies much more to this kind of conversation which we have in our professional setting. And being radical just adds a bit more of this openness to it, at the same time having care for those people that you’re talking with.
Hanne Lindbæk
So you’re coming from a good place in yourself. And hopefully, there’s a relationship that trusts that alliance in a way. So if you’re telling me something, that would be a correction, I would trust that you want the best for me?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Absolutely. So have the best interest of the people in mind. And you just assume that this is done with the best intent both ways.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yes. I think that’s a very important point right there. So in order to create, let’s say, you are a leader, and you’re wanting to create a feedback culture, the place to look is actually to build trust.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Absolutely. I mean, almost everything which we do in our life.
Hanne Lindbæk
So definitely this is beautifully put. So you’ve already said it kind of we explore that together because I would imagine if the listeners are anything at least like me, and that’s what you’re saying too. It really is easy to shy away. It is super easy to shy away from giving feedback from feedback into another or like Svetlana is also saying to ask for, for candid feedback, right? So tell me about the shying away a bit. You’re already saying it, you don’t like conflict? You don’t want to be impolite? Is there anything else At that moment when we shy away? What makes us go there?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I can talk from my own personal experience. Like I said, no fear of conflict. That was a deep feeling inside or emotion inside. Fear of hurting others, fear of being hurt. And also going back to Singapore, you want to be a friendly person who is liked by others. These are all reasons that I can come up with, you know why people usually shy away from that was why I was saying away from feedback in the first place. But when I think about like how would you approach feedback, right and how I changed from this A personal shying away to how I started to engage more in radical candor, I believe in three principles of how they deal with feedback. The sort of golden rule for feedback is, you know, you need to learn to separate judgment from observations, I think, especially we as leaders, we need to be able to suspend the judgment when something is happening in front of us, and deal with the situation a bit more of empathy, right? So, try to think, why is that person telling you something? Or why is the situation like that, rather than judging, you know, so the first thing is separate judgment from observations. The second thing is, when you think about feedback, rehearse the feedback. So I do a lot of this, right. I mean, you sort of played in your head, and also collect a lot of input from others. I mean, also try to talk to other people about certain situations and think, and gather input on what they think. And then sort of frame the feedback in a way that you want to deliver it to the person. So rehearsing the feedback, that’s quite important. The third thing is to tailor the feedback to the individuals that you’re talking to. Because the way you deliver feedback is also really significant. And most of the time, and I think going back to this thing about conflict and shying away from conflict, you know, this picture in mind where, you know, instead of two people seeing the conflict in the middle, it’s like you both are on the same side trying to solve the conflict. Now, that sort of changes the whole perspective of how we deal with conflict and why feedback becomes a critical enabler in dealing with that conflict.
Hanne Lindbæk
You’re saying so many interesting and profound things. I want to make a podcast about everything you just said. So there’s about five podcasts and what you just said, to try to backtrack a little bit if I try and kind of reinterpret some of the gems that are in there. Point one, you’re saying, because you’re actually saying that you don’t want to hurt anyone you’re afraid of not being liked. You’re so offering that up. So honestly, that’s beautiful to listen to. And it makes me philosophize, how sometimes the caring thing to do to a colleague is not to remain nice. Sometimes it’s actually more caring to dare in ourselves, to be candid with others. Absolutely. And I love that line being drawn up, you know, because I think so much of the time we spend trying to be pleasant and polite and not get in each other’s hair and, and actually being afraid of conflict. And sometimes that’s not the caring thing to do.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
This is one of my favorite quotes from the book, radical candor, from which I actually drew a lot of these insights from, is when you’re being very enjoyable. And when you’re being very polite. And you don’t have these kinds of courageous conversations or candid feedback. You end up in what is the author, Kim Scott Cole, says ruinous empathy. So it’s empathy, which is ruinous in nature, because end of the day, I love it, it’s not going to help the person that you’re dealing with, and which is why I think when you care, and you have this sort of courageous conversations of critical feedback, which you can share openly, you know, you sort of help make this person a better person. And that’s up to us as leaders to also do right, not ended up as people who ruin others by having this ruinous empathy.
Hanne Lindbæk
So I would also say because ruinous empathy at the end of the day is actually often being nice to yourself, not to the other. Absolutely, you’re protecting yourself, right? And then to go into your excellent rules for what to be mindful of when we go into giving feedback. Not being judgmental. Step one, not so. And that’s actually that’s meddling with your step two, which is saying that, words can really hurt. In these situations, you give it a wrong label, you say to someone, you seem so stressed all the time, and they’ll go away, and the word stress will be like, Oh, seamstress, I seem stressed, right? So these, we should be so mindful and careful with words I find in situations when giving feedback. And like you say, separating your perspective, your personal subjective perspective of what you feel took place, and making room to make sure that it might have felt quite differently for the person who was doing whatever they were doing.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Absolutely. You might be screaming inside, you know, when you’re in a particular situation, but then you don’t put those words right away as feedback, but rather if you think about it, and then say, take a step back and stay calm and sort of don’t project the immediate reactions that you have, but rather rehearse the feedback because words do matter. I mean, words do have the power to hurt people and The same time it can also be enhancer, right.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And it’s amazing how our brains work. Now, we pick up you can have 1000s of beautiful things on social media under your post or in your 360 report that you’re getting from or from your peers. But your brain will pick up with one or two things which are not good. And you keep the bad thinking and all about them, you forget 1000 good parts, and you forget your strengths, you concentrate on what is not good enough. And I think that’s also why we’re doing what you’re saying, voice hurts. So how to help a person and very often how to help yourself to be disconnected from that negativity and focus on this one or two things. And actually concentrate also on the strength and help person improve, even if there is no potential to improve.
Hanne Lindbæk
There’s some research comes out of Harvard on this stuff, saying that if you want to live in a performance culture, that is actually working. And what does that mean? That means that the people in the performance culture is actually growing, right? It actually means that you’re living in a culture that fosters your development. Apparently, there’s a ratio, they say, between how many compliments we should receive, in order to be able to take the corrections, I think is a super sweet piece of research. It’s actually do you know the ratio, it’s five to one. So if I receive five, and here we go, believable, specific compliments. I think compliment giving is also a skill, you know, something we should learn. If you hear compliments, like, oh, Hannah, everything you do is so nice. But on Thursday, right now, on Thursday. Yeah, what about Thursday? Right? So I think the idea of getting super specific, also about the compliment giving and remembering to give compliments, my Lord did we take each other for granted so much.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I mean, feedback doesn’t necessarily always have to be critical, right? I mean, we talk about praise, we talk about appreciation. So I tend to see them as, let’s say, feedback as well. Which is why this whole tailoring the feedback to the person you’re dealing with becomes so important. Because you know, some people, you can have this open conversation, like I solicit feedback all the time. And I tell people to tell me directly negative feedback, because I can take them and of course, I might be disappointed, but I know I can take it. For some, it’s just too difficult. So you might have to give them the sugar pills before you give them the bitter pills, right. And there are different ways you even can give feedback, like sandwiching, negative between positives and such, I there is no one size fits all, you always need to tailor the feedback to that individual.
Hanne Lindbæk
So Right. It’s like, that leaves us with a responsibility to actually be like people readers, and be able to understand. So if there’s a person in my team, how does he or she grow? How can I actually create a language with them? Absolutely. That would foster their growth? Yeah. Oh, it’s super interesting. You know, if you look at like the best paid feedback givers on the planet, who would that be? That would be probably the feedback givers of the top athletes would be my guess. Can we agree on that. So people who train the top athletes are probably the best paid. And then maybe we could assume that they’re also the best skill. They know a lot about social psychology and stuff I would imagine. And you know, it’s been decades since those trainers of top athletes actually, were that their core work was about criticizing the athlete. For like, at least a decade or two, they have been adamant in just complimenting what it is the athlete does that is working. And that’s not to be nice. That’s just because it creates a better result. So compliments, there’s real power in compliments.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I think this is a very interesting thing that you bring up about trainers of athletes. I had a similar thing in mind about tennis coaches. So I was listening to a podcast about the coach of Serena Williams. And he was saying something very interesting, which is he’s not teaching Serena to play tennis. That’s not his role as a coach. It’s about getting them to do things, which sometimes they don’t believe they can do. Right? So depending on if they’re in the high form or a low form, and if they’re struggling with different things. And I found that really interesting. And if I take back to how we as leaders, you know, deal with people. We also need to have these different phases. And sometimes you need to be culture. Sometimes you need to be mentored. Sometimes you need to deal with direct feedback. Sometimes it’s more guidance, sometimes it’s questioning. So it’s a very interesting analogy between sports and how we do as leaders. I mean, especially in a role of a coach.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yes, I love every word of what you’re saying there. And then that also by access to the third point you had in your which I love to the idea that you can rehearse and fine tune and kind of analyze how you would go about feeding back before you actually enter the feedback situation. And I do hear that your little recipe there it is also, I think there’s so many of us out there who did not do that recipe. And then we got to a really weird place with someone and we tried to feed back to them. And it really, really hurt. I know, I have these experiences in my past where, gosh, I wish I could do it again, you know, because it really didn’t land. And it really got hurtful for the person I was trying to give feedback. So I think that recipe is like, I’m just kind of underlining that. So Atlanta, we wanted to talk to him about the 360, didn’t we? Yeah.
Svitlana Bielushkina
But I’m listening to you. And I’m just thinking, you know, the whole idea of sports. And a person who is coaching you to perform at your best of your ability, to perform best of your strength, is a coach is not a manager. Is a coach, and then he really helps you to be at your best and let you play and get out of your way. And then the team performs are up for him. I think it’s very good. You know, I’m just thinking he has a good connection to the leadership you have. And so it’s also the coaching way of leading people, because you have to become a professional feedback giver. You have to help people shine and be at their best, and get out of the way.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Absolutely. Let them just have a leader. So leaders as coaches, I think that’s a very powerful construct. I mean, like you said, also make people believe in what they can do sort of get the best out of them and get out of the way, and then it’ll shine the light on them when you know when they’re doing best. I think that’s a very powerful construct.
Hanne Lindbæk
I’m bursting here. Yeah, so then I just wanted to give a little commercial for a television series. It’s out there. For those of you who have Prime, you have to have Prime for this one. But it’s called the Ted lasso. And it’s just a gem describing what you just went into talking about. It’s just the sweetest little series in six or seven episodes; just go watch it. It’s about coaching leadership and a guy trying to coach a football team. Furthermore, it’s so cute. Yeah.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And what I wanted to build on that you mentioned, Hannah, and thank you for the series I just fixed yesterday, which is about the topic of sharing 360, because you mentioned in your post sec, one in December that you had 3/61 of all, so you were asking also for quite a formal structured feedback from peers and colleagues, and you shared it openly with the team. And I wanted to talk a bit how it felt. And you know what feedback you have received for doing that. And that’s something about your vulnerability and being open to the team. So, how did it feel when you were pressing that send button?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
That was scary. Before that, it was pressing the send button. But taking a few steps back, I was reading this amazing book, “No Rules,” which is about the leadership culture at Netflix. It’s basically an expanded version of this Netflix culture deck, which some people say is one of the most important documents to come out of Silicon Valley about culture. And Netflix has a very interesting culture. It’s all about striking the right balance, a sort of yin and yang between freedom and responsibility. And that’s only possible because I have a radically candid culture. And one of the things that really struck me is, you know, when the CEO, Reed Hastings, talks about sharing his 360-degree feedback with the entire company. And as I was reading that, it was time for me to finish my 360-degree feedback. And I was going through my comments and all of that. I thought, “Why not share it first with my external leadership team?” So it’s ten people I really trust, and I believe we have a good, trustworthy relationship. But it was difficult, you know, and it was scary because I’m sharing all my weaknesses and all those things that people have said I need to work on. But the more I thought about it, it was like, “I’m not going to lose anything if only it’s going to get better.” And we touched on courage before it went hand in hand with vulnerability, right? I mean, as a leader, if you are open to being vulnerable, that creates enormous frustration right away. So yes, it was difficult to hit that send button. But I thought that was the only way that the team was going to give me feedback. I mean, I highlighted three things that are like my weaknesses or things that I had to improve on, and I said, “If you see me falling back into those behaviors, please call me out.” The response from the team was amazing. So fuse So that was very bold, as one person said that it takes a lot of confidence to even share something. And some people didn’t respond, because I think it was probably because they didn’t expect something like that to share the entire 360 report. But all I can say is that I think that created a lot of trust with a team. And for me, it’s just better because now I have those three things that I want to improve, and I have the team that’s going to help me become better in those three aspects, even though there were like 10 other good things in that feedback. But I really wanted to focus on the things that I wanted to improve.
Svitlana Bielushkina
I had the same experience that I described in my previous segments, but not with Deutsche Telekom. But I shared my 360 feedback with a whole my team, not the whole company. That’s right. That is very radical. Yeah, this was my team. It wasn’t in Bulgaria. And, you know, also when you’re a foreigner, and when you’re in the foreign environment and trying to lead people, you also tried to be much more cautious. You know, how are you fitting into the environments because, you know, came from outside in? And exactly happened, what you just said, you all of a sudden you create a moment of trust. Yeah. And when we had a discussion, I remember, I was nervous, and it did hurt, you know, because some feedback was I had to really work on, but it gave an understanding for people Oh, my gosh, she actually wants to improve.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, it makes us leaders also seem human to people, which, I mean, sometimes people don’t see it that way. And I think the best way to create trust is by being vulnerable.
Hanne Lindbæk
You know, with the comparison, that metaphor that’s coming up, for me, it’s like, if we were like, 1000, year back, and we were all Vikings together, when the Vikings used to meet to kind of have the thing, that thing, as they called it, where they met and have their meetings, the first thing you do is put all your swords on the table. Right? So you’re laying down your weapons, and you’re going, “Okay, we’re going to have a real conversation.” And that’s part of what you’re saying there. And the beauty of that is, of course, if you lay down your weapons and say, “Here’s my 360; here’s all my dirty laundry for you guys to look at,” then it’s really hard, I would imagine, for the team not to respond by saying, “Oh, and here’s mine.” Right? So you’re, you’re creating a movement in a way you’re creating the, you’re creating what you want to come back at you as well. Yeah, I love that so much.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
That was also sort of a selfish motive that I had: to see if this would inspire them to do it with their leadership teams. And to sort of start this change moment, at least I haven’t heard any so far, but maybe it still take some time. And if you do it more often, I think being a role model will definitely encourage more people to start adopting it.
Hanne Lindbæk
Can I take you there? Just because I’m curious, I was thinking about, like, culture. And how because culture does influence us if we don’t think about it, doesn’t it? So you Is there anything in your nature or in your national culture that would make you shy away from feedback or be good at candid feedback or whatever?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Lot of stuff? I have to say that, because, I know, I grew up in India, and I spend more than half of my life in India. The thing about Indian culture is that, you know, when it comes to people who are elder to you, or have, you know, in a place like, not fully restricted to hierarchy, but could be your teachers could be at work, you basically respect them, meaning you don’t question or you don’t challenge them. That’s how the schooling system is as well. You’re not supposed to question your teachers, which is completely different, though, you know, what you have on the western world? So yes, that was also one of the reasons why, you know, giving open and candid feedback was difficult for me. But since I’ve lived in Germany for the past 12 years, I’ve been, let’s say, more open to other ways of dealing with feedback. And it’s interesting. One of the other books that I mentioned in my post is Culture Map, which gives you a very interesting view on how national cultures shape different things that you deal with on a day-to-day basis, right? I mean, from something as simple as dealing with time, right? Are you on a flexible schedule, like in most Asian countries, or are you on a linear schedule, right? Yeah, it was just more of a Western thing.
Hanne Lindbæk
And I am sorry, we’re gonna at the end of the podcast, why don’t we sum up your books because you have such a cool list. And I’m sitting there thinking the authors should be really happy to hear this podcast episode because you are such a beautiful example. Yeah, definitely. Sorry.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
What I was going to say is that I actually took a test, which is more like a self-report questionnaire that ranks you along these different dimensions. And the most funny thing that I found is I sit perfectly in the center between Indian culture and German culture. That’s like an amalgamation of my spending half of my life and 1/3 in Germany, so, yes, I mean, your surroundings do change the way you look at different things.
Hanne Lindbæk
And again, what you’re saying is that, I guess, just being aware So the idea of like going, “Oh, there’s something in my national heritage; what is that?” How does the culture around me look at feedback? If I don’t think about it, I’ll just be part of it. And then becoming conscious is the thing, isn’t it? And you get to choose, and this is kind of part of your journey here. Let’s go to the other side and say, “Why?” Why are we so interested in feedback? What is it we can achieve from creating a feedback savvy team and surrounding around us?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
So when I think about why it’s required, I mean, especially in my own work, I’m dealing with, like I said, at the beginning, so we are building voice assistants, you know, which is in for Deutsche Telekom; it’s cutting edge, something new that we typically don’t, you know, try our hand at. And to work in such an environment, you need to have a really high-performing team and a high-performance culture. And high performance culture for me comes mainly by openly sharing candid feedback among each other. And this is where I think one of the other things we don’t do a lot of is peer feedback. I think peer feedback is one of the most underrated forms of feedback. And we usually think of feedback from a manager to an employee or in always, top down. But then peer feedback, I think that’s really powerful. And one other thing, which I’ve also been trying, which is also quite hard, is unsolicited peer feedback, okay, which I think also takes a lot of courage as well. But at least my experience in the last few years has been that, you know, once you have the right level of trust with your peers, you can also share this kind of unsolicited peer feedback, which might sound tough, but I’ve seen the impact that it creates, and in fact, a lot of people welcome that. And, and it helps them see their blind spots. and I’ve only had good experiences with that. But it is tough. I mean, sharing that with a peer can be really tough.
Hanne Lindbæk
I’ve got one on that one, which is really, hilarious. Actually, I heard the other day, that there’s this organization out there called Work Human. Have you heard about them? So here’s another book. There’s this guy; his name is Eric Mosley. And he’s a bit of a global phenomenon at the moment, and they’re doing a lot of work. And thank god, they’re doing it during the COVID during the pandemic, and they have their research driven. And they research what happens in organizations when you open up the communication tools that are available and, for instance, work on things like compliment giving. So one of the things they found, which is so once you hear it is like self-explanatory, but they have found that peer complimenting actually works better than hierarchy complimenting. And that makes so much sense, doesn’t it? Because if your boss is giving you a compliment, you’re kind of thinking, “Yeah, well, you’re paid to do that.” And if you’re trying to compliment upwards, then the boss is thinking, “Oh, she’s just licking my back.” Right? It’s really, the secondary agendas can at least create like doubt stories very quickly, while is if it comes from a pair. So the research is actually quite radical; it says that they could measure, there were fewer people leaving the organization at the end of the year, fewer talents that you want to retain. There were people who were less likely to leave the organization if they had received so many peer compliments during the year they were there. I’m guessing what we’re talking about here is creating something like team safety and a team wanting to work together.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Yeah. And I think, you know, Eric mentioned that when you give unsolicited peer feedback, it might feel rough. I think if you really have a safe environment and you have this atmosphere of peer feedback, giving it can be fun as well. Because, yeah, you should stop taking yourself seriously. Yeah. And you just flourish in this environment. We had a number of cases in the European segments of the company where we worked on growth mindsets, and the forward-leaning power of Nokia fell fast. And we had two names. So Atlanta would be my growth mindset name. And when I’m in my fixed mindset, I have a different name. And my team knew that. So, I’ve heard when somebody calls me by a different name. I realize I’m actually in my fixed mindset at this point in time.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I think that’s a very interesting way to make yourself conscious of what you’re doing.
Hanne Lindbæk
Yeah. Yeah. I want to take us to one final place, which is also Did you guys ever experience getting feedback from someone and then thinking, “You’re just saying that to make me feel stupid, or make me feel small, or belittle me”? Did anything like that ever happen to you?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
Not really be. Because right from the day I started leading a team, you know, I’ve always been open to feedback. And in those early days, I found feedback—you know, people found it very hard to give me feedback, even though I asked them often. So I never say no to any feedback. And of course, some of them might hurt you. But I think if you don’t take it in stride, then we’re not becoming better people. I mean, I can give you an example. It was probably seven or eight years ago, when I was still sort of an individual contributor working with the team. We were working on some deliverables. And then I saw that something was not being worked on; someone else was already doing it. But since it was not moving forward, I just took it and finished it. And then I was feeling good that I did something, you know, and it was value that it got completed. And then my lead came to me and said, “That’s something the other person is working on. So why did you finish and I got really angry because I was like, on one hand, I’ve been, I’ve done good in the sense of I finished it. And now somebody’s angry with me for finishing it. But then I started realizing what I was doing wrong, but I was tapping on some other stores because it was working in my ambition to, let’s say, get things done, or stepping on other stores. And in that sense, yes, the initial feedback did hurt. But then I realized what I was doing wrong, and I thought, okay, now I will be a bit more careful. And maybe even ask that person for help or do it together so that we can complete it rather than just me grabbing it, running with it, and then finishing it.
Hanne Lindbæk
Well, I’m hearing that you’re kind and gentle. So here’s what happened to me, I gave a, I gave a speech, once like a keynote speech, I was asked to give a speech on communication or whatever. And after the speech, there’s this guy, and he comes up to me, and he’s a senior; he’s quite important in this organization that I’m in. And he comes up to me, and he doesn’t give me one compliment. And he just goes, “There are two things I’d like to point out to you in your speech that are wrong.” and then he points them out. and he’s not even smiling. He didn’t even introduce himself. And then he just left me. I was left like, oh, that like it hurt me. For weeks afterwards, I was kind of, you know, having a behavioral hangover; it kept coming up. And I kept getting, like, hot flashes when I thought of it. And the worst of it was that he was right. What I’d said was that I should have thought through it one more time. So at the end of the day, I managed to kind of lick my wounds and then kind of do the learning and move on from there. But there are times when I would be questioning, I would be thinking he just made that comment to me, not for me to learn, but for him to look good. I’m being very judgmental. Now anti. But do you see that kind of situation?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I mean, this reminds me of an interesting incident. Also, in the book, no rules, rules, where the author Erin Meyer, so she’s the one who also wrote culturemap. So she is, I think, being asked to come to Netflix and then give a presentation about, let’s say, inclusiveness and feedback and stuff. And then someone in the audience called her out directly, in the sense of telling her that she was doing that in the middle of a presentation, which was very similar to what you’re just saying. Yeah. And she says that, yes, it was hard. It was hurtful. But then you sort of compose yourself. And when you think about it, that was right. Yeah, you know, and sometimes the ego becomes bigger, and then we tend to downplay it and get defensive. So like I said, I think if you sort of detach yourself from that, which can be hard, and then look at whether that is going to make us better or not, I think we can deal with that.
Hanne Lindbæk
Thank you; they will be posted by my role model for future feedback. So yeah, there’s a golden rule to be had in here, which is that if you are a leader or in a position of influence, and you want to create a feedback culture around you, the easiest way to create a candid feedback culture, someone told me the other day, and it’s such a gem, is to, of course, invite people to give you corrective feedback. So if you’re going into a meeting with your team, and you’re meeting some clients or whatever, here’s what the boss says: “I want you guys to tell me after the meeting whether I speak too much on slide four, because I’m really wondering if I do that sometimes, you know, when I explained the whole thing about the budget.” So you’re giving people instructions to give you corrective feedback. If you are in a position of authority, this is just such an efficient way to get things going. And then, of course, if you do receive corrective feedback, you have to be good at receiving it so that you don’t get defensive and ruin it.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
I mean, you need to be genuine about this. Like I know, after I started being candid with my team, they started being candid with me, and I really appreciate that. Going back to those early days, when I found it really hard to get feedback, I think this has been a good cycle: the more you’re candid with your team openly, I think they start giving you the sort of necessary feedback. And of course, you need to earn trust, like with the sharing of 360s. That’s just one way. There are a lot of different ways to earn the trust of the team. I think then it starts this virtuous cycle of giving and receiving feedback.
Hanne Lindbæk
Well, I think you’ve just been a brilliant example for us to have on this podcast to discuss this. As I said, initially, it’s like, such an important topic this I think, Svetlana, how can we run this off? I do want you to mention all the four books that we kind of get them right up there in the screen, and we can people can remember them. Can you do it?
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
One of the most significant books where I, let’s say, learned a lot of things is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I think, like I said, radical candor goes hand in hand with genuine care. So if you care for someone, you know, genuinely, then you can, of course, apply radical candor. The second book that I spoke about was Culture Mapping. So culture map by Erin Meyer, I think this has got a lot of insight on how cultures and national cultures influence behaviors. And also in terms of specific feedback, you know, are you giving direct feedback? Or do you go for more indirect feedback? Do you have to read a lot in the air? Or is there a lot of context behind what somebody is saying? So it goes a lot into these dimensions of how culture plays a role. The third book is “No Rules,” rules about the Netflix culture by Reed Hastings, Aaron Meyer, this whole notion of how Netflix has evolved in terms of balancing responsibility and freedom, you know, for employees. and I find it really amazing. I mean, Netflix, as a company with 200 million customers across the world. It’s a global company that, you know, provides entertainment in 192 countries with 1500 employees. And all of this is possible because they have such a radically candid culture. And the fourth book is Fearless Organizations by Amy Edmondson, which talks a lot about psychological safety. And you know why psychological safety is such an important factor for high-performance teams. And again, that goes back to a lot we talked about, you know, trust and how much trust and how leadership role models that you need to provide to create an environment that is psychologically safe. So those would be my four recommendations.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Thank you so much. This has been such a rich podcast, and I have so many more angles to explore. So you know, and my, my team gave me I’m hearing having a piece of paper, my team told me to talk to reco about strengths based feedback, you know, how to really leverage strengths, so maybe even more podcasts that I go on to come up with time, time flies. Thank you so much for being on the show in our human-centric podcast, and Hannah, thank you as well for being such a vivid part of the conversation.
Reghu Ram Thanumalayan
It was an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed this conversation. And I’m really happy that we had to talk more about these things so that it just becomes, let’s say, a natural thing to do in our organization. So thanks a lot for that. It’s a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, Hanne.
