Speaker 1: So, how should we filter positive versus negative feedback?

Speaker 2: Well, there's a meta-analysis here. This is Kluger and Dinesi looking at 100 years of feedback research. And they found that what drives the utility of feedback is not whether it's positive or negative. It's whether it focuses on the task or on the self. So if I tell you that your work is terrible, you're going to get defensive. If I tell you that your work is great, you're going to get complacent. If I tell you, here's the specific thing that I liked about your work, you're going to try to learn to repeat that. And if I tell you, here's the thing I didn't like, you're going to try to see if you can fix it. So I actually think we should worry less about whether the feedback is encouraging or discouraging and more about how do I make sure that I get input that's going to allow me to learn from my strengths and also overcome my weaknesses. And actually, one of the things I've learned recently is there's some, I would say a growing body of evidence at this point that asking for feedback is not the best way to get people to help you. Because when you ask for feedback, you end up getting two groups of people. You get cheerleaders and you get critics. And cheerleaders are basically applauding your best self. Critics are attacking your worst self. What you want is a coach, which is somebody who helps you become a better version of yourself. And the way you get people to coach you is not to say, give me feedback, because they will then look at the past and tell you what you screwed up or what you did right. What you want is to say, can you give me advice for next time? And then they look at the future and they'll give you either a note on something to repeat or something to correct. And this is such a subtle shift that it can make a big difference. Andrew, one of the things I've, I guess I found myself applying this to a lot is after giving speeches. I used to get off stage and say, I would love some feedback. And you get back a bunch of, oh, you know, I really enjoyed that. Thanks. What do I do with that information? I'm trying to learn how to get better. And when I shift the question to say, what's the one thing I could do better next time? It's like, oh, don't open with a joke. The audience couldn't tell you were joking. Frequently it's, give me a little bit more of a through line. You focused a lot on, you know, a bunch of interesting points, but I lost the connective tissue. And, you know, those actionable suggestions are much more likely to come when you just ask for a tip as opposed to an evaluation.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's so good. I mean, I'm going to just pause for a second. I've never taken a pause. I've taken occasional pause to be honest, but they're very rare as the audience knows. Oh, that's just gazillion dollar advice because I think that everyone has an ego. We all want to perform well. We'd like to perform better over time. Negative feedback hurts, and it can hurt a little or a lot depending on how defensive we are. But a tool like you just described to remove some of that defensive armor that we all have and actually let the information in in a way that's constructive is really great. What you described, I think, is a way to create constructive criticism, but the constructive part is really coming from within as opposed to saying, I'd like some constructive criticism and then hoping that the criticism is actually constructive. So you're taking control over the process in a healthy way, in a benevolent way.

Speaker 2: That's the goal. And I think the big question that comes up for a lot of people at this point is, OK, so I get somebody to give me advice, but it might still stink. How do I get better at taking it constructively? And I think probably my favorite technique on this I learned from Sheila Heen. She calls it the second score. And the idea is that when somebody gives you a piece of criticism, that's your first score. So let's say in my world, they gave me a 3.5, and I want to know how I can do better next time. How do I get myself to focus on that? What I do is say, I want to get a 10 for how well I took the 3.5. And that's the second score. I want to evaluate myself on how well I took the first score. I think about this almost every day. There was actually, can I tell you a quick story? So when I was right out of my doctorate, I got asked to teach a motivation class for Air Force generals and colonels. I was 25, I think, 25, 26. They're all twice my age. They've got thousands of flying hours. They've got billion-dollar budgets. They've got, well, you know this community well. Their nicknames are Striker and Sand Dune. And I was extremely intimidated. So I walked in there, and I thought I had to impress them. And I started talking about my credentials and all my research experience. And the feedback at the end of the four-hour session was brutal. I remember reading the feedback forms, and one person had written, more knowledge in the audience than on the podium. I was like, true. I can't argue with that. And then another wrote, I gained nothing from this session, but I trust the instructor gained useful insight. That was devastating. I was like, I would really like to transform into an actual bear and hibernate for the next four months, and then maybe I'll come out of a hole ready to hear this. I didn't have that option. I had committed to teach a second session a week later. So all I could do was figure out, how am I going to hear this feedback and really take it seriously? And I guess I applied a version of the second score, and I said, all right, there's some generals that are going to come back and see me again, and I've got to prove to them that I was open to feedback. And one of the things I heard loud and clear was that they valued humility, and I had led with too much confidence, which was just insecurity masked. And so I thought, OK, how do I change the equation? And walked in, looked at the room, and I said, I know what you're all thinking right now. What could I possibly learn from a professor who's 12 years old? Dead silence. I'm like, oh, no, this is going to go horribly wrong. And then one of the guys in the audience jumps in, and he's like, oh, that's ridiculous. You've got to be at least 13. Everybody started laughing. It broke the ice. And I think what I was trying to do was to take myself off the pedestal and say, look, I heard your feedback. You told me that you didn't think I had anything to teach you, and I've got to acknowledge that right up front and be open to the fact that that's true. And so I want to come in here and learn from you, and I want to see if I can curate a conversation where we all end up learning. And the feedback was night and day different. Afterward, one person wrote, although junior in experience, the professor dealt with the evidence in an interesting way. I was like, all right, I'll take it. And there was something really powerful about saying, look, I can't change the fact that they hated my session. What I can do is convince them that I was motivated to learn from their criticism.

Speaker 1: I love this concept of the second score, and thank you for sharing that story. I think very often we hear about people like you who, if people didn't catch the math in there, you were a PhD by age 25. And as far as I know, the youngest tenured professor at Penn at 28. So these are outrageously impressive metrics of accomplishment. For you to share a story about less than optimal performance and how you adjusted to it, and the incorporation of the second score that you're referring to, I think is really appreciated. Because I think that as much as we hear, oh, Jordan took many more free throws, and everyone just thinks about all the ones he made, people think about all the ones he made. That's the way the game works. That's the way the mind works, I should say. I appreciate that you've fleshed it out with a personal example. I too would want to turn into a bear and disappear. But I think that it's really impressive what you did. And it makes me think that the second score of getting a 10 at bringing the three and a half up, as it were, is really about turning a score into a verb process. Over and over again, as I do this podcast, and as I've taught in the classroom, what I keep coming back to is this idea that we should be focusing more on verbs and less on nouns. We love to name things and categorize them, but when we start living life through a lot of verb processes, so instead of being fit, or running as a thing, we really think about just running. It becomes less daunting, and we accomplish far more. But the idea that, and there are mathematical models of this, I'm sure, but where you're basically talking about an integral, as opposed to just some value. You're talking about the slope of the line. So you're a three and a half. How are you going to get to a 10? Gosh, that's a huge gap. And you're dealing with being back on your heels psychologically from getting all this battering feedback from these highly accomplished individuals, all these accoutrements, and literally wearing them, presumably, on their body for you to see. And it's really about creating, it's about taking control of the slope of that line from the three onward. And it's really a forward-looking perspective. But I don't think we're being unduly psychological here, or analytic. I think it's really about taking a moment state and a noun and turning it into a verb.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's right. I'm reminded of the great philosopher Homer Simpson, who said that verbing weirds language. So it's harder to talk about this stuff in verbs.

Speaker 1: I love it. I swear I didn't steal it from the Simpsons, but if it came from Homer Simpson, I'm all for it.

Speaker 2: You have to.

Speaker 1: I mean, that's completely credible. Small brain, but given the size of his brain, and people have seen the image, fairly robust

Speaker 2: knowledge. No, I think you're onto something. I think verbs are active, and we're drawn to them. I think a lot of times, people review their past work, and they end up shaming an earlier version of themselves, and they wallow in rumination. And what we want to try to do in that situation, which is easier said than done, is to say, all right, the purpose of getting feedback or advice is not to shame my past self. It's to educate my future self, which I think is very connected to a lot of the work on growth mindset that you've been talking about. And there's been a firestorm of controversy around, can we teach growth mindset in schools lately? And I think what that has underscored for me is, look, you can't expect someone to listen to one podcast episode or go through one workshop and magically believe that they're capable of learning anything at any moment. This is something we have to actively work on on a daily basis. And part of doing that, exactly as you said, is thinking about this loop and saying, all right, the person that I'm computing with is my past self, and I want to get a little bit better today than I was yesterday.