Feedback F-Ups and How to Avoid Them: Session 119 with Natalie Parks

05/27/20 • 57 min

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

Providing feedback to staff members is essential for delivering quality services, but doing it effectively is easier said than done. That's why I'm excited to share this conversation I had with Dr. Natalie Parks from BehaviorLeader.com.

Natalie, along with co-authors Adam Ventura, Erica Crowley, and Dennis Uriarte, just published "Feedback F!@# Ups and How to Avoid Them," and in Session 119, we really dive deep into this topic.

Natalie describes some best practices for providing feedback, including how to do so in the current digital-meeting age. We also talk about how to provide feedback to the "difficult" staff member, as well as how to incorporate the feedback process in staff on-boarding procedures.

If you find this topic interesting, I suggest heading over to BehaviorLeader.com and click on the Featured Products button, and order a copy for yourself. There's also a 5-Day "Fix Your Feedback" Challenge on their website as well, which sounds like a lot of fun!

If you find this episode helpful and would like to get a supervision CEU for it, click here to get more info. You'll also find CEU's on many more topics there, and bulk-purchase discounts are available if you're a procrastinator like me ;-)

Lastly, I’d like to mention that I've been running a membership program for the podcast for a few years now; think of it as a DIY Patreon...

It costs the princely sum of $9/month. Members get access to a private FB group in which they are able to get nearly instantaneous access to the videos of these podcast interviews, often weeks or months before they are published.

The best part is that members get the raw conversation itself. That means no ads, and none of the introductory comments, and sometimes, some bloopers, re-takes, and do-overs.

Another cool thing we do is hold Zoom Hangouts with former guests. We do this about 6 times a year, and it works like this: we schedule a Zoom call, a former guest comes on and joins us, and the members have the opportunity to ask them questions directly. So if you'd like to learn more, head to BehavioralObservations.com/membership.

Natalie, along with co-authors Adam Ventura, Erica Crowley, and Dennis Uriarte, just published "Feedback F!@# Ups and How to Avoid Them," and in Session 119, we really dive deep into this topic.

Lastly, I’d like to mention that I've been running a membership program for the podcast for a few years now; think of it as a DIY Patreon...

The best part is that members get the raw conversation itself. That means no ads, and none of the introductory comments, and sometimes, some bloopers, re-takes, and do-overs.

Previous Episode

Cannabis, Condoms, and Psilocybin: Session 118 with Matt Johnson

You may recall that a few months back, I interviewed Dr. David Cox (@davidjcox_). In our discussion, we spent a fair amount of time talking about the literature on the use of psychedelics for the treatment of a variety of behavioral and mental health challenges.

I recently got the opportunity to extend this conversation with Dr. Matthew Johnson (@Drug_Researcher). Matt Johnson is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at John Hopkins University, and he's been a leading figure in this area of research for over 15 years. His expertise in this area is so well regarded that he's been sought out by media outlets such as (takes deep breath):

The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, Daily Mail, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Baltimore Sun, CNN, CBS News, NBC News, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Vogue, Whole Living, The Washingtonian, Scientific American, Nature, Vice, Insider, Inverse, Healthline, Psychology Today

(pause to inhale...)

60 Minutes, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Situation Room, Fox Business News’ Kennedy, the Dr. Oz Show, PBS’ Retro Report, Labyrint (television show in the Netherlands), Spectrum News NY1, the BBC World Service, NPR’s Morning Edition, NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi Show, New Zealand Radio, and Newstalk Radio Ireland... just to name a few.

Matt has also been featured in a special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show on this very topic. As such, I'm a little more than humbled to chat with him on Behavioral Observations!

In our chat, we did a quick overview of Delay Discounting, talked about decision making with condom usage, and the behavioral economics of cannabis. As an aside, we've done quite a few shows on Behavioral Economics. Here's a quick list of them if you want to get really up to speed:

Back to this show, Matt and I spent a large part of our chat discussing his groundbreaking work in the area of psychedelics. We really get into the weeds, as it were, of how these studies are done, and discuss everything from recruiting participants, the timing of these trips, how participants are supported through their experiences, bad trips, transformative experiences, hypothesized mechanisms of action, what these treatments will look like in five years, and much, much more.

And before I forget, here are some links to additional readings that we referenced:

MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948). Article on Hypothetical Constructs.
Rasmussen and Newland (2009). Quantification of the Anti-Punishment Effect in Humans Using the Generalized Matching Equation.
Hopkinspsychedelic.org, a clearing house of all the cool research that's being done at JHU.

We close with a fun discussion of the concept of impulsivity. In Matt's view, as a psychological construct, the term isn't very useful, and we get into how he came to that conclusion.

This episode is brought to you by:

HRIC Recruiting. Barb Voss has been placing BCBAs in permanent positions throughout the US for just about a decade, and has been in the business more generally for 30 years. Like Batman, she works alone, which means that when you work with HRIC, you work directly with Barb and get highly personalized service. So if you're about to graduate, you're looking for a change of pace, or you just want to know if the grass really is greener on the other side, head ove...

Next Episode

Listening to Perspectives That Matter: Session 120

Since the killing of George Floyd, I’ve had colleagues approach me with suggestions on how to address the issue of police brutality and racism on Behavioral Observations. To be honest, none of the suggestions were entirely satisfying.

As a white guy living in one of the whitest states in America - someone who has not had any mistreatment based on his skin color - other than condemn the actions of those police officers, sharing my thoughts on this event (as well as the broader topic of racism and police brutality) would not only ring hollow, but not be appropriate for the moment. In other words, I realized that I lacked personal perspective with this issue, and while I may have some thoughts on the matter, those thoughts are more or less academic in nature.

So after wracking my brain for a few days on what I could do to leverage the BOP platform for good, I came upon the idea for this show: For Session 120, I want to take myself out of the podcast altogether, and turn it over to a panel of African American men who are also our colleagues in Behavior Analysis. The goal of the show would be for both me and the BOP audience to simply listen rather than talk.

I reached out to Dr. Antonio Harrison to see if he would be interested in facilitating this discussion, and thankfully he agreed. We then recruited Shawn Capell, Pierre Louis, Larry West III, and Kirk Kirby to participate in the panel. From there, I stepped out of the rest of the production process. As of this writing, I haven't even listened to the final product yet because I want to experience this conversation as an audience member would.

As such, I'm ready to learn more about the experience of African American men in our country and I hope you are too. If you find value in this episode, please share it with as many friends and colleagues as possible. I'm hoping this episode is also disseminated beyond the field of Behavior Analysis as well. Lastly, if you have the means to do so, please consider donating to the group, Black Applied Behavior Analysts, (in case you're wondering, I have and will continue to put my money where my mouth is).

Thanks for listening!