Coaching and Feedback
05/06/20 • 29 min
Episode 3 covers coaching and feedback. Matt and Alex discuss the Zone of Genius framework, and how it can help managers and teammates from burning out. They also talk about how to get the most out of one-on-one meetings, through structure and pre-preparation. Finally, they discuss Clearbit’s culture of feedback -- viewing feedback as the only way to achieve true personal growth. Matt and Alex share their frameworks for giving and receiving feedback in a productive way and demonstrate some examples.
We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.
The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.
Resources:
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
What we’ll learn about on this episode:
(01:04) - On the Zone of Genius Framework - “It’s a handy framework for trying to understand how you should spend your life.”
(03:18) - The four stages of the framework and how to know when you have reached your zone of genius - “Zone of Excellence is where people get caught up. These are things they're good at, but it doesn't give them energy over the long term. Eventually, this results in burnout.”
(04:10) - Should you expect everyone in your team to work in their zone of genius? - “You should be thinking of your team as cast members in a film that you’re making, and try to cast them in the right roles.”
(05:35) - How to prevent burnout for yourself and your team members - “It’s much better to focus your feedback on people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.”
(07:16) - The importance of feedback, on Clearbit’s definition of the term and their formula to give feedback properly - “I believe that feedback is the only way to achieve true personal growth.”
(14:58) - How to care enough and listen: receiving feedback from others - “Just because someone gives you feedback doesn't mean you have to accept it ... but you have to make them feel heard.”
(17:56) - On “one on one” meetings and how preparation will optimize your time - “Your report will get a lot more out of that meeting if they are structured.”
(21:23) - A guide on how to properly give critical feedback to others - “They need to know that you actually care about them as a person.”
(24:09) - The common mistakes every new manager makes - “If you’re not delegating things, then your report is not learning.”
About Clearbit:
Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com.
Episode 3 covers coaching and feedback. Matt and Alex discuss the Zone of Genius framework, and how it can help managers and teammates from burning out. They also talk about how to get the most out of one-on-one meetings, through structure and pre-preparation. Finally, they discuss Clearbit’s culture of feedback -- viewing feedback as the only way to achieve true personal growth. Matt and Alex share their frameworks for giving and receiving feedback in a productive way and demonstrate some examples.
We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.
The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.
Resources:
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
What we’ll learn about on this episode:
(01:04) - On the Zone of Genius Framework - “It’s a handy framework for trying to understand how you should spend your life.”
(03:18) - The four stages of the framework and how to know when you have reached your zone of genius - “Zone of Excellence is where people get caught up. These are things they're good at, but it doesn't give them energy over the long term. Eventually, this results in burnout.”
(04:10) - Should you expect everyone in your team to work in their zone of genius? - “You should be thinking of your team as cast members in a film that you’re making, and try to cast them in the right roles.”
(05:35) - How to prevent burnout for yourself and your team members - “It’s much better to focus your feedback on people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.”
(07:16) - The importance of feedback, on Clearbit’s definition of the term and their formula to give feedback properly - “I believe that feedback is the only way to achieve true personal growth.”
(14:58) - How to care enough and listen: receiving feedback from others - “Just because someone gives you feedback doesn't mean you have to accept it ... but you have to make them feel heard.”
(17:56) - On “one on one” meetings and how preparation will optimize your time - “Your report will get a lot more out of that meeting if they are structured.”
(21:23) - A guide on how to properly give critical feedback to others - “They need to know that you actually care about them as a person.”
(24:09) - The common mistakes every new manager makes - “If you’re not delegating things, then your report is not learning.”
About Clearbit:
Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com.
Previous Episode
Hiring & Onboarding
Episode 2 is all about hiring and onboarding. Matt and Alex discuss different techniques for sourcing candidates, how they screen and interview candidates with their topgrading process, how to close candidates, and how to effectively onboard new hires.
We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.
The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.
Resources
Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart
The 15 Commitments Of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp
What we’ll learn about on this episode:
(00:57) - Why hiring is a manager’s most important job - “You’re going to make your job a lot easier by hiring the right people.”
(03:42) - Designing the perfect role proposal - “You need to indicate that you've thought about alternatives and that there really is no alternative to hiring this person.”
(14:44) - On sourcing diverse candidates - “It's been very cool to watch as we do become more diverse, it becomes easier to source diverse candidates.
(18:25) - The Top-grading interview - “You are trying to understand the candidate’s stories and patterns. These are predictive of the candidate’s future performance.”
(21:57) - The Focused interview - “The idea is to ask the same questions again and again to each different candidate so you can compare the answers.”
(23:33) - The Values interview - “If you’re testing for the value of ‘Craft’, we have a list of questions that might give you an idea if they really care about their craft. Do they have a blog, have they published any written works, do they know experts in the field, do other people seek their advice.”
(25:27) - The final step of reference checking - “At this point, you might have some incredible candidates and you might be tempted to skip the reference check. That's never a good idea.”
(29:31) - On closing candidates: What if you really just needed to connect with someone as a human? - “The closing process is a place you can demonstrate to the candidate that you’re going on a journey together and it’s gonna be amazing.”
(36:45) - The best way to make an offer - “The key thing is not to make the offer until you're sure they're going to accept it.”
(41:04) - Welcoming and onboarding your freshly recruited candidate - “I don't think you've actually hired someone until you've onboarded them properly.”
About Clearbit:
Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and tell us what you think.
Next Episode
Working as a Team
Episode 4 is all about strong teams and the importance of trusting each other. At Clearbit, we prevent trust from falling apart by using “impeccable agreements” between team members to get things done. Matt and Alex also talk about meetings, which should be regulated (and justified) to prevent time waste. Get the most out of meetings by structuring them and by writing things down to speed up information transfer and decision making.
We believe great management makes the world a better place. At Clearbit, we’re writing a handbook to train our managers, and we’re sharing it online at themanagershandbook.com. Each episode of this podcast accompanies a chapter of the book, and we get on the mic to discuss it in-depth, covering topics from hiring to conflict resolution to developing consciousness as a leader.
The Manager’s Handbook Podcast is hosted by Matt Sornson (CMO) and Alex MacCaw (CEO) of Clearbit.
Resources
Jeff Bezos’ 2015 Letter to Shareholders
Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey
Modern Health - A platform for innovative companies that value the emotional well-being of their workforce.
What we’ll learn about on this episode:
(03:03) - On Clearbit’s Impeccable Agreements - “Often you’ll find that agreements aren’t specific enough, so two people have different ideas of what a task means.”
(05:02) - What happens when you aren’t able to fulfill an agreement? - “Don’t agree to too many things, really only agree to the things you can actually do.”
(07:02) - Why devaluing and underrating meetings is a mistake - “Meetings are necessary in companies, you could think of them like carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.”
(14:15) - The Delegating Framework: Type 1 vs Type 2 decisions - “Type 2 decisions are ones that are reversible and Type 1 aren’t.”
(16:04) - On the Disagree and Commit principle and the importance of team alignment - “Basically it is saying to your team ‘I trust you’ and letting them run with their own decisions.”
(17:39) - When should you invest in buy-in and alignment? - “Alignment and buy-in take time and there’s no way around it.”
(20:15) - On remote teams and how you should manage them - “We have to think really carefully about how we do remote, how we make the remote team feel included and how we integrate them into our decision making.”
(28:22) - A great tool to measure your managers’ performances - “Ultimately, a manager is measured by their team’s output.”
About Clearbit:
Clearbit is the marketing data engine for customer interactions, made with love in the heart of San Francisco. If you want more details on how we help businesses grow, please see our solutions, products, and integrations at clearbit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and tell us what you think.
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