How to Give Firm Feedback with Jeff Hancher
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
In this episode, I sit down with executive coach Jeff Hancher to explore the transformative power of feedback in leadership. Jeff shares how his early struggles shaped his approach to leadership and why mastering the art of giving firm, timely, and caring feedback is essential in today’s emotionally complex workplace.
The Power of Feedback
Great leaders give timely, honest, and constructive feedback.
Feedback is essential for both personal and organizational transformation.
Leaders must earn the right to give feedback through trust and consistent support.
Leadership Through Adversity
Hardships can fuel leadership purpose and empathy.
A clear “why” sustains motivation and resilience during challenges.
Today’s Feedback Gap
There’s a major disconnect between leaders who think they give effective feedback and employees who feel they receive it.
Fear of conflict, lack of training, and retention concerns cause leaders to avoid feedback.
What Makes Feedback “Firm”
Firm feedback is clear, direct, and compassionate—not harsh.
Delivery matters just as much as content.
The same message can build or break trust depending on context and relationship.
Earning the Right
Authority must be earned, not just given by title.
Leaders earn trust through support, coaching, and consistent presence.
Deposits in the relationship (care, time, attention) allow for tough withdrawals (accountability, hard truths).
Setting Expectations
Expectations must be clearly communicated and regularly reinforced.
Involving team members in creating expectations increases buy-in.
Goals should stretch people, not break them—clarity builds confidence.
The Role of One-on-Ones
Frequent one-on-ones are essential for trust, coaching, and accountability.
These meetings should be intentional, goal-oriented, and personalized.
Leaders must prioritize development conversations over task management.
Types of Feedback
Directive: Best for new hires or time-sensitive issues.
Supportive: Ideal for peak performers or those facing personal struggles.
Collaborative: Effective with defensive individuals; uses questions to lower resistance.
Abandon the Feedback Sandwich
Mixing praise and criticism confuses the message.
Let praise be praise, and critique be critique—clearly and separately.
Creating a Feedback Culture
Feedback should move in all directions—up, down, and across.
Leaders must actively invite and model upward feedback.
Organizations thrive when feedback is normalized and emotionally safe.
Thanks for listening!
Apply for a free coaching call with me
Get a Free Gift ⬇️
🆓 The limitless organization short video course
Connect with me
www.instagram.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.facebook.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldman10/
I invite you to assess your team In all these areas by taking an online 30-question assessment for both you and your team at
-
Mike Goldman (00:01)
Jeff Hancher is a leadership expert, executive coach and keynote speaker dedicated to helping individuals and organizations reach their fullest potential. Growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania, Jeff faced significant challenges as the son of parents medically unable to work.
Those hardships instilled in him a deep drive to create a better life for his family and inspire others to do the same. After serving in the United States Army, Jeff began his corporate journey as a blue collar worker and over 23 years rose through 10 promotions to advance leadership roles in a Fortune 500 company. Along the way, he discovered his passion for developing others, combining strategic insight.
coaching and hard work to empower those around them. Today Jeff focuses on leadership development through executive coaching, training and keynote speaking. He also hosts an award winning champion forum podcast. So he's a fellow podcaster. His mission is to equip leaders and teams to grow, thrive and leave a lasting legacy. also know he's got a new book coming out and
By the time you're listening to this, it may already be out and it's called firm feedback in a fragile world. So we're to talk a lot about feedback today. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff Hancher (01:24)
Mike, so good to be with you. Thanks for having me on the show. We share a passion for leadership and thank you to the listener that's tuning in. We'll do everything we can to add a deposit and add value to the journey. That's where my heart is.
Mike Goldman (01:38)
Beautiful, beautiful. Jeff, you know my first question. This is the Better Leadership Team show. My first question is always the same. From all of your vast experience, what do you believe is the number one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Jeff Hancher (01:55)
Well, you know, this question, I think there's two ways to look at the question to answer it. And one is as your experience as a leader. But I'm taking maybe a twist on this, which is I'm going to give my answer based off my experience as a follower of leaders. Because I think back to the leaders who shaped me the most. And you can start drawing from the characteristics of the leaders that shaped you the most.
And I would tell you, it's feedback as cliche as it is. The greatest leaders have an innate ability to give not only feedback, but the right feedback at the right time, delivering it the right way. We're all a product of feedback. Every one of us, either the feedback that we've gotten, or the lack of feedback that we needed and didn't get. I think the greatest leaders, the greatest characteristic that you can have
is making those deposits into people to help them reach their fullest potential.
Mike Goldman (02:52)
So Jeff, that was a test. With this book coming out that you've got, if you gave any other answer, I'd stop the recording and say, let's do it again. But no, I mean, that's so important. And of course, we're going to dive into that. what it makes me think of is back when I was 30 years old and I was, I'd been coaching and consulting for most of my 37 or 38 years in the business world. But I was about 30 years old and I had one of my only jobs just in industry.
Jeff Hancher (02:58)
had to be.
Mike Goldman (03:21)
And I got my annual performance review after the first year being there. And I had done a really good job building this new department. And the annual performance review had five words. It said, keep up the good work. And I made the decision in that moment that I had to go find my next job because I didn't get that feedback. So man, I can't wait to dig in. And it's kind of personal to me too, given that.
Jeff Hancher (03:34)
my.
⁓ No doubt
Mike Goldman (03:48)
Before we dig into to feedback, given your introduction about your, your, your life and kind of in Southwestern Pennsylvania and some of the struggles there and the U S army, I gotta ask, I gotta at least get a short summary of your journey leading up into, to where you are now. So tell me a little bit about that journey, especially when you were younger and, and how it, how it shaped who you are today.
Jeff Hancher (04:12)
Yeah, man. Thanks for asking. Mike, I will tell you, I think the listeners should know this. This is my first book I've ever written. And one of my mentors, Tim Elmore, has been prompting me to write a book. Now, you're an author as well. And you know, if you sit down with pen and paper, you can write a book about anything you want. I had to decide, what am I going to write a book about? What am I most passionate about? So the answer was easy for me.
And why it is is because of the journey. You know, in the intro you talked about I grew up in poverty due to two sick parents. And, you know, I don't know if that does it any justice. You know, it was to say it was hard would be an understatement. A mom with lupus, a dad with osteoarthritis, in and out of hospitals, substance abuse. It left my brother and I with not a ton of direction. They were good people.
They just faced a lot of challenges. When I graduated high school, I was running from something, not to something. I just wanted out of the mess. And college wasn't a great option for me, so I joined the military. I am transitioning from the military. I'm going to go to college on the GI Bill. It's a great, great benefit. I'm a few weeks away from starting college, and my dad calls and says they're sending mom home in hospice.
He's getting a leg amputated. I did what any of us would do listening and I went home and I started getting the nurses set up, taking care of business. My brother already had a career and during this time, I didn't want to be a burden on my family. If anything, I wanted to help them pay bills. And so I did what we did back in the day to get a job. went and bought a newspaper and tried to find a job I was suited for. I didn't have a lot of skill. was just a hard working.
country boy from rural southwestern Pennsylvania. I applied to be a truck driver at a company called Cintas Uniform Company. And they hired me to be a truck driver picking up dirty clothes. And what I thought was going to be a seasonal job ended up being a 24-year career. And in that 24 years, I, you know, I ran across some of the most amazing leaders that took this young
kid that didn't know anything, didn't know how to tie a tie, didn't know what a color stay was, didn't know what a sales script was, didn't know how to lead, and pulled potential out of me along the way. And so that's the nickel tour of the story and a little glimpse as to why I'm so passionate about leadership.
Mike Goldman (06:42)
And by the way, for those, if you're listening and you're under 30, a newspaper is something we used to buy. It's a whole bunch of pieces of paper. It would get our hands all black. And that's how we looked for jobs back then, before LinkedIn or Indeed or any of that stuff. So that's really helpful in understanding who you are.
Jeff Hancher (06:54)
wild. That's right. That's it.
Mike Goldman (07:03)
How does that relate to so feedback? Why of all of the leadership books that are out there and all the different focuses around leadership? What led you to firm feedback in a fragile world? Why that book?
Jeff Hancher (07:19)
Well, the firm feedback is because feedback is harder than it's ever been to give because there's a lot at stake. You know, this is one of the hardest challenging times to lead. You know, you have quiet quitting. It's costing the global economy nearly nine trillion dollars a year. You have leaders that think they're effective, but they're really not. There was a recent national poll where they polled thousands of leaders.
65 % of these leaders answered that they felt strongly that they were good at giving effective feedback. Their subordinates were given the same survey, and only 21 % of the subordinates said that they believed that they even got any feedback in the last seven days. We have quiet quitting. We have the great resignation. We have post-pandemic stressors. Still, am I in office? Am I not?
Hiring talent is harder than ever before. Retaining it is harder than ever before. Leaders, one, maybe don't want to rock the boat. Two, what we know is a lot of leaders aren't taught how to properly give feedback. So what do they do? They default to what they think is right. I don't think leaders set out to fail. But they model after maybe who they've been led by. That may give them an aggressive leadership style. It may give them a passive leadership style.
They may give feedback to everybody the same way. And what we know is, it's just simply not effective.
Mike Goldman (08:48)
What is, you say firm feedback in a fragile world. What's the difference between just any old feedback and firm feedback?
Jeff Hancher (08:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I think firm feedback is candid. And candid is good when you've earned the right to give it. And I'll say it this way, when you earn the right to have a tough conversation, it's a gift. When you have a tough conversation and you haven't earned the right, you're a monster. And if we may, we'll roleplay real quick, Mike. We've just met recently. And the listeners can listen in.
Mike, if you and I were at a conference and we were at a booth together, whatever it might be, if I happen to smell a bad odor coming from your breath, would you want me to tell you?
Mike Goldman (09:37)
Absolutely.
Jeff Hancher (09:38)
you would want to know. And why would that be important to you to know?
Mike Goldman (09:43)
because if you notice it, I'm sure other people notice it, and if I don't know about it, I can't fix it. And it may hurt me when you say it, it may feel bad, but man, I'd want to know so I can fix the problem.
Jeff Hancher (09:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, so that people didn't think bad of you, that you represented yourself the right way, which is important to your brand. Is that right? You want to know.
Mike Goldman (10:02)
And by the way, I do want to know desperately who told you about
my breath. No, I want to know who told you about my breath. That's not right that someone's talking behind my back. ⁓ it's a role play. Thank you.
Jeff Hancher (10:07)
⁓ this is just a role play, Mike. I'm sure it's minty fresh. ⁓
It's minty fresh. I'm sure of it. But check this out. Imagine that you and I are at the local convenience store. You're behind me in line. And I just simply turn around and I say, hey, man, your breath stinks. Now I'm rude. Now I'm a jerk. Now who are you to tell me? Now, here's the difference in the same two. Here's what's same.
Mike Goldman (10:15)
Hahaha!
Jeff Hancher (10:35)
in the same two scenarios, the data is the same. The data is the breath. The difference is that in one scenario, I earned the right to give tough firm feedback. In the other scenario, I didn't. The data is exactly the same. The goal of leadership is not to be right, it's to transform. When I turn around to you in the convenience store and say your breath stinks, I'm right. That's not the goal.
The goal is transformation because not only did I ask you, would you want me to tell you, I followed that up with why would that be important to you? Now, when I have to tell you later on and you don't transform, I can remind you why you told me that was important to you. And I've had leaders do this for me along the way, Mike, that had they not stepped in, I wouldn't be who I am today. Every leader, if I were to ask you or any listener listening, the senior leader that's listening.
If you look back across your career, across your life, and you think of the three leaders that have made the biggest transformational impact on your life, we can think of them quickly. Because we know, like without that person, I'm not who I am today. Now, let me ask you this follow up question. Were they tough on you? And the answer is almost always yes. Then here's the other follow up. Did they care? And the answer?
is almost always yes. So now we have proven through our own life, the people that have made the greatest impact on us were firm, but they cared deeply and they did it in an a tactful way. This framework that I'm building out in this book is with the heart behind it is to ensure that we don't become bosses people report to, but we become leaders that people don't want to let down. And we do that through earning the right
to have the tough conversation.
Mike Goldman (12:31)
So that begs the question. you're a leader, you've got this leadership team, you've got a member of that leadership team. So they're not just behind you, know, online at the store. If somebody on your team, as a leader, what should I be doing to earn that right? Have I earned the right just because they work for me or are there things I need to do to earn that right?
Jeff Hancher (12:54)
Yeah, there are. I mean, there's appointed authority and there's earned authority. Appointed authority is, the king, kiss the ring. But what we know about earned authority is that it's usually a combination between expert authority and reverent authority that earns us influence. This punitive authority, legal authority, that is the appointed authority.
You know, I'm going to tell you what to do. If you speed, I will give you a ticket. But that's not transformational. Earned authority is where the transformation happens. How do we do that? Well, some leaders are great at accountability. If I see you messing up, I will swoop in. I will write you up. I will hit you with my stick. You will feel my wrath. I'm not afraid of a tough conversation. The problem there is you might be driving compliance.
but not getting engagement. And why is that? Well, because you never set a clear reasonable expectation. And with that, you never gave feedback along the way. The pendulum can swing the other way too, where you have a leader that does a really good job setting expectations. Everybody knows what's expected, but they lack the ability to hold people accountable in fear. The utopia of leadership is that I set clear and reasonable expectations
which is worked on as a team, I train and develop to those expectations. I'm meeting consistently with my teammates, giving them feedback. How are you doing? I.e. a SMART goal. How are you doing with the expectation? What do you need from me? Hey, you're a little behind schedule. You need to go a little faster. Now here's what we know. You can lead perfectly and people are gonna fall outside of feedback. They're gonna fall outside of expectations.
This is when the accountability comes. This is when the leader sits down and says, listen, you're falling short. This is the tough conversation. If this is done well, it's in that tough conversation that that person says, I'm not going to let this happen again. I'm not going to let Mike down. I'm going to work a little bit harder. I'm going to make this happen. Now, we can't control willingness of people.
But look, if people aren't willing after accountability and feedback and expectations, then what you're doing is you're helping to coach out people from your organization that shouldn't be on the team. So either way, it's gonna result in a winning effort.
Mike Goldman (15:34)
So I wanna start with setting clear expectations. Go back there. And that's near and dear to my heart. Everything we're talking about is, there are issues I grapple with every day with my leaders. And a good part of this stuff is stuff that I'm covering in my next book coming out in October. So I can't wait to read yours and see what...
Jeff Hancher (15:54)
Good.
Mike Goldman (16:01)
what our different viewpoints kind of add to add to the viewpoints we've already got. But setting expectations is something that I want to go back to because in my experience, most leaders fall down here. They typically believe they have set expectations, but most of those expectations are in their own mind and they haven't really communicated it. So give me a little bit of your viewpoint of
Jeff Hancher (16:06)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (16:29)
What does that mean? How much deep, like is an expectation big picture? Here's where we want to go. You figure out how to get there. it step by step? want you to do these 50 things. Is it somewhere in the middle? How should a leader think about setting expectations and how could they make sure those are clear?
Jeff Hancher (16:48)
Yeah, so clear and reasonable, I think, are the words. You know, so often expectations are set during onboarding, you know, and they're forgotten about. They're not talked about again. You know, if you're a parent listening to this, this will resonate with you. I have, you know, now adult kids were once teenagers, were once toddlers. You know, when my son was three, I introduced him to a toothbrush.
and I showed him how to do it. I observed him doing it. I told him why brushing his teeth was important and I thought we were good. I set the expectation. But I will tell you this, 16 years old, 17 years old, there were times that I had to be like, did you brush your teeth, man? This is, I forgot, dad, I forgot. This is not set it and forget it. This is, and I told you in 1999 during onboarding, this is what I needed from you.
We set an expectation, but we reinstill it through feedback constantly. Not only what the expectation is, but why the expectation is good for them. Not for the company, not for the organization. Why it's good for them. Now, I hope we have employees on our team that want to see the company win, but I can promise you this. They care more about winning as an individual than they do your company.
than they do your balance sheet. Not that they don't care. They just care more about them. If you can tie an expectation into how that helps them win, even better. And then reasonable. I can't walk into the team meeting on Monday and say, listen, everybody, we need everybody to run a four minute mile. Well, okay. That might be what the organization needs is four minute mile runners. But is that realistic?
It's not. We can't give expectation based off what we need. We have to give expectations based off what's realistic. How do you determine that? Well, the best way to handle an expectation is to get people involved at the point of creation. You might ask somebody, hey, I need you to run a four minute mile, Mike. And Mike might say, I would really love to do that for you. But I got two artificial knees and I have an artificial hip. I would love to do it. Well, guess what?
That's not a reasonable expectation for Mike. So then I got to go into what would be reasonable. How fast have you ever ran? What would be reasonable? Now I'm meeting people where they're at so that they don't feel a lack of confidence going into the expectation. One of my favorite quotes is Marcus Garvey said this once. He said, if you lack confidence in self, you're twice defeated in the race of life.
but with confidence you have won even before you start. When we walk into a team meeting and tell people everybody needs to run a four-minute mile, they're already beat, they're already defeated. They might not even speak up and you might even have some people that say, let's do it. It's just not reasonable. You have to get people involved as you're creating expectations. I think they should stretch people. I think they should bend people, but they shouldn't break people. When we do this,
Now we feel like it's attainable. So expectations has to be the bedrock of accountability. That's the piece that we start earning the right to give accountability.
Mike Goldman (20:12)
So we've now set expectations and I want to dive into the when and the how of feedback. And I actually want to start with the when. So when do you give someone feedback? And of course there's feedback in the moment and then there's typically some annual performance review, quarterly performance review. We can talk about that and see if your viewpoint is similar to mine because I have some strong feelings.
Jeff Hancher (20:21)
Yeah.
Same.
Mike Goldman (20:42)
But
when do you give feedback? Is it simply just in the moment give feedback or is there also some regular schedule?
Jeff Hancher (20:52)
Yeah, I mean, you know, just to touch on that performance review. I'm not opposed to a performance review. But if that's the only time people are getting feedback, I'm out. I am. I'm out. And sometimes the feedback at a performance review is driven by HR compliance. Hey, leaders, you got 10 days, 10 days, all these got to be done. And it becomes this cattle herd. And it's not really fair, right?
An annual performance review should never have surprises if we're doing this the right way because we're giving feedback consistently. I'm a believer in the one-on-one debrief. I go into companies all the time like you do, Mike, and when I come in, it's usually because there's a lot of pain and a lot of hemorrhaging. And what I would tell you is one of the recommendations that always will increase productivity is that a leader sits down one-on-one with everybody in the company. Everybody.
Look, some work charts are big, I get it. Now that could be weekly, it could be every other week, it could be monthly, it could be quarterly. But there has to be a routine cadence of a one on one connection where feedback is given. And by the way, feedback isn't always bad. You you don't have to look far as a leader to find a problem. Just get out of your office and walk around, you'll find one. We feel like when we find problems and fix them, we're being very, productive. I'm not here to dispute that.
But we can get so caught up in giving negative feedback that we never catch people doing things right. When we find people doing things right and give them the affirmation feedback, it's absolutely contagious because we're telling the rest of the team, this is what good is. However, there are going to be times that we have to give tough feedback in a one-on-one. We set smart goals. We're doing individual development plans. We're tracking how are you doing.
as it relates to the expectation, you're falling behind. Now what I'm doing is I'm now leader coach. Because if I'm not doing this piece, what's gonna happen is I go from expectations straight to accountability. I miss the whole feedback thing. So I go from teaching my son when he's three years old to teach, brush his teeth, never saying a word again. He's 16 years old and I just explode. How dare you not brush your teeth?
This feedback that goes along the way, what it does is it creates muscle memory and it shows incremental improvement for the teams that we have. This feedback is absolutely critical in a routine basis. And lastly, and I'll turn it back to you, Mike, is the understanding that not all feedback is the same. Some leaders will settle into a style of feedback. For example, their directive, and they'll tell you, by the way.
Hey look, I'm very direct, I call things as I see them. That's not a good strategy with a peak performer, high tenure. Directive. I've been here 20 years, I have 15 President's Club awards, and you're gonna come in here and tell me what to do? That's not gonna work. Adversely, the new employee that's coming through onboarding, and you take a collaborative approach, hey, so what do you think we should do? Well, I was hoping you would tell me, I'm brand new, right?
So we have to understand that feedback is like a tool belt. You know, we don't take a flathead screwdriver and try to pound a nail in wood. You could, but you might not want to. It's like petting a cat backwards. You could, but nobody's having a good time here. The cat's miserable, you're miserable. You don't do that. You want to see feedback as a tool. What feedback is appropriate to the audience in front of me, and how do I deliver it, and when?
critical elements for feedback.
Mike Goldman (24:39)
So I want to be clear again in the when you talk about the one-on-one meetings and I love that. mean, those are critical, not just having them, but doing them right. the one-on-one, you said a leader does it with the company. Are they doing it with the company or are they just doing it with their direct reports?
Jeff Hancher (24:56)
With their direct reports. Now look, I'm a fan of it. It's a company wide initiative. No question about that. But I would not expect a senior vice president to debrief everybody in their org chart. They might have five direct reports. That's their debrief. That's not saying don't ever connect with somebody that's two rungs down in the org chart. But I think that direct report, because that direct leader is the one that's going to make the biggest impression.
Mike Goldman (24:58)
That's, yeah.
Sure.
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. just wanted to be clear. And you said it could be once a week, once a month, once a quarter. What's your recommendation? And it doesn't have to be the same for everyone. But what is your recommendation? How often should a leader be doing one-on-ones? And feedback is probably not the only thing that happens in one-on-ones. But how often should they be doing those one-on-ones?
Jeff Hancher (25:25)
⁓ on the people. That cadence is so important.
That's right.
I, in an ideal world, it would be weekly. And I believe in this so much, Mike, that I come from the school of, if the reason you tell me that your leaders can't do a one-on-one with everybody in their org chart weekly, hire more leaders. I believe in it that strongly. Well, Jeff, what about the labor cost? I believe in it that strongly. I don't, I believe there's no greater investment than that of your people. I believe that.
And if you're equipping leaders the right way, and they're reproducing themselves and other people, it's the most significant competitive advantage that you can have. I'm not saying pull somebody in for a 90 minute debrief. It might be 15 minutes, it might be 20, it might be 30. But this constant cadence of what do you need from me? Let me give you some feedback. Let's check up on your goals. What are your what's your three year five year career goals? How can I help you get there? Read this book.
Tell me what you learned. These are the deposits that earn you the right to make the withdrawals. When people know that you care, man, you have earned the right to say some tough things. And this has happened to me. I'll tell you a quick story and then I'll turn it back. When I went to Cintas, keep in mind, you know, I go there, mom's in hospice, she's very, very sick. You know, this lasts for like two, three years. Well, it's been my whole life.
I'm a truck driver picking up dirty clothes. I aspired so much to be an outside salesperson wearing the shiny shoes, driving the Honda Accord and wearing the nice suit, right? I just, man, these people made commissions. They made more money. I needed to take care of my family. I finally get the promotion, Mike, and I sucked at it. And I mean, I sucked at sales, but I had a leader by the name of Sean who believed in me. He knew I was a hard worker.
He would ride with me in the car, know, butt in seat. He got to learn about my background, my story, my military life, my sick parents. He got to learn about this story. He got to understand why success was important to me. This guy would jump in the car with me every single week. When we felt like we were going into a sales call that was going to be tough, Sean took the call and I would learn from him. When it wasn't going to be tough, he would let me take the call and we'd get back in the car and he'd say, how do you think you did?
make this change, make that change. He would pull me into his office and write scripts with me and role play with me. This guy was making massive deposits. I get a call one morning that I got to go to the hospital. My dad calls and says, mom's not good. I had gotten that call so many times, Mike, but today it was different. I get to the hospital and a couple hours later, I was there when my mom took her last breath.
You know, my why at that time in my life was to make enough money so my mom wouldn't have to cut pills in half to get to the next copay. Everything I was fighting so hard for to get them out of that one bedroom, multi-apartment complex into a decent neighborhood, everything I was fighting for was gone. My motivation was gone. I went into a deep depression. I didn't care about commissions anymore, presidents clubs, trophies. I was just angry and depressed.
That went on for a few weeks and Sean pulled me into his office and he said, enough's enough. Enough is enough. You have an 18 month old son, you've got a wife and your dad is still alive, not to mention your brother. And they're counting on you to win. And I'm not gonna let this continue. You can either get back on the horse and ride and do what I know you're capable of doing or you're not gonna be able to be on my team.
Wow. Now let me tell you this, if you knew a little bit about Jeff Hancher's upbringing and background, if somebody would have said that to me, other than him, I would have probably had a few choice words and walked out the door and said, had a good life, but with a few other words. I sat there and looked at Sean in the most profound way because Sean earned the right to say what he said. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.
And I knew he was right. And I knew I had to make change. I went on to take nine more promotions in that company, multiple presidents clubs, create a life that I didn't even think was possible, touch so many people. I'm now an entrepreneur. I'm now touching people all over the place. I wonder if Sean doesn't make those deposits, give that feedback, and give me that tough conversation and hold me accountable.
if any of it happens. That's the high calling of leadership.
Mike Goldman (30:35)
And here's something I want to pause to focus on because it's so important. And thank you for telling that story. You talked about Sean making these massive deposits.
as a leader.
We need to make time to make those massive deposits and so many leaders that I see.
People growth and feedback and coaching and development is number five or six or seven on their priority list. And I'm with you, it's gotta be number one. Because Sean made the time to go with you and help you and support you and kick you in the ass when you needed it. And you go back and talk about the one-on-ones. I saw an interview with Marcus Buckingham a few years ago.
who wrote First Break All the Rules, very big, strength-based leadership guy. And in the audience, if you haven't read any Marcus Buckingham, go read it, good stuff. But he said something I thought was brilliant, which is very consistent, Jeff, with what you're saying about, if you don't have time, hire more leaders. But he said a little differently. He said, if you are a leader and you say, I don't have the time,
to have quality one-on-one meetings with everybody on my team every week. I just don't have the time to do it.
well then you shouldn't be leading those people. How many people do you have the time to have quality one-on-ones with? If the answer's 10, I could meet with 10 people per week and have a quality one-on-one. Well then, excellent, you could have 10 people working for you. If you say I'm so busy with these 12 other things, I don't have time to meet with anybody regularly one-on-one and have a quality meeting with them, then you should have zero people reporting to you. That's how important it is.
Jeff Hancher (32:01)
Agreed.
I 100 % agree, Mike, 100%. You know, and this is the difference between doing leadership and being a leader. If I were to ask how many people listening have more to do than they have time, every hand is up. There's plenty to do, but I think the greatest leaders come to this realization at some point in their leadership journey that we're not here to lead followers.
We're here to reproduce leaders. There's no other way to do this. Here's what we also know about leadership. Leadership is much better caught than it is taught. If leadership or professional development was just taught, we could just start handing out books to our direct reports and everybody would be a rock star. Now look, I'm about reading the book, listening to the podcast, but when you get around it, it's transformative.
If I want to be a good golfer, I can't just read Tiger's book and hit like Tiger. Now, if I play with Tiger every week, I'm going to start picking up on how he acts, how he moves, how he speaks, how he thinks. And I'm going to start being a little bit more like him. This is the value of time. We can't just tell people. We have to show people. And this is the value of the mentoring. This is the value of feedback.
This is the value of setting clear reasonable expectations. It's not hard. You know, and I'm not here to say it's simple either. It's a lot of work. But here's the million dollar question. What if you don't? What if you don't? You're never going to reach your potential as a leader. You're never going to reach your potential as an organization. And more tragic, the people that you lead may never reach their potential. I'm pretty certain to say I wouldn't have.
Sean was a guy, Mike, that not only taught me how to be a good salesperson, Sean told me what a collar stay was. Sean taught me how to tie a Windsor knot. Sean took me to Joseph A. Bank and told me about how your belt and shoes are supposed to match and what a sport coat was. I had never owned one of these fancy sport coats before. This is where I came from. This is a leader that was transforming somebody.
So when he comes in and says, better get your crap together, it hit different. He earned the right.
Mike Goldman (34:49)
Jeff, when you, I wanna get into a little bit to the how. The when is so critical, but I wanna get, and you've already talked a little bit about the how, and it may be different for the brand new team member than the 20 year veteran that's been kicking ass for 20 years. So understanding that it needs to be different. And I'm gonna pick critical feedback as opposed to letting somebody know what a great job they're doing, which is.
just as important, in fact, in some ways more important. But if you've got to give somebody critical feedback, is there, you I remember way back learning the, you know, the shit sandwich, you know, tell them, you know, you're doing great with this, but, but, you know, but here's the horrible thing you're doing and, but, keep up the great work with these things, you know, so that is there a, is there some structure to
Jeff Hancher (35:27)
Ugh.
Mike Goldman (35:40)
giving the difficult feedback potentially within a difficult conversation you may have to have with, you know, is it just different for everybody or is there some structure that helps make it easier to kind of enter in the conversation and make sure you're both getting value from that conversation?
Jeff Hancher (36:00)
Man, there really is. And let me begin by addressing the feedback sandwich, if I may, and we may differ on this, Mike, but if you've ever been taught the feedback sandwich, stop doing that immediately. I mean, stop immediately. It's the easiest thing to teach. And this, if you're not familiar with the feedback sandwich, it's tell them something nice, then give them the hard feedback, and then tell them something nice to restore them. Here's the problem with that. If I'm like,
Hey Mike, look, you're a great employee, but you know, you gotta stop being late to work, but you know I love you. Well, that's confusing. Like, are you saying you love me, or am I being disciplined right now? What's happening? Now, if you're a great leader, you catch people doing things right, and one day I walk up to Mike and I say, Mike, I just wanna let you know, I really appreciate you staying late yesterday to get all the orders out. You know what Mike's waiting for? Criticism. Like,
Let your affirmation be affirmation. Let your critique be critique. Don't mix the two up. It's confusing to everybody. But here's the other thing that I think is so, so, so important is to realize that all feedback is not the same. It is different. There's collaborative feedback. Well, I really talk about three types. I talk about supportive feedback. I talk about directive feedback.
and I talk about collaborative feedback. There's a time and a place for all of these different feedback types. Directive is best used in two scenarios. One, when people are being onboarded into a new role or new to the company, or if there's a time-sensitive or impending event, like a safety issue. Then we don't have time to huddle. They need direct feedback. We owe that to a new employee. They don't know what they're doing. They need it. They crave it.
Then you have your supportive. Our workforce is battling things we don't know anything about. There's people listening right now that had to deliver Narcan to their son at one point because they may be overdosed. There are people right now that their spouse has been given a terminal disease report. There are people right now that just the dirt is fresh on their parents grave. People are coming with real challenges.
If we go directive in nature with these people, we're going to lose them. We go one on one. We build a relationship and we go supportive with feedback. By the way, a peak performer that falls from grace, do they need directive feedback? Probably not. They need supportive feedback. If Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan is in a shooting slump, you know what their coach tells them? Listen, I know you're a winner. Don't worry about it. Just keep shooting the ball. Just keep shooting the ball.
You wouldn't do that, you don't do that to a peak performer. Collaborative, when do we use that? We use collaborative when we have somebody defensive in front of us. Have you ever led somebody that's defensive about everything? We all have. They're so frustrating, you don't even want to talk to them. They're always miserable. Well, I wonder if we went with a collaborative approach to that. When you are collaborative, you're asking questions. It pulls the walls down and it makes defensiveness less likely.
Now we're just asking questions. Hey, last month, did you give it your best? Was that the best that you could do? Was there anything looking back that you would have changed? Is there anything that I could have done better to support you? I'm just asking questions. Now we're taking this approach that, man, there are multiple types of feedback. Some people just gravitate towards one because it's what they're comfortable with. Passive leaders love collaborative feedback. Aggressive leaders love directive feedback.
But if you lead in those styles across the board, you're not going to be effective because so many people are moving different, different tenure, different skill sets. So those would be some things to think about. But also why do we avoid the tough conversations? I mean, now more than ever, there's a lot at risk. I mean, look, you could go into a tough conversation with somebody that's like the best culture fit. They're the team cheerleader.
They're very respectful, but you got to give tough feedback. You know What's probably gonna happen is they're probably gonna cry and I don't want to see him cry Man, I might offend somebody if I give tough feedback. I might disappoint somebody I might embarrass somebody and and God forbid in today's world Mike What if I give them some tough feedback and they quit I'm already down three requisitions. I certainly don't want to do that So there's a lot that comes with feedback avoidance and why this happens
So how do you overcome that? You overcome feedback avoidance by asking yourself this leadership question. What if I don't? What if I don't give the tough feedback? What if I don't tell them what they want to hear? They want to hear it, by the way. We've just met Mike and I said, if your breath stinks, do you want me to tell you? You said yes. People want to know. The majority of people walking planet Earth want to get better. And as a leader, it's our obligation to give them the feedback.
If you make the deposit of feedback and expectations, you can have that tough conversation. My heart around the book is to give you the framework that you can literally rinse repeat. This isn't like Princeton leadership theory. It's very, very practical, but it is something that has to be learned and something that has to be executed.
Mike Goldman (41:35)
Jeff, before we wrap things up, want to turn this on its head a little bit because we're talking a lot about feedback going from the leader to the leaders direct report. But that leader may need feedback. Upward feedback is really, really important. And sometimes, especially if you're a CEO and you're listening to this, you may look around and say, holy crap, no one's giving me feedback anymore.
Jeff Hancher (41:51)
Mmm.
Yes.
Mike Goldman (42:03)
because everybody's reporting to me, so how do I know how I'm doing? So as a leader, what can we be doing in the environment we're creating and the questions we're asking to create an environment where people feel comfortable giving us feedback? As a leader, how do we get the feedback we need?
Jeff Hancher (42:24)
Yeah, I think it is relational and especially the senior leader. It's critical. know, every good idea that we have usually comes from the bottom. They're the ones doing the work, right? And none of us are perfect. We can get into, especially the senior leader, the C level that's listening, the entrepreneur, the founder, the president of the smaller company, maybe. We can get into this place where we're at the top of the org chart.
That's a tough place to be sometimes because it can be very, very lonely. We have to create a culture of feedback. How we do that is through collaboration. We want to surround ourselves with people in our organization that one, they achieve great results because that means they do something. Two, they're an ambassador of our culture. And three, in my opinion, they carry honor. Now, I think it's important to coach people.
on how to do this the right way. Because what we don't want is employees just going up to the C level and saying, listen, I think that decision you made was dumb. Like that's not helping anybody. But I think what can happen is, imagine this Mike, I'm your employee, you're the CEO of the company, you pull me in your office, we're having a debrief. We do this on occasion. And like any good C level, before I leave, you say, Jeff, is there anything you need from me?
And I say, well, Mike, great meeting today. I got my action items. I appreciate the feedback on the status report. I'll make the corrections. I think we're going the right direction. But I know you're not a robot, Mike. I know you're human. Let me ask you this, Mike. If there was ever a time that I ever saw you acting in a way, delivering feedback in a way,
to people in our organization that maybe didn't represent your brand or where you want to take our company. Would you want me to let you know? And the answer is always yes. I now have just opened the door to a senior leader that says, I want the feedback. So this goes both ways. A lot of employees are intimidated to go to the senior leader. That's how you set the table there.
Mike Goldman (44:18)
course.
Jeff Hancher (44:35)
Now, if you do have to go back with something tough, you say, hey, Mike, you remember a few months back, you asked me to give you feedback. Today's the day. Now I'm giving them what? I'm giving them a gift from the senior leader down. It's it's the same type of conversation, but it's got to be done with a lot of vulnerability and humility. Vulnerability to open up feedback is this team. Listen, if there's one thing I've learned as a C level here, it's that I don't have a lot of the answers.
I have some good ones from time to time. And the other thing that I've learned is that a lot of the best feedback that I've ever gotten on how to make us better and create stronger competitive advantages have come by people in this room. I want to let you know, I want the feedback. I want your feedback. Here's how you could help me. Now what we're doing is we're creating a partnership with our team.
Now be careful what you ask for right. And this is why a lot of sea level won't do it because somebody is going to say Mike you remember you asked for feedback. Well I got some. I think every Friday we should rent small ponies and have pony rides in the front lawn and ice cream social. Sometimes you can have to filter that out right. Like you're going to have to filter that out. Thank them for the feedback and move on. But we want to create cultures of feedback that are up down left right in the organization.
Because we are all, individually and corporately, a product of the feedback we have been given or the feedback that has been omitted from our life. Feedback is leadership currency.
Mike Goldman (46:15)
Jeff, such powerful stuff. Where should people go if they want to find out more about you and especially if they want to find out more about your book and buy your book? Where should people be going?
Jeff Hancher (46:26)
Well, I appreciate you asking. It is the passion project currently. listen, if you're not into free stuff and bonuses and getting more than what you pay for, just go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever you buy books, Firm Feedback in a Fragile World. If you like bonuses, if you like freebies, all that kind of stuff, then you're going to want to go to firmfeedbackbook.com. Firmfeedbackbook.com. When you go there, you purchase the book.
You put your receipt number and email in June 17th around that time frame. We're going to send you an interview that was done for me on why did I write the book and what can the reader expect from it broken into chapters. We're also going to give you the leadership playbook. This is where I'm giving you 52 weeks of tools on how to execute what you're learning in the book and the practical leadership principles. And we're going to pull you into the book launch team.
which is gonna get you all the behind the scenes bonuses. We're gonna go live with a couple of Q and A's from the launch team and so forth from feedbackbook.com. I can be found just about anywhere. If you Google Jeff Hancher like Jolly Rancher, but with an H, you'll find my website, my LinkedIn, my Instagram, my YouTube. It's all out there and I would love to connect with people. Shoot me a message and let's grab a virtual coffee.
Mike Goldman (47:47)
Beautiful beautiful. Hey buy the book buy the book Awesome stuff feedback is critical and I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team Jeff Thanks for helping us get there today
Jeff Hancher (47:57)
⁓
Thank you, Mike. Thank you, listeners. It's been great to be with you all.
Mike Goldman (48:03)
Bye bye.