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Speaker 1: Giving feedback to someone else is hard, especially if it's

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Speaker 1: constructive criticism or even outright bad news. For those of

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Speaker 1: us who feel a strong need to be liked, we

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Speaker 1: often beat around the bush, soften the feedback with praise,

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Speaker 1: or avoid the conversation entirely. Naturally, this can have some

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Speaker 1: pretty severe consequences, sometimes even worse than if we had

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Speaker 1: just been honest in the first place. This is something

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Speaker 1: that Laura Henshaw knows all too well and has worked

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Speaker 1: incredibly hard to overcome. Laura is the co founder and

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Speaker 1: CEO of the incredibly successful kick app and the co

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Speaker 1: host of the chart topping podcast Kickpod. I had Laura

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Speaker 1: join me to explain why you'll never succeed at getting

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Speaker 1: everyone to lack your decisions while giving feedback as a

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Speaker 1: shit sandwhich really doesn't work, and the one thing you

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Speaker 1: should prioritize over kindness when giving feedback. Welcome to How

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Speaker 1: I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for

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Speaker 1: optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. Early on,

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Speaker 1: Laura recognized that her people pleasing tendencies were causing a problem,

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Speaker 1: so she sought out help and took steps to work

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Speaker 1: on herself to start. I wanted to know which practical

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Speaker 1: steps made the biggest difference for her.

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Speaker 2: We work through this in one of my I think

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Speaker 2: it was almost my first session with Janie, which was

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Speaker 2: why do you want to be liked?

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Speaker 1: Like?

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Speaker 2: Why is that important? And is that actually what is

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Speaker 2: important to you? And what we came out to is, no, don't.

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Speaker 2: It's not really about being liked per se, but it's

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Speaker 2: about being respected. And I think that was kind of

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Speaker 2: rooted in a lot of stuff for me. I know

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Speaker 2: we might touch today on imposter syndrome and kind of

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Speaker 2: being a young female leader. Also because of where my

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Speaker 2: career started was with social or part of it was

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Speaker 2: social media, and so for a very long time I

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Speaker 2: felt that I wasn't taken seriously. Well I wasn't. Actually,

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Speaker 2: I can not just what I thought. I was not

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Speaker 2: taken seriously by a lot of people that I worked with.

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Speaker 1: How did you know for sure?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean there were times when I was in

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Speaker 2: rooms with people that I worked with that would describe

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Speaker 2: so often Steph and I as the marketing girls, and

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Speaker 2: it's like, no, we built this brand, we run this business, etc.

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Speaker 2: There's been multiple occasions where that has happened in different ways,

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Speaker 2: and I think at that time I felt like I

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Speaker 2: just had to prove myself. And I think because of

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Speaker 2: that kind of I've definitely worked through that and now

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Speaker 2: I know that like that's on them, I don't have

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Speaker 2: to prove myself to anyone. But that definitely was a

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Speaker 2: big cause of why I then felt that I had

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Speaker 2: to kind of lead that way. And so for me,

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Speaker 2: it was kind of thinking about, Okay, I need to

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Speaker 2: be respected, that's what's important, and then it's unpacking, Okay,

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Speaker 2: how do you get respect with your team? How do

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Speaker 2: you get respect with the people around you by being

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Speaker 2: a good leader and knowing that you can still lead

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Speaker 2: with empathy, because that's very, very very important to me.

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Speaker 2: But I think it was also the realization that it

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Speaker 2: is impossible to be liked by everyone because no matter what,

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Speaker 2: like I know that, you know, in running a business

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Speaker 2: and everyone that's listening that does most decisions you make,

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Speaker 2: there is going to be someone that's not going to

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Speaker 2: like the decision. It's very very rare we make decisions

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Speaker 2: where everyone agrees on it and is going to like

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Speaker 2: the outcome, right, especially when you're running a business. And

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Speaker 2: so it was also that realization that I was, well,

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Speaker 2: I'm setting myself up to fail because I can't actually

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Speaker 2: achieve this and I'm not driving the business, and in

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Speaker 2: my role as CEO of if I'm not driving the

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Speaker 2: business for then I shouldn't be in the role.

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Speaker 1: Have then, because I feel like one of the hardest

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Speaker 1: areas where this plays out is when you have to

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Speaker 1: have those tough conversations. And I mean I hate calling

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Speaker 1: them tough conversations. I try to think of them as

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Speaker 1: important conversations as opposed to difficult conversations because it changes

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Speaker 1: the mindset. But they're hard. If you've got a high

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Speaker 1: need to be liked and you are delivering news that

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Speaker 1: someone else is going to find tough or confronting or

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Speaker 1: hard to take on board. How did you change your

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Speaker 1: approach to those kinds of conversations.

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Speaker 2: I think realizing that in going in to be liked.

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Speaker 2: So there was one instance I remember I delivered something

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Speaker 2: to the team and Janie was there and she said,

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Speaker 2: because I had always thought like I have to do

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Speaker 2: like a sandwich, I think this is something I don't

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Speaker 2: actually get shit sandwich. I don't agree that I should

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Speaker 2: be I don't think it's the best way to approachings.

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Speaker 2: But I used to and the feedback I got was

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Speaker 2: it was almost like I made a sandwich, but it

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Speaker 2: was like with the thinnest slice of ham in the middle,

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Speaker 2: which is what I had to deliver, and then it

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Speaker 2: had like a hundred pieces of bread on both sides.

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Speaker 2: So no one got the message no one's tasty because

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Speaker 2: I put so much stuff around it in the fear

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Speaker 2: that of the thing I was delivering. What that then

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Speaker 2: means is, I think, when you're delivering out of a

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Speaker 2: place of fear, if you don't believe in what you're

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Speaker 2: saying or feel that it's fair or whatever it might be,

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Speaker 2: how the heck is your team going to find it

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Speaker 2: also fair and believe in it back. So that's number

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Speaker 2: one thing. But what I then was able to navigate

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Speaker 2: through time was realizing the biggest I think one of

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Speaker 2: the biggest realizations for me was feedback is a kindness.

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Speaker 2: Being clear is kind.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this little quick win with Laura.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to listen to the full interview,

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Speaker 1: you can find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you git follow

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Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.

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Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of

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Speaker 1: the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation