[INTERNAL MEMO]
Criticism Has Its Limits
Early on at Gym Launch, I had a sales manager who was one of the hardest workers on the team. She also had the WORST retention of anyone leading a team that size, which was really freaking confusing to me.
I couldn't figure out why because it was clear she cared a ton, always showed up early, and worked hard. She wanted her team to win, which was clear. So I sat in on her 1-1s and team meetings one week to see what was happening and investigated.
She told a rep, in front of two other people, "You're acting like Mark did before we let him go. Nobody wants to end up like that."
The rep nodded, said okay, and went back to his desk looking like someone had completely taken the wind out of his sales.
I still remember the pit in my stomach: She thought she was giving feedback.
She was actually giving an insult.
And insults don't change behavior, they just make people feel shitty and defensive.
I sat her down afterward and we rebuilt how she gave feedback from scratch and started role playing together and prepping for every call.
Her retention turned around within a quarter. Not because she got nicer, because she got clearer.
So let's define the two words we mix up all the time: criticism and insult.
Criticism points out the gap between what happened and what should have happened.
Insult compares a person to something bad or shameful.
Here's the same problem, said two different ways.
Criticism: "Johnny, the goal is 100 dials a day. The last 6 days you made 60. What can I do to help you get to 100?"
Insult: "Johnny, you remind me of Ted, who never worked hard enough to stay on the team."
Both point at the same problem. Only one helps Johnny fix it.
Ask yourself this before you say anything hard to your team: Do you want them to feel bad, or do you want them to get better?
If you want them to feel bad, insult them, that'll work fine.
If you want them to get better, you have to critique them, and that's a completely different skill.
Most people believe they're doing the second one when they're actually doing the first, then wonder why nothing changes.
(Same rule applies at home, by the way. "You never take out the trash" and "you're so messy" aren't critiques, they're insults with no direction. That's usually why your spouse gets defensive when you're "just pointing something out.")
So how do you actually critique someone well?
Five things have to be true:
It's about a behavior they actually control. Not their personality, a specific action they can change.
They already have the skill to understand it. Tell someone to "improve their tonality" and if they don't know what that means, you haven't given feedback, you've given a puzzle.
It happens fast. Feedback-the-day-of is useful. Feedback-a-week-later is just a surprise.
It's about them, not the group. "The team needs to step it up" tells nobody what to actually do differently.
It says what to do next, not just what went wrong. "That was bad" isn't direction. "Next time, do this" is.
Here's a simple script that hits all five. Use it next time you need to say something hard:
State the fact. "On Monday, you showed up to our meeting 30 minutes late."
Say what you want next time, not how it made you feel. "Next time, can you give me a heads up that morning?"
Ask if that's fair. "Does that seem reasonable?"
Reinforce it the next time they do it right. "Hey, thanks for the heads up today."
Why do so many of us get this wrong?
Usually one of three reasons:
We're nervous, so we soften real feedback until it's too vague to land.
We think we need rapport first, so we wait while the behavior keeps happening.
We care more about the other person knowing we're upset than we care about them actually improving.
This week, think of one piece of feedback you've been sitting on. Run it through these three questions before you say it. Is it about a specific behavior they control? Does it say what to do next, not just what was wrong? Is it about them, not the whole team? If you can't answer yes to all three, rewrite it using the script above before you deliver it.
— Leila
PS. If you’d like my direct feedback on your business, you can ask me in real-time and be featured on my new call-in show, Dear Leila on Youtube. Ask me here.
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