From Menu to Mind: Navigating Personalized Feedback with Satvinder Kaur

Ever wondered how to transform feedback into a powerful tool for personal and professional growth? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Sat Kaur, an Agile coach and Scrum Master, as she shares her unique philosophy of "Share, Care, and Be Rare." Sat brings her wealth of experience to the table, drawing fascinating parallels between choosing the right dish from a menu and navigating personalized feedback. She underscores the importance of self-awareness and alignment when receiving feedback, ensuring it's both valuable and actionable.

We delve deep into the complexities of feedback and self-awareness in leadership, discussing how to balance uplifting and challenging feedback to achieve a richer understanding of oneself. Trust and specificity emerge as key elements in making feedback truly constructive. Sat also highlights the unique challenges faced by Scrum Masters in quantifying their contributions and the importance of identifying tangible outcomes to demonstrate value. Our discussion touches on the nuances of giving feedback to those close to us, emphasizing the need for specificity and situational awareness. This episode promises valuable insights for anyone aiming to enhance their growth through mindful feedback practices.

Connect with Sat on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/satvinder-kaur-52494042/

Listen to Sat's podcast- We Are Not Lost:
https://pod.link/1621708175

When travelling to Texas, visit The Fort Worth Stockyards:
https://www.fortworthstockyards.org/

Join the Alliance! 👇

Transcript

Mark: 0:06

Welcome to the Agile Within. I am your host, Mark Metze. My mission for this podcast is to provide Agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections. My guests and I will share real-life stories from our Agile journeys, triumphs, blunders and everything in between, as well as the lessons that we have learned. So get pumped, get rocking. The Agile Within starts now. Well, welcome back everybody. This is Mark Metze with the Agile Within. We have today a guest with us by the name of Sat Kaur. Sat, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you, so great to have you. So Sat is an Agile coach and a Scrum Master. She has a passion for coaching and learning and she also loves podcasting. So this is right up her alley, and her tagline is share care and be rare. Allie, and her tagline is share care and be rare. What's that all about, sat?

Sat: 1:07

Hey, thanks, Mark. First of all, I want to say thank you for having me here, really grateful for this opportunity. And yeah so, share, care and be rare. One day I was just writing my journal, that line just came to me share care, be rare, and I say that is so true. Like share where we can share our wisdom with others. While we're learning, we need to share with others also. And care like where we helping ourself in our journey, we need to help others to succeed in their journey. And then be rare by being self-aware, knowing your full potential. Always do something by going above and beyond to stand out, and do something rare to contribute in others. So that's where it was just about this tagline.

Mark: 2:02

I like that a lot. Share care and be rare that's awesome, all right. Well, sat comes to us from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I've been there several times. But if I hadn't and I was going there for the first time Sat what's one thing that you would say that I could not miss doing?

Sat: 2:20

Yeah, sure, since you're really limited to one thing, there's a lot of things, but one thing would be. I would say you definitely come and see Fort Worth, stock Yard, where you can experience the Old West in this historical district, with cattle drive, rodeos and Western-themed shopping and dining.

Mark: 2:41

I've done that. That's very awesome.

Sat: 2:43

Yeah, that's the I loved. I still been there three, four times, but time to time I love to go there.

Mark: 2:49

So a true Texas experience by going to the stockyards right. Today's episode is titled From Menu to Mind Navigating Personalized Feedback. So from menu to mind, what does a menu have to do with personalized feedback? Sad.

Sat: 3:06

Yeah, I would love to elaborate. So, menu to mind means when we go to a restaurant and if you've never been there, like if I've never been to that restaurant, it's pretty new to them and I will just go and say, rather than just knowing myself anything, I will just ask the person oh, what could I? What is your best thing? I can order from here. And of course, that person does not know anything about me and I don't know much about it. I know, okay, but so then we'll see.

Sat: 3:44

Okay, so I need to tell that if I'm vegetarian or if I like certain kind of meat, then based on that, I will get some recommendation. That will be a little, will be useful. But if, blindly, I will just ask you know what is your best thing? And, yes, that person will give me the best thing from their menu. I might not going to like it because that's not something I like. It's like, uh, choosing the right dish from a menu that suits your taste and, um, it's similar to giving and receiving personalized feedback and required really careful consideration and understanding what you really have liked. You don't want to get just random feedback from someone hey, you can eat this, this dish is very delicious and all that, but once you know what you like or don't like, it's helpful. So I think that is relevant to that. It has to be personalized based on that particular taste.

Mark: 4:52

So what I'm picking up on is with personalized feedback. Maybe we need to consider the source that it's coming from and not just accepting blindly all feedback and acting on it. Is that what I'm sensing?

Sat: 5:07

That's exactly because the source is very important, because you want to make sure where you're getting the feedback is a qualifier right. That person knows you a little bit before you get the feedback. We cannot just blindly go to anyone and ask feedback. That feedback you can get it, but it's not going to do anything to you and or you cannot get any value out of it.

Mark: 5:36

Maybe some feedback we're getting is unsolicited we're not asking for it. Some of the feedback we're actively asking for. How are we deciding that filter to be able to decide what feedback is actionable and which one should I not act on?

Sat: 5:55

Yeah, actually, you know, that's really depend on how much we know ourself. It comes back to, again, self-awareness. So, more we know ourself, where you know your strength, you know enough. But again, you're looking for some help and when you receive something, maybe you're like oh, that's not something, I ask this with different. But you, I have to be open-minded on that. Being open-minded, you just listen to that. What exactly that kind of meaning to it? So maybe then you go through some scenario. Maybe I did, came up like that, so that that's good.

Sat: 6:42

So always the intention needs to be what's the action I can take, as long your intent is that that any feedback could be a good for us, and then you will be able to make the judgment about it. Because if you know yourself, you know, oh, maybe I'm not aware about this thing. Definitely this person is saying something that might align with yeah, I have done something that. But if you feel like that feedback is completely off your strength and all you know, like, for example I will give an example, if I know I'm really good with communication or something like that and someone say, oh, you don't even know how to you know you were not able to speak, or all that Again, knowing your strength helps in that matter. That's what I would say, the one thing of confirmation bias.

Mark: 7:47

We have a situation and there is a problem and we see another person as the problem, not necessarily us, and we're strategically looking for someone who can confirm in us that it's someone else that's causing the problem. It's really not us and you're okay. It's just. This other person needs to change. How often is it that there's not something that we can do to change, to help a situation and to improve? So I gave you a lot of words there packed in, but the main question is how do we avoid the trap of confirmation bias when seeking feedback?

Sat: 8:22

No, that's a great question, mark us when seeking feedback? No, that's a great question, mark. So you know, I can definitely resonate with this a lot because four or five years ago, before I get onto the self-awareness journey I call self-awareness journey even I'm on it. That I'm not, I cannot say I'm fully aware, but I'm on the journey. Being on the journey, I learned like there was a time I used to blame a lot of things outside of me. I think this is not happening because of this. This is not happening because of that. Either it can go from the traffic to anything, to weather, traffic, you know, oh, that person, I think he cut it off me or that.

Sat: 9:02

But while I was on this journey I just realized let's see, reflect on myself, it could be me. Maybe I have control to make some changes in myself and that will resolve the problem itself. Because it's very easy to pinpoint others' problems, even in team settings, you know, even in the corporate world, a lot of like blaming game can go on and on, but you don't get out of anything. But this is a very powerful realization Once you know you are in control, there's definitely I can do something different and then something different if you reflect on it, you will find it that way. You get the feedback from someone and maybe, but you say, oh see, and just be open-minded, listen to that and see what's actual the problem is there. And let's see doing little different things there, that would help. So the key is a and let's see doing little different things there, that would help. So the key is a self-awareness, like right there again.

Mark: 10:11

So how do we improve that self-awareness?

Sat: 10:13

Self-awareness, improving it. Just start spending some time with ourself more often and being our Scrum Master, agile, agile coaches. We are very good with scheduling, meeting all day long and we also do a lot of one-on-ones with others. But the thing is we need to think how many times we do a one-on-one with ourself. So that was the time on being on this journey. I still do it time to time.

Sat: 10:46

I spend some time with myself every night where I write some my journal, write some three things. What I'm grateful for that and then reflect on the days. What was the few thing that really excited me throughout the day, what are the few things that made me a little frustrated? And while going through it, I look for those things. The key thing for what? The key thing kept me very excited and aligned. If that aligned with my strength, aligned with my, you know, core value and I will do more of these and if I see some frustration so not the focusing on frustration, but what things was causing.

Sat: 11:31

Maybe I had a fear of seeing less or fear of being judged. And if fear of being judged, what was that Like? Maybe do I really need to improve on something? So it's like a self-reflection, so doing even five minutes I would say not more than five minutes every day. That exercise helps. That's just one of it. Just look at yourself without any judgment and watch your emotions as it comes. Just feel them and then see why you're feeling it. And that means every emotion is a call to action to do something different.

Mark: 12:13

That's really good advice. I'm actually going to take that today, because journaling is something that I have never done. I've thought about it often, but you've really given me the call to action here. That's a great suggestion, so thank you for sharing that with me.

Sat: 12:31

Thank you, I appreciate that. No, I think that helps me a lot. So, and I'm still not, I want to be more consistent with that also.

Mark: 12:40

How would you define self-awareness?

Sat: 12:44

I would say that could be very tricky questions, how we define self-awareness right Just being aware of your own emotions, being aware of your strengths, being aware of what you're lacking in. I think these are all called self-awareness, because I think that's the best I can define without any very complicated definition. Just when you start spending time with yourself, you know a little, you're better and you have your gut feeling, something you have more confidence in. No, I think I know this one are my strength. So when you reflect on daily basis, knowing yourself in more is a self-awareness in like knowing your emotions. When you catch yourself doing something yourself, something is not good yourself, and that's I still do it A lot of time. Our behavior comes from a lot of unconscious mind because the way we grew up and we have our belief system and all that, sometimes your behavior shows up in that way and if you can catch yourself multiple times throughout the day, that means you are on at least on that journey.

Mark: 14:04

What do you suggest when you do catch yourself?

Sat: 14:07

Okay, when I catch myself right away I was like no, I think I have not done something right here, where, which way I wanted to do so something by like an autopilot mode. I did something. And then I do correct myself and I take that courage to even say, even in the team setting as well. If I catch myself like for I will give you an example Like I was doing the retro with my team and this time like I had a lot of meeting fatigue from the previous, from the planning and all that, so I was not that well prepared, I can say, and when we I created that board usually I create a very fun board for the you know all the icebreaker session and all that and this time I just had a very like simple one.

Sat: 14:58

And I just started with my tone like, okay, yeah, let's see, what do you think about this sprint. And then afterward I felt myself like something is not right. It's not me, like with the energy. If I'm not showing my energy, how my team going to participate in that? But I did acknowledge that end of that. I say you know, I could have done better. I feel like I did not bring my whole energy. So I feel like that is a self-awareness.

Mark: 15:25

So we're starting to bring this full circle with searching for feedback and being self-aware. Tell me your thoughts on this. One of the things I do in asking for feedback from others, in addition to trying to be self-aware and trying to improve I have a lot of improvement to do there, and so, as I'm looking for feedback, I know there are some people that they are extremely gracious, they're very, they have a big heart, and so I'll look to them for feedback. If I want to, let's say, build up my strengths, or if I'm feeling particularly worn down and not very confident, I can use that feedback from that person because I know it's going to be more uplifting.

Mark: 16:13

And then there's other times that I feel like I just need a little bit of a gut check, I need somebody to kind of shake me up, and I need to balance this and not always have positive feedback. So I have those people that are wired a little bit different. They really like challenges, more so than having that relationship side, and so I can lean on them to really give me some tough love and just say, mark, because we've had this long relationship, because I value this isn't easy for me to say, but I'm going to tell you this I like to use that counterbalance of those two types of feedback to counteract each other to give me like a more richer, more fuller feedback experience. Curious what you think about that, sat.

Sat: 17:00

No, that is. You know. That's a great point and I strongly believe in that because when we are asking feedback, as sometime you said, we already know that person knows me and it's again it's what your intent is. When I ask for feedback, I usually I don't ask too much, but if I ask it I'm really looking not looking only positive, but I'm already made my mind to be open. Whatever comes in, I want to be open and it's not easy thing and still it's not that easy. Even if I do it sometime you have to be like, okay, I don't know what that person is going to say about me, but that's the only my intent.

Sat: 17:44

I want to see where I need to improve and I think it comes with trust how you trust that person. You look up that person. You know that you just mentioned the tough love. That person also should know your strength also and you know there's time to time that person has given call out your strength also and first you really want to make sure again goes back to their qualifier for getting the feedback. You know that person should be the person who know you a little bit means they should know you the strength and they should be also celebrating you time to time. That person also very clear with the feedback hey, exactly, you need to improve on this. And that person should not giving you oh yeah, you need to improve, for example, your leadership style. That's a very vague feedback. So I think, be more specific about that thing. We need to change. That should be adding the value. So I think answer to your question is I think those feedbacks are the most valuable to me. I think those feedbacks are the most valuable to me where I trust that person and I know that person has called out my strength one time. But this person won't hesitate to tell me what exactly I need to do. So I can also give you a good example for that. I have a very, very fortunate to have a great leaders in my career previously and now.

Sat: 19:24

So one day I just asked, you know, I say and I think it's more relevant to our Scrum Masters, everyone can resonate with it being Scrum Master, we do all day a lot of the activities where we are mentoring, coaching plus collaboration, a lot of things. But end of the day, if anyone asked me, seth, what did you do today? Sometimes it's very hard to answer that question because in a tangible way. Oh yeah, I was in a meeting and I was trying to convince this person, I was trying to coach this person, but it's very hard to present your outcome for the day. So I was asking this question. I say you know what, after I feel like I didn't much do, but I'm really was busy all day. So I got the very good feedback.

Sat: 20:11

On that, I say I could have just got the feedback. Oh yeah, maybe you know you need to do better or something maybe. But I got a very specific feedback. If I can end of the week on Friday, I can spend like maybe two, three minutes to see this week what value I added in areas. I love those kind of feedback. And so, again, it goes back to the trust and respect you have for that person. You know when to go to. So I think in general, that should be the main thing for our leaders to be very specific about our feedback. There's no room to just pleasing each other as for to improving each other.

Mark: 21:00

Can someone know you too well to give you good feedback? Can you be too close to someone and does that impede their ability to give you effective feedback?

Sat: 21:13

Yeah, I think it's a very it's really depend, right, if a person knows me really well, I think it is harder to get to give that kind of. But I have given the person, I'm very close to them, I give them very specific feedback and then explaining in what situation, how I felt and why we felt it, and giving the reason and being specific, those are the key thing. Like I think, don't just give anyone any vague feedback. Tell them exactly, you know. We cannot just take a paper pen out of our thing and say, hey, you know you are not good in this, you didn't do good in meetings, you yelled on it, no See which part. Be very specific about that scenario.

Sat: 22:05

When you're receiving a feedback, be like show your body language, you are listening to it, because a lot of time happens we just listen to reply. Most of the time I have catch myself doing it In the big meeting. I'm just waiting when that person will stop and then I can say something Similar. If someone you're getting feedback, listen to it and think about your real intent about it. You're going to have an opportunity to improve on something. To improve on something I can always say I know myself very much, but if the other person I have a good respect, good relationship, if that person call me out, that definitely going to help me with something different and to improve even further.

Mark: 22:55

It's really interesting when you think about who you're getting the feedback from. You can tell when you get some feedback from somebody who has some coaching practice to them right, because, as coaches, what we're taught to do is base things off of actual facts and repeat what you're seeing. This is an observation that I'm seeing, so, for instance, an example would be if you were in a meeting and you noticed that you were very distracted. You were always looking down at your phone. You were looking out the window. You didn't really seem to be engaged. One person may say, sat, you need to stop being disengaged. You need to start engaging in these meetings. It's very destructive to the team and you need to stop that now.

Mark: 23:49

But someone from a coaching background would probably say so. Sat, I noticed four times that you were checking your laptop. Was there something going on? What were you feeling during that time? I am not good at compartmentalizing my life. Some people are great at that. They've got their work life, they've got their personal life and they can keep them separate Me. What you see is what you get. If there's something bothering me in any area, it's going to involve all areas of my life. So it could be many things going on, and so you might get something different. If you approach somebody who is like me to just state the facts and what you're observing, they may open up to you and share something that's going on that you have no idea that's affecting them.

Sat: 24:35

You brought a very great point, right. So, yeah, having some coaching background or being a coach is always. We want to be empathetic, right? Think from their perspective just, rather than jumping on the conclusion there might be something going on. And that's the always thing, right? As I said, always that emotion is like a call to action If I see someone is not doing certain things, and, rather than jumping on the conclusion, just to have some time to know that situation and then kind of work on guide them.

Mark: 25:13

What exactly does that mean, when you say meet people or meet teams where they are?

Sat: 25:18

Yeah, I, so I can make it more in our agile place thing. So, like, for example, when we work with a team in agile space, we can be very enthusiastic oh, let's change this, we're going to start using a scrum framework and we need to have everyone has to use the agile methodology. We go with that mindset Guilty agile methodology. We go with that mindset Guilty. I mean, I have done that too and it's still learning. And coming to that point, oh, hold on, hold on.

Sat: 25:51

It's not about you cannot change people or anything overnight. See what's already working for them, where they're at, what's already working for them, where are they at, and knowing your team. So I cannot just say, hey, I want to implement agile things here. We have to day one. Everyone has to follow that. So meet where they are first, knowing them, who they are, what are their strength and what are the challenges they are feeling in that team setting and what are the few things already working for them. And then tailored your approach, tailoring our approach, based on their need, not like you want to implement this, but when you know their need and how what things are working, and being collaborative on that side I think is a more impactful rather than just implementing, going straight without knowing them. So meeting them is like knowing that things are working for them, things are not working for them, and knowing them individually, and then kind of slowly integrate our plan with that.

Mark: 27:06

Tailoring your message for their need. I like that. That's really good. I'm going to keep that with me, all right? So, sat, we've talked about a lot here. So, as we wrap up here and we're looking in summary, so what advice would you give to our listeners for providing and receiving feedback?

Sat: 27:27

Yeah, no. So I would say, like, when we're providing feedback. One thing I definitely want to add to it, addition to what we discussed making sure we have, we are not have unconscious bias when we giving our feedback, because that could be misled to a lot of different things, right. So be aware again, the self-awareness is the key. Being aware about your unconscious bias, like sometimes where we grew up, what we know, that's not based on that we give a feedback. So just have the diverse network and learn about others. That will give us, like, a better capability to give feedback and then receiving feedback.

Sat: 28:17

When we're giving feedback, take some time to know your people. If you are in a team setting, take some time to know your people if you are in a team setting, take some time to know them, know their strength also and create some trust. It's not a one-day thing, it takes a time. So create that psychological safety for your teams where people openly can express themselves and create that culture, openly can express themselves and create that culture. Then only giving and receiving feedback could be more valuable to us. And when receiving it, when receiving the feedback, be very open-minded and have always in thing mind intention is how can I improve what the action I can take. Just don't take it personally anything. I think these are the few things. Just not emotionally react to any feedback. Again, always think there's definitely I need to do something different and being aware about ourself being empathetic. I think these feedback could add great values in our day-to-day life.

Mark: 29:28

I'll give that an enthusiastic yes, and what I will add is don't forget to give yourself a little grace. I am particularly guilty of that. Give yourself a little grace when you receive that tough love.

Sat: 29:44

Yep Great.

Mark: 29:46

For listeners who want to get in touch with you. How might they do that?

Sat: 29:49

Yeah, you can connect me on LinkedIn. Also, I have my podcast already out there. It's called we Are Not Lost, and this is available on all the platforms and also on YouTube as well.

Mark: 30:04

Awesome. We'll share links to both of those in the show notes for our listeners. So, Sat, it has been a pleasure having you here on the show. Really appreciate your time.

Sat: 30:15

Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me Appreciate that.

Mark: 30:18

Absolutely so. That brings an end to another episode of the Agile Within. We'll see everybody later. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the agile within. If you haven't already, please join our LinkedIn page to stay in touch. Just search for the agile within and please spread the word with your friends and colleagues until next time. This has been your host, Mark Metze.