Hello, welcome.

Thank you for coming and welcome to anyone who joins us online as well.

Fortitude, for me, this word brings up a strong image in my mind.

I think of a strong castle.

It's unmoved by the storms around it or any attack that's come its way.

And its foundations are dug deep, into the rock of a medieval castle.

When I had a look at the actual meaning of this word, it really delved into the themes of courage and resilience, so when we might experience pain or adversity over a long period of time, and how do we maintain that mental and emotional fortitude that we need if we face difficult situations at work.

We're going to go on a bit of a journey today, through some elements that I've learned as both a designer, a researcher, a project and team lead, working in the product design landscape.

I'm going to introduce you to some personas that I've created, and this will capture people's appetite for feedback and how they might respond to it.

You might even recognize yourself in these personas as well.

What I'm really eager to share with you is my feedback response framework.

So this will give you some actionable steps in the moment that you're receiving feedback.

What to do first, next, and how to drive things home to a successful project delivery, but also success for you.

I'm finally going to share a real project story with you.

And maybe you can look out for the things there that, I did to turn feedback into gold.

Come with me on this journey through a really complex landscape.

Where emotions, expectations, and growth intersect.

Travel back in time, as we head to the University Design Labs.

As a student, it was nearing the end of term, and I put a lot of effort into my design presentation.

I knew that there was going to be a critique session happening afterwards, and, the lecturer prepared all of the students to be able to give feedback well.

And the model that we were given back then the feedback sandwich, it's quite simple really, we have the compliment, the thing that's really working well in the design that you give out first, that's the bread, the thing that needs to change, perhaps it's not working so well, that's the juicy meat in the sandwich.

Lastly, you finish it off with a compliment, and that wraps up the feedback.

So What I realized though, that this method, although it worked well in that context at the uni and I used it plenty of times in workshops or design ideation with my team, it didn't really prepare me very well for the wild, the feedback that you experience in the wild.

So as I progressed through my design career, where I was collaborating with clients and working with multidisciplinary teams, I discovered that really, as I gained more experience in the world and professionalism, the feedback that I now receive look nothing like the feedback sandwich.

I'm now going to introduce you to some persona friends that I created, who have their own style when they encounter feedback.

You might identify with one or maybe more of these personas.

For some of you here, you've employed these people and you're figuring out how to manage them.

Clients, you might recognize these people in the project teams that you've hired.

So I'm going to introduce you to Coachable Kelly.

Wildflower Will, InDemand Deb, and Deluded Dylan.

Kelly, Coachable Kelly.

She's really highly regarded by both her colleagues and her client team.

Despite not being an industry expert, she might have started out at the bottom.

She's really got this coachable nature and she responds well to feedback, with a growth mindset.

Kelly quickly grasps that feedback and her manager notices that she doesn't need to be told things twice.

And what Kelly's doing as she rises through the ranks is she's dining for feedback at the buffet.

She's selectively choosing what serves her, And she's leaving the rest.

That's not helpful for her growth.

Will, on the other hand, our wildflower.

They're really versatile, UX-er.

They do really high quality work.

And, while they might rarely seek feedback directly, they do thrive on praise.

They might have a tendency to spend more time on their work than possibly they should, ensuring that everything is just right.

Will's boss recently called a surprise meeting, and Will instantly expects criticism about something in the project.

Criticism is on the agenda in Will's mind.

Instead, they were really shocked when they were actually getting a promotion.

How had they been so off base?

Will realizes that they need to start being more proactive about seeking feedback, instead of surviving on the occasional scraps that they get from their work alone.

Deb, on the other hand, she's very much in demand.

She's a subject matter expert, very confident demeanor.

However, in a recent meeting where Deb asked her manager about moving up and getting a pay rise, Deb was a bit shocked, there was actually areas revealed that she needed to work on.

She thought she was acing it.

Deb does have a supportive manager, but she's got to choose to actually act on the feedback.

Initially uninterested in that feedback with a promotion on the line.

She's actually got to start listening and growing.

Deluded Dylan, on the other hand, coasting, cruising, over inflated perception of their ability.

So when they receive the feedback about things, they actually don't do anything differently in the team or their work.

They hear it and go on as normal.

This is frustrating for Dylan's manager.

It impacts on Dylan's colleagues.

And you know what?

It actually does limit the kinds of opportunities that Dylan gets exposed to.

So who are you more like?

Maybe you have been more like one or another at different times in your career.

So if you're a student or an early career designer, you might be growing into who you are and how you handle feedback and your learning experience practitioners here.

I don't know if you like me, you might have shifted through these modes at different times in your roles.

In an earlier time in my career, I strongly identified with the wildflower and the pursuit of praise through hard work.

I had actually been burned, by a manager, who handled feedback poorly.

And so I came to realize that the ghost of feedback past was still hanging out with me today.

I needed to kick that ghost to the curb.

Goodbye.

I'd been too scared to seek the feedback that would actually help me grow.

I was living on the scraps driven by perfectionism.

So now I'm striving to be more like Kelly, but I can see moments where I've been a bit like in demand Deb as well, and I've needed to write the course.

So just as our careers, are, just as our careers are not linear, our feedback journey is not linear either.

And we will need to change as we're exposed to different challenges.

And you may suddenly hear things in different, contexts and you'll have to adapt to that.

So what we need is a toolkit, really.

Something to arm us for when we get other people's feedback in any environment.

We cannot change how someone gives us feedback.

We can only really change our response to it.

We're in the wild here guys, where anything can come up.

For me, my wild, it's working with federal government.

In Canberra, I've been working in this space for some time now, either as a consultant serving government clients, or now I find myself in this season in brand new terrain working directly in government.

Chances are, the feedback that you will hear on a day to day basis from your clients or stakeholders, they'll be more like the evaluative type.

That's the kind of feedback that it's rarely wrapped in a sandwich, it's not sprinkled with any praise, and it quickly tells you whether you're on the right track, whether, or whether you're about to veer off course.

The feedback can range from spot on It can be constructive, or sometimes it's harsh, or downright unfair.

So it can be really rugged and unknown when feedback arrives informally.

It might be in the midst of everyday project meetings, ceremonies.

Perhaps it unexpectedly arrives in your inbox.

Or you might catch wind of back channel communications.

That's the things people say when you're not in the room.

For some, it can then be even more challenging, when we encounter some unhelpful noise.

This could be potentially the story in your own head.

That's layered with emotions that might start to arc up.

My noise that I was telling you about, that was the ghost of feedback past, telling me that feedback was dangerous.

Or your noise in a certain circumstance might even be attached to the relationship that you have with your feedback giver.

That's really hard to resist the urge to wrong spot and disregard what's been said because of perhaps who has said it.

And here's where the emotional side of feedback comes into play.

It's natural to be adverse to those negative feelings that can be stirred up.

I personally like the ups that I get from the wild ride.

For me, there is nothing like the feeling I get when I have delivered a design pitch, the client genuinely loves the work, I'm loving my job, it feels good to be me, and so it's natural not to want to rock the boat in any way.

However, for the overall health of our project success and delivery, along with your professional career growth as well, consistently seeking and filtering feedback is really imperative.

When the journey does get a bit bumpy, how do you typically respond and how do you feel?

After reflecting on the moments of feedback in my career, I realized that the ones that I had actually learnt the most from.

Were some of the more challenging ones.

And as I began to unpack these, what things I had tried, what had worked, what could I actually repeat for the future, it's the path that's trodden that's led me to map out this feedback framework with repeatable and actionable steps that I actually still remind myself of when I need to in the moment.

These four steps, they're quite basic, but there's a lot to unpack in the moment when you're getting it, so we'll step through it now.

The first stage is to lean in, and listen.

We need to filter what we're hearing, and then once we've done that, we can find the gold, which is the actionable things that we then need to do, and then some steps on how we can respond, either in the moment or by ourselves, some time to respond a little bit later.

So as we lean in and listen, this is our opportunity to ask the clarifying questions before you have that urge to jump to any conclusions, can you explain what you mean by that or why do you think that won't work?

Some feedback will require immediate discussion, so in those situations, the more you practice this when you have more time, the more quickly it can jump into action in the moment.

And so when you are in that moment where you've got to discuss it immediately, if you don't have time to buy yourself like time and discuss it later, I think there's some really important things to consider.

So body language for me was a really big one.

I had been, I guess keen to improve my game because I would often present design concepts.

So I went on a training course to help up my game and on this course I had the opportunity to practice how I delivered some designs with a trained actor and I had allowed them to grill me after the presentation, and there was a camera kind of set up there, so they had a lot of curly questions.

And so that was interesting for me to watch later.

When I watched it back, the observations and then the coaching that I had received was that I was saying all the right things, verbally, that I wanted the feedback, that's important to me, yes, what you're saying is important.

But my body, how I was positioned, actually was signaling the opposite.

I had become closed, I was bracing for the impact, and the message had become unclear to my client or the actor at the time.

I was saying I wanted the feedback, but I had demonstrated the opposite with my non verbal cues.

So when our message and our body cues, don't, and when our best, when our message and our body cues actually align, our intended message is much more powerful and impactful.

So in the filtering, moment, this is where, feedback will nat naturally trigger, our evaluation instincts.

We should assess the credibility of the feedback giver.

Are they qualified?

Do they understand the situation?

Do they know me well enough to say what they're saying about me?

And it's also very important in this moment to review the project context because there can be some agendas, shifting sands, budget constraints creeping in, that might also be fueling what's coming up in that moment.

Perhaps there are worries or constraints preventing you from seeing the next steps clearly.

So if you do have time, that is where it's good to take some self care, have a walk, consult a trusted colleague if you can.

So then when you've done that walk, and you've checked the story that's going on in your mind, it's now sounding a bit more accurate thanks to the filtering that you just did.

You've developed a stronger grasp on what you want to hold onto, and what bits you can let go of, like water off a duck's back.

I think that if you are needing some time to respond, if you're in the moment, it is okay to buy yourself a bit of time and let the feedback percolate.

I do encourage you though to clearly bookmark with your feedback giver.

So that's where say something like, you've brought up some really important points here, I want to be able to think about it more clearly.

Can we come back together?

Say tomorrow to discuss, you've got something locked in to be able to come back to it and resolve it.

And I think, we need to honor the feedback giver here.

It's not uncommon that people can't understand maybe what they're about to see, particularly in creative work, product design work, until it's right there in front of them.

I think even if your client has walked with you on the design journey, sprint by sprint, there is still going to be time required at the end to review and have their feedback heard in a way that, feels true that they're getting essentially what they bought and paid for and what they feel happy with.

So I would encourage, quant quarantining time, in your project schedule, does allow the client then the time they need to be able to feel comfy about the result and it reflects what they were after.

So the feedback response framework.

It can be very helpful on its own in the moment.

It's even more helpful, and effective if there's some preparation, and investment in project foundations and relationships as well.

So I think, while it seems a bit obvious to say this, that we should have a regular project check ins and strong communication.

I did want to include it because, I have had things go a bit off course before in a project because the right rhythm of planning and talking about the work and showing the work often enough, we're not in place.

So I think that is a really, firm foundational thing that you want to set up if you don't have it in place.

Many people here will be working in MDT and Agile, and that's great.

I think that makes feedback feel a little bit less scary because it's happening so often.

Overcommunication.

So it's really important to communicate a lot and just, keep things really clear.

One example of maybe overcommunicating would be after a long day of research sessions, I still think it's really important to pick up the phone and call my client.

And I guess, share some early insights on what's been happening in the project.

This kind of helps cushion any themes that are coming up that, might later surprise them in a report if they can hear it early.

And it also does help to build trust and minimize surprises.

Developing a strong core team and those relationships are imperative.

After you've had that sense of, agreed on roles and responsibility and how things will work, have some fun together too.

Enjoying those fun times and establishing a bond will really help the team pull together if you're facing criticism or project challenges.

In the same way, how we set things up with our clients or stakeholders is also very important.

Particularly I think, as we all work from home more, where my team has taken the time to meet in person with our client, have a coffee early on, and find out what interests them.

Remember the names of their important people.

Write it down if you won't remember and genuinely be interested in them and how you can solve their problems and help their needs.

I think that's a really helpful foundation to have.

When it comes to tricky situations that might crop up, something that I use is segmentation.

And this is where I will, break down a more complex problem that might seem a bit freak out in the moment into more smaller pieces.

So what do I need to action like immediately and what can wait for later?

And this really helps, I guess prevent challenges from feeling insurmountable and stop that stress from overflowing.

And then where self care comes into play is if we can really manage to maintain a stable baseline, a healthy baseline for ourselves, who we are, our own health and well being.

This in turn enables us to respond effectively and absorb feedback that might come up in the moment.

So I personally use a few strategies.

Oliver might have mentioned my mountain biking that I do every week, to process stress physically, there's a lot of evidence around the body's need to actually move through stress to be able to get through tough times.

I highly recommend that.

Nurturing strong social and professional relationships that we can talk through things with people that are trustworthy.

And the segmenting that I talked about also helps me in a home capacity sometimes stop the stress of home bleeding into work or work bleeding into home.

So vice versa.

I can talk more about that later if you want to hit me up for what I do.

I'm going to share now a real life example, where I guess the foundation and response framework really helps.

We were at the final stages of an outcomes based project, designing for a large organization's internal software, and we'd established those really strong working relationships I talked to you about.

It was good banter and really collaborative atmosphere.

The software prototype that I'd worked on, it was grounded in research, we'd done a lot of evaluation and testing, so we felt very confident in our methodology and very confident in the effectiveness of the solution.

As we prepared to walk through the prototype, and explain this with our client, the client team had organized for us to have a practice run with their bosses, the senior executive.

And this was a strategic move before the later presentation where we were to present to the CEO and the crew.

So that organization's, top brass, so to speak.

And so it was during this presentation that our client engaged intensely.

They asked a lot of questions even before I could get through my slides.

I did have all the answers in there somewhere.

It was at a really nuanced level, really fast.

And I found myself in a situation where I had to respond.

And it was, I was quite on the spot, like I really couldn't buy myself any time there.

There was little time for filtering.

I did do some quick filtering though, and I could see that the feedback was genuine.

It was coming from people that, essentially knew the organization better than I did.

So I knew I needed to listen, tune in, and really we all had the same goal of wanting to get this solution through, on time and so on.

So while I was in the hot seat, it did feel pretty hard.

But it was reassuring to know I had a supportive team by my side who were sharing and answering the questions and leaning in when I might have initially looked like a deer in the headlights.

So this was an example where challenging feedback became a goldmine.

So we leaned in, and we listened, and we meticulously noted down all the things that we would need to come back to later.

But ultimately, this allowed us to be more well prepared for the final presentation.

And, I was really glad, that we have asked for the feedback.

But I did need to get control of the story that was going on in my head in that moment.

So a little peek into the story that can go on inside your head.

Here it is.

It goes like this.

Ah, the client isn't happy.

So this is going very fast.

We're going to have to rework so much, this is going to blow the scope.

The team's really tired.

We're probably going to have to work overtime to, to figure all of this out.

And I really was starting to think, oh, what have I done to stuff this up?

If I, my company won't give me important work in the future if I blow this.

That's not helpful in the moment.

So what I did need to do was a bit of a self check in.

And if you have more time, you get, you can practice doing this.

Reframing the narrative looked more this is really helpful to hear the feedback now before the end of the project.

It's actually not about the whole design.

It's only really about the messaging of the presentation.

I'm so glad that we'd asked for feedback, rather than thinking that we had this executive presentation in the bag.

The filtering that then we did after the session was also very helpful, because it allowed us to then, get the gold, the things that we needed to actually change in order to present the work, in a way that was successful, deliver on time, in budget, and so on.

It was in this meeting that coachable Kelly needed to show up and, but I do wonder what if Wildflower Will had have been there running the show or in Demand Deb, had they been leading the conversation, would things have gone so well?

Now that example, it does feel like a bit of a poster child in how you can, harness unexpected feedback for success.

It's an easy one to tell you about.

But sometimes the feedback feels really quite harsh, unfair, or wrong.

I've navigated this too, and it can be confronting.

And what we want to do is keep it contained.

Check that narrative that you're hearing, and what you're telling yourself about it.

And I think it's when feedback feels close to home, negative or personal.

That we want to activate perhaps a check in with a trusted person, a teammate or someone in your network.

I do really value the people that can hold up an honest mirror.

They're not going to let me off the hook from the feedback.

And they will help me see my blind, what I can't see in my own blind spot.

I think if you need to then step up, take responsibility, weather the storm, that can hurt for a time.

But then my trusted peers are also there to build me back up, help me bounce back, and help me move on quickly from setbacks.

I think if we are willing to build, relationships of, trust and honesty and safety, this is where resilience lives and thrives.

I believe that we're really not meant to do this alone, which is why I can't overemphasize the value of team here.

It's when our backs have been against the wall, when I've been facing perhaps criticism, budget cuts, or extensive design changes, and the hours have been long and frustrations build, that I know my team has my back without a doubt.

When you venture into your wild terrain, always be proactive with feedback, whether you're looking for work right now, on the job with clients, perhaps you work in a permanent setting, or running public sector engagements as I am.

Try and look for ways that you can build feedback into your daily setting.

The response framework that I showed you of lean in, filter, find the gold and respond.

That's going to be really professionally helpful.

But sometimes it can also be personally impacting.

When our resilience is tested and we might start second guessing ourself.

Tap into your networks and your relationships here.

And then you can start to head in the right direct, direction.

And I think we have a beautiful opportunity here, at the conference today, that we're really well positioned to be filling our tanks, building up, connections with people, arming our toolkit, so that they can hold up a mirror to us, and in when we get back into the workplace, think about your persona type, who are you more like and what do you need to change in order to make this a season of growth for you?