The Nvidia Leadership Principle That Changed How I Give Feedback

Let's talk about leadership and scaling feedback today. Bet you probably never thought about scaling feedback I hadn't either until I was reading The Nvidia Way this morning., I think one of the biggest mistakes in leadership Is that we give feedback to too few of people. Because think about it, most of the time in leadership, what we're doing is, is something happens, we pull that person aside, we give them feedback, we give them some criticism, and then we go about our way. Something else happens similar to that two weeks later with a different person, and we give the same feedback. Then something happens two days later, and then you gotta stop what you're doing and give feedback, same sorta situation, to that person. And, like, when you drill this down, man, you, you, like, replay this, you're like, "Bro, I really do that a lot." A lot of your time as a leader is giving siloed feedback over and over again And I got to thinking about that this morning. I was like, what if you could scale feedback and do it a s- and do it in such a way that if it's a shareable lesson, that you do it on the spot, you do it in front of a large room? Now, I'm not talking about some personal issues. I'm not talking about character issues. Those deserve a, a private sort of feedback. I'm talking about performance issues, performance situations, decisions that were incorrectly made, and more than one person could learn from this situation. And it happens a lot, and the time that we… You know, it's all about, especially as you grow as a business, it's all about how can I be more efficient in the time that I have? And as your company grows, your time doesn't grow with it. Your company just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and it makes it inconsistent, and then you can touch too few people consistently. And I got this idea. This isn't really my idea. This is just something that created a spark. I was reading The NVIDIA Way. I love chapter nine, and it's about Jensen Huang. As NVIDIA was exploding, Jensen's a very hands-on CEO. I mean, so much so, like, his organization is almost flattened, where there are no… I mean, there's an executive team per se, but everybody has access to Jensen. There's no hierarchy that you can't have access if you work for Jensen. And he keeps it flat on purpose, so that way they can make decisions very, very fast. But what he found is, as the organization grew As hands-on as he, as he is, he couldn't reach as many people. He couldn't give direct feedback. Now if you think about the traditional way, most organizations have, you know, this top-down situation where you have Jensen at the top, and then you have these executive managers here, and then you have these other executive managers here, and these other executive managers here. I mean, you think about that in these big organizations, and it's these multi-tier, but really is such a disconnect from the CEO down to three or four executive management teams later that, you know, it, it's kinda like, what's the old game we used to play in, in, in school where y- you pass a message to one person, by the time it gets around the room, it's a, it's a whole different message? I think that's what happens when it comes to feedback, and a lot of times when the feedback finally gets up to the top, it's too late. Either your organization has slid into complacency or there is something that is totally eroded in such a way that you're like, "Oh my God," and it's, it could be too late or it could be existential and just take the organization down. So Jensen decided Because the organization was getting so large and he couldn't give these 101s consistently the way he used to, jensen said, "Why should one person benefit from one lesson when it could be teachable to so many more other people?" And so what he started to do is offer direct criticism or feedback in front of other people. And I'm, again, I'm not saying this is not shaming anybody. This is, this is something that is teachable for other people. Because the first time I read this, I'm like, whoa, that'd be kinda harsh. But when you really kind of, especially as you grow, how many more people could benefit? I've done this, oh my God, how many times in management have I done this? Have I taken on a new m- you know, a young manager, he makes a mistake. I teach that one y- young manager, and then I wait and something else comes up, and a junior manager just kinda had a, a mental lapse, and then I gotta teach that one. And then, you know, something e- Like, and then you're, you're like all over the place. And so all you're doing is, is you're running around putting out a bunch of fires when really you could scale this feedback, deliver it one time, and the lesson is applicable for all who are in the room Think about how much repetition leaders create for themselves. And so we're teaching the lesson one employee at a time. Again, the body count, the, the organization gets bigger. The time does not grow with that. So if anything, it gets tighter, and that becomes this, this huge disconnect. Think about this with me. You could solve one problem and 10 people could actually benefit from that, or it could eliminate or mitigate 10 future problems because the people who were in the room were able to benefit from this. So this got me to thinking of the benefits of, of being able to share criticism, feedback, where more people Can benefit. So I can deliver one lesson to 10 people instead of one lesson, one person at a time 10 times. It's a terrible way that we lead, yet w- we do it. So the first thing is it's scalable. You can do this. Again, I'm not saying you attack the person, I'm saying that you address the behavior. I'm not saying that you expose anybody's… Some people may be having some sort of personal issue, uh, or some sort of, there may be some sort of character issue. Those are meant for private one-on-ones. I'm talking about something where everybody can benefit. The second advantage that you have of delivering criticism or feedback in front of a larger audience is that someone may be, it's kind of a get out of jail free c- card, somebody else may have been doing this incorrectly for a long time, and somebody just took the charge for you. So it gets addressed and you're like,"Oh, shoot, I've been doing this wrong for a long time." And what you're able to do is you're able to kinda capitalize on that where you say, "Hey, tell me more about that. Well, what if this…" And so you're kind of a bystandard, but it's applicable and you're like, "Oh, okay, I get it." So that's another advantage that you have. A third advantage is, I think it actually, I think it helps you make better decisions. There's a public accountability part of this, so you know that you're gonna be accountable and your reasoning has to hold up to the light. And so you'll slow down a little bit and really kinda think this through. But then also because you're immersed in this, in these conversations more than one time, you're able to draw on these experiences even if you knew. Sometimes it's just, it's like on-the-job training. It's like on-the-fly reinforcement. And so y- maybe you've known how to do this for a long time. Maybe you haven't done that procedure for a while, and because it's getting addressed to someone else, A, "Ooh, okay, gotta sharpen my game up. Man, I got away from that." And so you can draw on that and then hone in your decision-making And then lastly, which pretty much goes without saying, you're able to scale the teaching, which is the whole backbone of this whole episode, More than one person can benefit. So I'm able to deliver it. And I think, man, when you really work this out and you start doing this, I think that you're gonna find that your organization is quicker. They can actually handle the feedback better because it's more so in a, in a bigger setting. And so you guys are, you're, you're, you're talk- you're not waiting for like Friday morning meetings to address something. You're just doing it on the fly. You're doing it in the right way. A- again, you're addressing the behavior, not the person. And so you do this, and you're going to be able to scale. And so you're not having to just like pocket this stuff for the meeting at the end of the week. Why? Address it, correct it, boom, go. Grow from it. And then this just keeps going all throughout the day. So you're able to, if you really think this through, as a leader, you may be able to have three, four, five of these situations d- throughout the day, and y- bro, you just had five meetings on the fly, addressed it, corrected it, grow from it. 10 people were in the room. You had five of those. That's 50 impacts versus that one meeting that lasts three hours at the end of the week. Ain't nobody got time for that. I'm gonna start practicing this, where I can address this where more people can benefit from this. I can't tell you how many times I've been over there, there's been a younger manager sitting right there, and I've had to address another younger manager, and I'm like, "Hey, man, um, w- what was going on with this? What, what, what happened with this?" when he could have benefited. And sometimes we can, we can all learn from that because he can share,"Well, this is what I was thinking." And then somebody who's in the room also can call that out, "Well, man, yeah, I mean, I was thinking about that, too, but this is how I do it." And another guy says, "Oh, but this is how I do it." And then i- that- that's the exposure. And so then you realize, oh my God, I have four managers doing it five different ways. That ain't gonna work. We gotta systematize this. We're never gonna be able to scale if we're doing the back of the napkin, kinda on the fly. It works. W- you can do that on the fly kinda stuff, man, when you're, when you're, when you're at ground level. But now as you're starting to get more successful, you've gotta be more efficient, you've gotta be more systematized, you've gotta be more organized. But then, man, you, you've, you've gotta deliver these messages, address it, correct it, grow from it. Let's go. All right? Let me hear from you. I would love to hear what's your, what's your take on giving public feedback? What's your take on giving public criticism? I think criticism has a bad word. If you notice, I keep interchanging that because I don't want people to think that I'm criticizing someone and dressing them down. No. Again, It's corrective behavior. I'm addressing the behavior, not the person. If I gotta address the person, I'm gonna pull him aside, him or her aside, and I'm gonna address that person one-on-one. I'm not gonna do it in front of other people. But that is, I mean, if you think about it, that's really rare. Most of the stuff, more than one person could benefit from that. So I'd love to hear from you on that. All right? Let's get outta here. Keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.