360 Leadership Feedback: Building Better Leaders Through Better Conversations

Video Summary

Leadership development isn’t about completing another assessment—it’s about creating meaningful conversations that help people grow.

In this Expert Insights discussion, Anthony Presley is joined by Kell Delany, Krista Spence, and Katie Mingo from Conversant to explore how organizations can use 360 leadership feedback to build stronger leaders, healthier cultures, and more connected teams.

Throughout the conversation, the panel explains why the value of a 360 assessment isn’t found in the survey itself, but in the coaching, reflection, and conversations that follow. They discuss the importance of psychological safety, human connection, organizational culture, and where AI can—and cannot—support leadership development.

Key Takeaways

1. A 360 leadership assessment is only the beginning—the real value comes from the coaching, reflection, and conversations that follow.
2. High-quality conversations are one of the most underutilized resources for improving leadership and organizational performance.
3. Leadership development should focus on helping people discover their unique strengths rather than teaching them how they “should” lead.
4. Organizations create lasting change by building a culture where leaders coach and develop other leaders.
5. Feedback is most effective when it becomes a normal part of workplace culture instead of something employees fear.
6. Psychological safety encourages honest feedback, stronger relationships, and continuous growth.
7. AI can help identify patterns and blind spots, but it cannot replace the empathy, judgment, and human connection provided by a coach.
8. Successful leadership development begins with self-awareness and a clear sense of purpose, not fear of criticism.
9. Organizational culture has a greater impact on leadership growth than any single assessment or training program.
10. The best leaders use feedback as an opportunity to learn, strengthen relationships, and improve their contribution to the organization.

Participants

• Anthony Presley — Managing Partner, TimeForge (Host)
• Kell Delaney — Global Partner, Senior Consultant & Executive Coach, Conversant
• Krista Spence — Senior Consultant & Executive Coach, Conversant
• Katie Mingo — Consultant, Conversant

Additional Resources

Glossary

• 360 Leadership Feedback: A leadership assessment that gathers feedback from managers, peers, direct reports, and other stakeholders to help leaders understand how they are perceived and identify opportunities for growth.
• Leadership Development: The ongoing process of strengthening leadership skills, self-awareness, communication, and decision-making through learning, coaching, and experience.
• Executive Coaching: A personalized development process that helps leaders interpret feedback, overcome challenges, and improve their effectiveness through guided conversations.
• Psychological Safety: A workplace environment where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions, and providing honest feedback without fear of negative consequences.
• Feedback Culture: An organizational culture where giving and receiving constructive feedback is encouraged as a regular part of personal and professional growth.
• Human Connection: The trust, empathy, and authentic relationships that enable individuals and teams to collaborate more effectively.
• Organizational Culture: The shared values, behaviors, and expectations that shape how people interact, make decisions, and work together within an organization.
• Blind Spots: Leadership behaviors or habits that individuals may not recognize in themselves but are visible to others through feedback.
• Self-Awareness: The ability to recognize how your behaviors, decisions, and communication affect others and influence team performance.
• Continuous Improvement: An ongoing commitment to learning, reflecting, and making meaningful changes that improve leadership effectiveness over time.

Transcript

00:00 — Kell Delaney:
Conversant Is based in Boulder, Colorado. It’s where the founders originally started the business. It started as more mediation and eventually got into communication, corporate training type, those types of things, and really grew over the years, focusing on the quality of the conversations we have, human connection, and really offering that through trainings and development and leadership support of executives and executive teams at large organizations. Nonprofits did some work in Boulder, Colorado and over the years it’s evolved to meet the changing needs of the business world and the work world and the world we’re in these days. You know, went through a re.

00:44 — Kell Delaney:
Enchantment is what we called it five, six years ago, where we really looked at who have we been, who are we now, who are we being called to be or what is the world really asking us to be that we could be of service toward in the future that we saw coming. And that didn’t shift the company in a huge direction. The fundamentals around human connection and quality, the quality of the conversations we have is still true, but it’s really, I think deepened our focus on the quality of our relationships, human connection, what makes that real, what makes us uniquely human. And the conversational component has become primary method that we use to support that and to build that. And there are multiple ways, you know, coaching one ones, facilitating and designing workshops with teams or whole organizations or ongoing workshops for organizations.

01:36 — Kell Delaney:
We do complex, multi stakeholder collaborative work, things like that, systems thinking type projects. So really anywhere humans are involved, we do work. And the interesting thing is people often will ask, well, do you know anything about the financial sector? Which it’s always leads to a really fascinating conversation because my response is, well, it doesn’t really matter. You are the experts in that. I’m not. You’re not hiring us to be the expert in that. You’re hiring us to be the expert in how you all have conversations together, how you. The depth and quality of the relationships and how you’re able to bring your individual contributions to your work to do the best work possible. So your expertise in your field is all you. We’re here to support the. You know, we always say the conversations are the work.

02:23 — Kell Delaney:
We’re here to support that so that your work is that much better as a result. So that’s a little bit about Conversant and who we are and how we approach our work in the world.

02:35 — Krista Spence:
I feel called to double down on a couple of things Kel said, and I think there’s a few words that really stand out that I think just are really about who we are. And it’s about the humanity of leadership. It’s the human. It’s about being human. And you said what makes us uniquely human. And I just think that’s such an important part of the work that we do. We help to draw out what is unique about you that you bring to bear in the relationships that you’re in at its core. Or what’s unique about your team that enables you to produce what you’re producing. Because I think there’s a lot of shoulds in leadership. I should behave this way. Our team should be looking like this. And I personally don’t believe in shoulds.

03:33 — Krista Spence:
I believe in just sort of get to the core of the humanity of it and what’s your unique contribution and live in that space.

03:41 — Krista Spence:
And Anthony, that’s why your story, I think that was just threaded through your story. Yeah, that’s why that was inspiring. Katie, what would you add?

03:51 — Katie Mingo:
Well, yeah, to add to that. I mean, Anthony, you said earlier we spend a whole lot of time on our technology, on our processes, on our systems and at Conversant. We’re discovering and have a pretty strong belief these days that the most underutilized resource in organizations is the quality and timing of our connection as people, as humans. And so that’s what we go to work on to help these organizations accomplish what they want to in the world and people accomplish what they want to in the world.

04:19 — Anthony Presley:
I love that. I love that. I’m probably going to steal a few phrases from each of you for the rest of my life. I apologize if I don’t actually attribute them back. But I really love that about teams and should and really finding their value. That’s pretty powerful. I like that. Is that how your organization, does that translate into how your organization would define leadership? Leadership development is really getting to that core. How do you, how do you layer that in with some of the feedback that you guys give organizations and individuals?

04:54 — Krista Spence:
I guess it does translate to how we not only think about leadership but how we approach development in general. Which is to say we do have some core, we call them core principles that we that are at the center of our work. That some core principles that support high quality, high value conversations. We talk about it as quality of conversations and well timed conversations. So we do have some core principles. What we don’t do is come in and teach the principles. What we do is help leaders and teams experience them to discover then how those principles could support them in their connections. So it’s less about teaching you how you should show up. So going back to the should, Anthony. It’s not about teaching you how you should be. It’s helping bring out the value of the connection with some underlying principles that support.

05:57 — Krista Spence:
Support the conversations. If that’s answering your question, Anthony.

06:01 — Anthony Presley:
I think so. I think so, yeah. Do you. Do you mind a short list that you can share what the principles are? What. What is that something you can share?

06:11 — Krista Spence:
Absolutely, we can share them. How might we do that in a conversation? Kel or Katie, how would you describe.

06:18 — Katie Mingo:
Well, I mean, I think they do fit within two categories, so the quality of our conversations and the timing of our conversations. So how do we create the environment for conversations that are producing value versus producing waste? So we often talk about anything that customers or shareholders might sit in and say, yes, this is a good use of our time, and yes, I’m willing to pay for that versus everything else is waste. So how do we maximize the value of our conversations with the quality of them and then have those conversations in the right timing? We’ve found that there is an order, a sequence to conversations that generate the most value. So you want to have brainstorming before you make a decision.

07:05 — Katie Mingo:
You want to learn from what you’ve done in the past in order to fuel the next cycle forward and fuel the next actions forward. So there’s a sequence that generates the most value, too. So all of our principles are around. How do we maximize that value with our listening and then with the timing and sequence of those conversations.

07:21 — Anthony Presley:
Fantastic.

07:22 — Kell Delaney:
Yeah, I’m just thinking about, you know, the Buddha was. Has been criticized over the years. You know, the primary teachings of the Buddha are about the middle way. And so in conversations that are recorded with different people, in some cases, he’ll give advice that has them move in this direction, you know, to one. One direction. And. But then there’s another conversation he has with somebody else that asks them to move in the totally opposite direction. So people who don’t understand will interpret that as, oh, he’s contradicting himself. This isn’t legitimate advice. But the middle way is middle relative to where you are. And some of us need to move to the right, and some of us need to move to the left. Some of us need to speak up more, some of us need to listen more, for example.

08:07 — Kell Delaney:
And so leadership development, from my perspective, the way Conversant really approaches it is about finding that intersection with where people are at right now and their level of awareness of that. Because. And this is. This connects to 360s. It’s increasing our awareness of how we show up and how people experience Us and especially the higher you move in an organization, the more power you have that dramatically changes what you perceive and how accurate it actually is. And so our approach is really not necessarily like we don’t have lists, we don’t have worksheets that people fill out that just answer any question. It’s all relative to the conversation that we’re in with that person or that they’re in with their colleagues or even that they’re in with themselves about who they are and how they show up and who they want to be.

08:55 — Kell Delaney:
And all of those are what make us uniquely human as we’ve been talking about. And therefore that’s the starting point and also gives a direction of how we might want to grow and develop. Whether it’s leadership development or just personal development, the direction of that is determined by that. And so I actually, and this is one of the things reflecting on 360s where I think AI can never answer the question or can never really take the place of what’s valuable in 360. And it’s not the360 itself. A360 is just a method that exposes gaps and perceptions. It’s the quality of the conversations with your coach, with your colleagues that comes out of the 360 and what it reveals that’s the real value.

09:37 — Kell Delaney:
And there’s actually a bunch of research that shows that the 360 assessment itself is minimally, as far as long term change, minimally effective.

09:45 — Anthony Presley:
Right.

09:46 — Kell Delaney:
That where there is effectiveness in outcome and contribution is directly correlated with the quality of the relationship with the coach or person who helps the, helps you through your 360 results.

09:57 — Anthony Presley:
Wow, that was powerful. And you covered a couple of topics there. I would just comment on that. We’ve actually seen even that the administering a 360 or really even just a general employee survey. And to your point, not doing the follow up and not actually providing the coaching afterwards can actually have a negative effect going the other direction because it appears that you care as an organization and then you actually don’t do anything with that information. We’ve seen it go the other way. But I’m curious, just building a little bit off how, and really anybody can answer this, but I’m curious how you, I mean that seems like a very customized process that you guys are approaching and very human first, very leadership first. And, and how do you do that at scale? How does that come into play?

10:49 — Kell Delaney:
Well, the most effective way to scale it is through the people you know and Krista might have Something to share about this as well, because she’s done a lot of work in this arena. But you know, from my perspective, we often start with a lot of the senior leaders or the people with influence in a system who have desire or interest in growing this way themselves. They have to have some level of self awareness and desire to grow, to develop, to figure out how this works, how people grow and change and how can, how they can then lead that. And when you get a group of leaders who start to get it and they see the positive impact in their world, especially if they’re a team, the next level is okay.

11:24 — Kell Delaney:
Now you need to, it’s the whole, you don’t really know something well until you can teach it. And so there is a slow progression of learning that happens where people learn it for themselves and they have to practice it on their own. And then they become, you know, pretty consistent and good at it. Reliable is what the word we often use. But then to become a sponsor of it, you need to now be responsible to bringing it to your teams, to other people in the organization. And the way, the best way to scale is to have leaders who then coach the people that report to them as a way to practice and develop themselves further. And those people and then have those people eventually develop those below that.

12:02 — Kell Delaney:
And you know, we often will come in and we’ll work with some of the different levels to accelerate that, but at the end of the day, it won’t be effective. You know, this is the whole, I don’t know if you’ve ever, you know, if you think about like a fish in dirty water, it doesn’t matter how good the coaching is for the fish, if they’re in dirty water, it won’t make them healthier. Right? So like you, the culture that people are in has a huge effect. And so if you just coach to individuals and you don’t address the water they swim in, it’s going to fail. No human out force out will the impact of the culture around them. So you have to then scale through culture and scale through the full system and all the people being involved in it.

12:45 — Kell Delaney:
It does take a lot of people and a lot of work. And this is in my mind one of the biggest risks of AI is the quick desire to move to fast answers. When human development and growth actually is not fast. It happens organically in waves. Sometimes it moves quickly and sometimes it feels like it’s not moving at all for a long period of time. And then all of a sudden it moves again. And that lack of Patience, to me, is one of the biggest liabilities that leaders in leadership and people making decisions in organizations have stuck in their mind. And they’re missing the opportunity to develop people at a much higher level to be far more effective over the long term.

13:22 — Krista Spence:
Kel, I hadn’t heard that analogy about fish in dirty water. I love that because earlier in the conversation, I think Anthony said something that it prompted me to write the word culture and circle it on my page. And you started touch on this, Kel. And so culture, how important it is for us to really notice and observe what’s the debris in the culture that’s causing us lack of clarity. And to your question, Anthony, about how do we scale it, I love KE where you took that, because it does. It’s not to say it. It starts at the top because it can start organically inside an organization. Behavior can change organically in any place inside the organization. But for sustainable change, we have to ensure that all levels, so to speak, are not only on board, but they’re open to recognizing their part in it.

14:13 — Krista Spence:
You know, who am I in the matter? Is one thing that we really cause leaders to think about. So if we get a phone call from a leader that says, I need help, come in and fix my team, that’s sort of a red flag right there. Oh, fix the team. And as opposed to. Okay, wait a minute. What’s. Here’s what’s happening in our organization. Okay, great. What do you want to see different? Well, whether it’s faster results or higher quality results. Okay, great. What does quality look like? Okay, good. What are the behaviors that are currently happening that are either supporting that or in the way of that? And who are you in the matter? Right. So to scale it does actually, I believe, start at the top. And that does relate to 360s in that feedback. You know, I think about 360.

14:56 — Krista Spence:
Just like Kel said, it’s a method. It’s one of many. And, you know, Kel said earlier in describing the conversations of the work at Conversant, and then Katie did such a great job of talking about quality of conversation and timing of conversation. Well, you think about feedback how important it is to think about the quality of the conversation that you’re in when you’re offering or receiving feedback, and then the timing of the conversation that goes with the feedback. So our experience, or my personal experience with Survey360 started probably 20 years ago, and I was actually greatly even thinking about how many 360s have I debriefed and coached people through And I’ve lost the number of them. That doesn’t really matter. But in my experience of it, I really think about it as it’s a method to crack open a new conversation.

15:46 — Krista Spence:
So to your point, Anthony, about it can backfire. If the survey is done and then nothing’s done with it, then it sort of breaks down trust. Like what was the point of that? What was the point of even gathering that? And then it sits on the shelf as opposed to really seeing it as a method to crack open a new lens about how a leader is showing up or how a team member is showing up or what they’re causing inside the system. And so the leader at the top needs to be open to that kind of reflection and that kind of feedback to cause that kind of openness inside an organization. And so the 360 can be a really valuable method to crack open new conversations. But we really encourage organizations to think about the 360 as that it’s a conversation tool.

16:32 — Krista Spence:
The 360 not being the end in and of itself, but it’s the tool to prompt new learning.

16:37 — Anthony Presley:
I love it.

16:38 — Katie Mingo:
I’ll, I’ll underline one thing that both Kel and Krista, you mentioned. So at Conversant in all of our work, we start by listening to the client and say what are you trying to achieve? What are you hoping to accomplish with your team and with this group? And there are so many reasons that people embark on 360 process, whether that’s advancing strategy or strengthening their culture or that individual or team development itself. So if we have that in mind, that’s where the customization comes in. And then we blend our 30 plus years of experience and what is true about leadership, what’s true in organizations and then survey connect your expertise on how do we formulate those questions and ask them in a way that’s easy for people to respond to and give valuable feedback for.

17:24 — Katie Mingo:
So that’s how you go from scaling what are the things that are just true to customizing what’s really valuable for this group in this organization.

17:34 — Anthony Presley:
Wow, that’s. You guys are great to have on. We should. I think we’re going to be able to talk for longer than an hour if we wanted to. I’m curious, taking all of everything you guys just said, Sometimes implementing a 360 can be scary, especially if it’s from the top down. How, how do you guys shift some of the narrative and the emotions that are around that. And probably in the same vein, there’s probably some discussion to be had about anonymity, right? Like, do we want these responses to be anonymous or do we want to know where they came from? And there’s pros and cons to both. How do you, how do you handle that when you’re working with these teams that have, you know, you get a call from a leader and they’re like, hey, come fix this problem.

18:20 — Anthony Presley:
And oh, by the way, these are the players and how do we navigate?

18:23 — Katie Mingo:
I’d love to jump in on that one. Yeah. I think it starts with where I was going earlier is we start by making sure it’s really clear what the purpose of this360 is so that every leader, every participant can trust in how that data, how that feedback is being used. Is this going to be used to punish me? Is this going to be used in some way that exposes something that I’m not ready to expose? I think that often those fears come from that place of feeling vulnerable or distrust. So instead we work to make the 360 process something that builds trust with those leaders, with their leaders and with us so that we can create that space for more candor and for the real conversations to start emerging even after the 360 process.

19:12 — Katie Mingo:
And then the other part is that we find ways to have the leaders be part of their own feedback process too. So it’s not done to them. It’s done as part of their own goal setting, the things that they’re excited to develop too. So we often ask them to reach out to their raters and say, hey, here’s what I’m hoping to learn. Here’s what I’d love to develop after this. And can you help me give some real feedback on that? So it’s. The automation is helpful in the survey messages, but it also needs that human component of here’s why I’m doing this and here’s what I’m hoping that you’ll give to me as a colleague.

19:50 — Anthony Presley:
Wonderful.

19:51 — Krista Spence:
I have so many thoughts that come to mind with that question. Anthony and Katie, I love where you took it. Yes. Purpose is boss when it comes to identifying sort of the development plan, if you will. I think. Well, there’s a couple of stories that come to mind. I just actually facilitated a debrief. I was sharing this story with Katie yesterday. I was facilitating 360 debrief with. With a leader. She got her results last week and there was a lot of emotion in her seeing the feedback. And I had a sense that might be her reaction. And so I sent her the results just a day before our meeting. I didn’t want her to sit too long in that feedback, but I wanted her to have a snippet of it before we met.

20:38 — Krista Spence:
But I wasn’t surprised that when we got together in the call, there were just. There were tears. It was a confront for her. And so I knew it was important for me to just give her space to say out loud what really bothered her about it. What, you know, just so that first conversation was more about her just expressing her emotion and getting real about what was underneath the emotion. And it wasn’t time to say, okay, now let’s solution and what are you going to do about it? She needed the space. And then the next conversation, she was a bit more open and ready to say, okay, so what are the things in here that I’m really going to grab onto, that I’m going to really pay attention to or practice or do differently?

21:18 — Krista Spence:
And I think the reason there was so much emotion and what she came around to, so much emotion, because she cares so deeply about making a difference. And so I think the real is, I think once when people realize, okay, this is a point in time, this is just a collection of people. It’s not all people. It’s a collection of valuable people in your system. It’s a point in time, and it’s just a new lens. And so not to downplay the feedback, but at the same time to have some perspective around it and to recognize that this is. It’s an. Typically, what it reflects is that your intention just doesn’t line up with your impact all the time. So how do you try on some new behaviors that enable your intention to align more with the impact that you want?

22:08 — Krista Spence:
So once they understand, oh, this isn’t. This doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It’s not a judgment against my character. It’s more about, oh, a lens that I didn’t even realize I occurred that way sometimes. So once they get to that, I think that really helps with the emotion. But I do think there’s something about the culture that’s really important in this. It’s almost the. I think the word feedback is almost a dirty word at times. Like, you know, I’m going to give you some feedback, people, then naturally, I bet if we asked 10 people, what’s the general reaction you have in your body when someone says, hey, I need to give you some and feedback?

22:43 — Krista Spence:
I bet most people feel stress or restricted or whatever, nine out of 10 people would probably say, oh well what about if were in a world or a culture where feedback is just sort of the normal part of the conversation and it we didn’t wait to give the feedback when there’s a problem, but instead just sort of the normal part of hey Katie, I, you know, you showed up so great in that conversation today. You seemed really relaxed and I loved that you shared your natural thoughts there. That’s feedback, right. So it’s just sort of the ongoing conversation that we strive to create inside organizations. And we know that’s not the reality in organizational life. It’s not the reality that we are naturally giving ongoing feedback or that it’s just part of the.

23:28 — Krista Spence:
Because I think there’s a resistance to it, there’s a fear, there’s a, oh, how’s that going to feel? So that goes back to this at scale. I think it’s really thinking about how do you ensure that leaders are causing the kind of environment where there’s openness and they show some vulnerability themselves to giving and receiving feedback. So I think those things feed into. Anthony, your really great question about the emotion that’s inside of it and how we try to support leaders with it.

24:01 — Anthony Presley:
Go ahead.

24:03 — Kell Delaney:
Variations on theme, but a few thoughts just sort of bouncing off of what Katie.

24:07 — Anthony Presley:
Yeah.

24:08 — Kell Delaney:
Shared. You know, you’d asked. There’s this interesting, I think, thing I read a few years ago that the feeling of anxiety and excitement, they show up with the same sensations in the body. Like literally the sensations we feel in the body for anxiety and excitement are identical. The only difference is how we interpret them. And I think the same. You know, what Katie and Krista are both saying is the cultural context is really where you have to start because that is how people are going to interpret feedback, how they’re going to interpret 360, how they’re going to respond to this type.

24:40 — Kell Delaney:
If you have a high development culture where this is just part of it and people are regularly sharing these things with each other, they’re going to be excited for it, they’re going to look for it because they find it valuable information to continue to contribute more fully because they feel the support. Support. If it’s a culture that’s on the opposite end of the spectrum, that’s very punitive and very critical. Obviously you’re going to have the opposite response. And so I think that’s a component of it. The other thing I would say, and one of the ways we teach this is the two competing forces in human beings are fear and purpose. When fear is Dominant, that’s what we see. We go to protection, we go to defense, and we shut down. Learning to get ourselves back to safety.

25:22 — Kell Delaney:
Purpose is the other end of that. But you can’t get rid of fear by focusing on fear. The only way to flip the dynamic is to figure out what do I care for, why am I doing this, what’s important to me, what’s my contribution, how do I want to give it more deeply, more fully and how can this help me do that? And as you grow your clarity of purpose, once it outsizes your fear, everything shifts and the fear then becomes fuel, motivation, energy that drives your ability to then fulfill your purpose. So again, this flips the, it’s a mindset shift that flips our fear to purpose driven thing. We still have the fear, but now it’s driving us to want to know more.

26:01 — Kell Delaney:
Even in a culture that’s a little bit more critical or a little bit more harsh as far as feedback is concerned. And I’d also highlight that, you know, Chris’s example, simply being with someone and when they have a bio reaction or react to feedback at the start is one of the things that I was mentioning earlier. AI will never be able to do. It is one of the things that makes the human. The coaching, the follow up component of three 60s the most effective to pause to say, you know what, we’re just going to be with this right now and that’s fine. That allows people to move through it in the time that they need, then they can shift to growing. So we need humans for that as well.

26:40 — Anthony Presley:
Yeah, that’s, it’s interesting. We, we’ve gotten, I don’t know, dozens of outreaches from HR tech companies in the last couple of months. All we’ll call it peddling a, some sort of a coaching AI, you know, product that you would interact with and run through a variety of scenarios. And every one of them I think I’ve struggled with for a lot of that same reason. Like the computer can tell you exactly the next step sometimes and maybe it’s the right reaction, but it has no way to interpret the emotional small, soft skills. How your face looks when you’re having this conversation. Like it’s, you know, you end up in, did you interpret that right? And it just ends up in a hot mess. And then there’s almost no way to practice those things without actually doing them.

27:36 — Anthony Presley:
And so yeah, it’s interesting where some of this AI and leadership tech is at least people are trying to make it go. I don’t have a lot of high hopes. To your point, Kel, you’ve got to have a human there.

27:48 — Kell Delaney:
One of the things where I do think it can be potentially valuable, and I’ve been playing around with this more for myself recently. I have not used this with clients yet, but AI is particularly good at taking. Like, I will take my journaling and put it in and say, can you point out where I might be in confirmation bias or blind spots that I’m not paying attention to? And it’s unbelievable how provocative that is. Like, it’s uncomfortable at times and sometimes I, I don’t think it’s right. But to simply reflect on some of what it’s sharing is great because it doesn’t know. It doesn’t know the context well enough to know if it’s right or not. It’s just sort of assessing text and my stream of consciousness. But what’s really great is it does on a regular basis, I’ll.

28:37 — Kell Delaney:
I’ll read through this feedback and go, whoa, okay. Yeah, that’s a really interesting way of shifting how I’m just assuming things are in this particular aspect of my life. So I think from that perspective, it’s really good. You could have a coach help with that, but they’re bringing their own biases. And there’s something nice about the neutrality of AI just being able to like, dump some things out there, but then to have a conversation with a coach about some of those provocations, some of those observations around what might be relevant, what’s real, what. What might help me give my contribution even more fully if I tried it on and what is cohesive with the feedback I got in this 360.

29:17 — Anthony Presley:
That.

29:18 — Kell Delaney:
That, to me, I think is a fascinating thing I would like to explore with AI in three 60s.

29:23 — Anthony Presley:
But.

29:23 — Kell Delaney:
But yeah, fundamentally I think our approach is really the human component is where the value lies.

29:28 — Katie Mingo:
Anthony, I love that there’s. We’re doing our own experimentation with AI coaching and sort of seeing what’s. What’s out there and what could be possible as well. And one thing that I’m personally really interested in any of our platforms is what are the cues and the signals that say, we need a real person here. We need someone, you know, you’ve brought something up a number of times, or there’s a depth of emotion here and to say, like, okay, this is not the strong suit of that AI agent or that coach or whatever it is, and to say, how do you transition that to a person? So Knowing where those strengths are is really where I’m. I think that the value of that could lie in the long term.

30:07 — Katie Mingo:
And that’s how we think we treat a lot of our tech processes or platforms too to say, okay, how do we have a starting point, some set of facts or observations or assertions that automation or technology can help us with and then have the human interpretation to say what’s the value we see in this? Do we agree with this? Do we take a different path? Do we double down on it as a. As from that human judgment discernment?

30:32 — Krista Spence:
Yeah. On the AI front like Kel, I’ve been toying a little bit with AI and it’s helped me at times when I feel conflicted on a choice that I need to make and I have a fear. I’ve actually had it help me put words to what my fear is so that then I can go, oh, okay, once I can name it, maybe notice it a bit more and get clear about my next steps. But I also find that it’s it, it lets me off the hook. It doesn’t say like go back and say wait, let’s go back and explore because earlier you said X. Let’s dig into that a little bit more.

31:09 — Krista Spence:
The way that a human will sort of notice the energy or notice the reaction, this subtle shift in someone’s behavior when they’re resisting some feedback or so that it’ll be interesting to see what happens with AI over time and its ability to pick that up. You know, a colleague of ours wrote this really brilliant blog recently was Rio wrote this blog about AI exhaustion I think is what he called it. And I found it really fascinating because it was all about the, you know, like most of us, I work from home unless I’m traveling to see a client.

31:45 — Krista Spence:
And so I’m doing, I’m on the computer like this or I’m just working with AI these days and I’m designing and there’s a different level of energy that I feel at the end of the day which is more exhaustion than when I’m with the human connection. Right. So that we know for certain there is something about. Well, you think about what we experienced with the COVID shut down and the large amount of depression and everything that occurred and our disconnect with humanity and so how important it is for us to learn from one another with our in person energy.

32:19 — Krista Spence:
And so when it comes to 360 and feedback, it’s those subtleties to be together and notice when is someone resisting, when are they picking up Something when to, you know, so you can see someone’s expression subtly shift and then you can see, say, wait, go back. What just happened for you just now? Like what just occurred to you with that? I noticed a shift and sometimes there’s some learning. They don’t even realize there was a shift until we call it out because we’re noticing it. So that’s. Those are some of my sentiments about my intrigue about what will become with.

32:52 — Anthony Presley:
AI Yeah, it’s uncharted territory to a large degree. So I’m excited to see what people build out of it. I did want to circle back to something that a couple of different ways and I’m just curious, you know, kind of speed round of questions, if you will. We talked about culture. We’ve talked about dirty water with fish in it. We’ve talked about, we’ve talked about Perhaps that 360 or survey, some feedback might actually be a point in time reflection of what someone is trying to provide and how that’s being perceived. I’m curious if you find that individuals may be. There’s oftentimes or there could be a time where they’re not a great fit for the culture is not a great fit for them.

33:37 — Anthony Presley:
And you know, do you see that that feedback changes in there if they’re in a different organization somewhere where they’re more purposefully aligned and maybe it’s time to move on.

33:48 — Krista Spence:
The answer is yes,.

33:51 — Anthony Presley:
Perfect speed round.

33:54 — Krista Spence:
I’ll just say really quickly. I’m working with a leader who. She just actually completed a 360 and she’s really taking in the feedback and part of her work is to get really clear about what she really values, how she wants to contribute and how that feedback aligns with that. And so I think she’s really sitting with the question about who is the leader that this organization needs me to be right now based on this feedback, what’s the leader I need to be? And then how does that align with my natural desires and how I want to contribute? So I think it can crack open some exploration about how to fit inside a culture.

34:35 — Kell Delaney:
Yeah, I would also add, you know, one of the questions you would listed was about strengths versus gaps focus. And that’s often the question. And you know, we will always say we have a strengths based on approach. We use the strengths as a way to address the gaps so you don’t ignore those. That’s the most accessible way people get that. They’re like yes, we want that, but I would actually go a level deeper and say both those questions or both those. That way of looking at it shares an assumption that doesn’t get to the heart of what really matters or what’s most effective. And I actually think misses the point of what we use 360s for, which is what Chris had just said. To have people really ask and reflect on what is my greatest contribution. I have to give, that I.

35:20 — Kell Delaney:
It gives me energy that I am here to give, that I want to be giving in my work. That’s the question. And it sort of doesn’t matter whether it’s strengths or gaps. Once you inhabit that question. Right. It’s about, what is that contribution and what is getting in the way of me giving it more fully, and how can I therefore address that? In some cases, the answer is, oh, wrong culture, wrong role, wrong organization. Right. We’re there to help people ask those questions of themselves and then each other. We’re not there to give answers, necessarily questions that actually matter. And so I would actually offer that as like, there’s an even deeper level to me that people, I think, always miss and what’s valuable.

36:01 — Katie Mingo:
Okay, I want slightly different third take on the same thing, but involving contribution. I think there’s a difference between whether an employee is a cultural fit for that organization. Do I believe in this purpose? Am I here for this mission? And differentiating between that and are we appreciating the differences and variety of strengths and contribution on our team? Are we listening to each other and actually taking advantages of those tensions that exist? So one thing we see often is that people will give feedback from the perspective of the things that they care about most. And for someone in finance, that looks very different than for someone who’s innovation or sales. And so if you can say, all right, even if you think, you know who gave this feedback, that doesn’t really matter.

36:47 — Katie Mingo:
What matters is, why do you think that’s valuable to that person and how can you help them in that? If you believe in that cause, too, if that furthers the organization, love it.

36:57 — Anthony Presley:
I love all of these, and I truly believe we could probably talk for another two hours and it would be great. Yeah, it would be great. Maybe we’ll do that. Maybe we’ll do it again.

37:08 — Krista Spence:
I’d love to ask all the same questions back to you. Given all of your experience, I’d love to learn your perspective as well, but that would be brilliant.

37:17 — Anthony Presley:
Well, maybe let’s do this again. I. I want to be cognizant of everybody’s time. We’d only carved out an hour. And so if it’s okay, let’s. We’ll. We’ll call this one done and we’ll get. Let our. Let our editors kind of, you know, chop it up. Videographers. And then. And then if we want to do another one, we’ll do another one because we only got through like, half the questions. You guys are awesome.

37:39 — Katie Mingo:
You as well, Anthony. Thanks for. Thanks for just make threading all of those through in a really just smooth, natural way, the conversation.

37:47 — Anthony Presley:
Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do it. To do it. Yeah. We didn’t talk about poll surveys. We didn’t talk about any of the tactical stuff. But I love the conversations about leadership. And the one I didn’t get to ask. We get asked all the time because we do. We work with a lot of frontline workers and they’re like, well, we want to grow. Like, I want to grow. I want to do these things, but I’m in this culture that’s not letting me. Right. And ultimately you end up in this, like, hey, can you create a grassroots movement? Or maybe. Maybe it’s not the right fit. Maybe you’re. You’re going to have the impact you can have. And to Yalls point, like, maybe what is. What does the organization need in that spot at that time? And. And it may not be you, unfortunately.

38:26 — Krista Spence:
Yeah.

38:27 — Kell Delaney:
Oh, and, you know, so I think we’ve alluded to it and that though that’s actually gets to some of the things I would love to explore in a second one, because I think about some of the things that make, you know, we. Our approach what I think is really effective and then the things that cause issues. So there’s, you know, there’s pretense in the culture, like. Right. So when it’s anonymous, that actually is information about the culture. If you need anonymity. And you know, I’m not saying conversion this.

38:52 — Anthony Presley:
Right.

38:53 — Kell Delaney:
So anonymity means you don’t have an ongoing feedback culture that people embrace.

38:56 — Anthony Presley:
Right, right.

38:57 — Kell Delaney:
That says. Yeah, right. And is there trust in the culture? We rarely ever talk about the Raiders and their experience and how are they part of this and what. And are they. Do they feel safe to give the feedback fully, openly and honestly that they’re being requested to give cultures support. That too. You know, so all of these things start to interconnect around a method that can serve something, but based on how you do it actually illustrates a lot of. A lot of things about the deeper culture that I actually think is really valuable for senior leaders in particular, to know about. Hey, this is the culture you have. Not right or wrong.

39:31 — Krista Spence:
Yeah, it just is.

39:32 — Kell Delaney:
This is where it is. You need to meet it where it’s at and move it from there. And 360s are a way to do. Do that anyway. So, like, I would love.

39:39 — Katie Mingo:
You can tell we nerd out about this just a little.

39:41 — Anthony Presley:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

39:42 — Krista Spence:
The one thing I just want to say, Anthony, is I would love a second conversation because I would love to learn more about what are the challenges that you guys are up against? What are the questions you’re getting? What are you noticing? Because I think we could really learn a lot from you, and we’d be happy to dig into some of the more tactical things, too, that we didn’t get to. So I’d be totally up for it.

40:02 — Anthony Presley:
Okay, perfect. Well, let’s get this one chopped up and then set some time that’s available for everybody. Again, I love doing these. I think it creates some wonderful thought leadership. You guys know, there’s a lot of leaders out there in different levels of the organization that are trying to figure all of this out and don’t necessarily have a great spot to go to. So appreciate you spending your time willingly with us. Thank you.

40:26 — Krista Spence:
Yeah. I’m happy to know you, Anthony. It was really great.

40:30 — Anthony Presley:
Yeah, likewise. All right, we’ll talk soon. Y’ all have a great rest of the day.

40:34 — Katie Mingo:
You too.

40:35 — Krista Spence:
Bye.

40:36 — Katie Mingo:
Bye.

40:37 — Kell Delaney:
Bye, everyone.