Bridget Johnson Talks Manager Feedback

In this episode of Let’s Talk Talent, our host Mark Epp has a conversation with Bridget Johnson, Talent Plus Management Consultant.

Talent Plus recognizes, engages, accelerates, and leads talent, talent strategies, and talent planning across organizations.

The two discuss:

• Bridget’s background as a Talent Plus client and how the experience influenced how she approaches consulting clients today.
• Why training your eye to spot talent raises your awareness, and how it helps you to understand and develop it. 
• How feedback can be a game-changer for your team’s performance and how to incorporate it into conversations.

Click here to learn how we help organizations identify and select the best manager talent.
Contact us today to learn more about how we predict performance and maximize human potentiality. Let’s Talk Talent!

Transcript

Mark Epp:

Welcome to the Let's Talk Talent podcast with our guest today, Bridget Johnson, who is a Talent Plus Management Consultant. Bridget, I'm just absolutely delighted to have you with us today. Would you be kind enough to tell us just a little bit about yourself?

Bridget Johnson:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mark. I'm thrilled to be here with you today. I am a new addition to the Talent Plus consulting team as of March of this year. However, it's kind of been a 20-year journey getting here. I was in the luxury cosmetic industry for 30 years and had experience with Talent Plus as a client, and I know we'll probably talk a little bit more about that as we proceed. But that is a little bit about me.

Mark Epp:

And you know it's interesting you say you've only been with us since March, Bridget, but your 20-year background in luxury cosmetics, training, education and beauty really comes through in so much that you do and how you work with our clients. 

So, you might be a little bit of a newbie to Talent Plus, but boy, you contribute so much. I'm excited to have you with us today. I'd like to start out by something that I learned about you. I learned that you're an estate sale aficionado and I've heard you say I love the hunt to find something special, finding that needle in the haystack. Bridget, do you think there's a connection to finding great estate sale treasures and discovering great talent?

Bridget Johnson:

I absolutely do. You know talent is such a precious thing, just like all the treasures that I find at estate sales, and I always have an eye out for something that is different, as you mentioned. And it's the same with talent. If you have the eye for talent, you're able to see it and discover it and develop it as well. Having that background in Talent Plus and the desire to identify talent as well is really what drives me. And yes, it's very much like my estate sailing.

Mark Epp:

Bridget, do you think people can develop an eye for talent, like you just said?

Bridget Johnson:

I do. I developed an eye for talent when I was a client of Talent Plus, and once you have the understanding of what talent is and that awareness, then you have the ability to look for it and you start seeing it everywhere in everyone, of course at Talent Plus we know everyone has talent, and so once you have that understanding and awareness, it makes it so easy and so fun as well. Very rewarding. 

Mark Epp:

Now thinking about Talent Plus, what inspired you to come work for Talent Plus Bridget?

Bridget Johnson:

So, as we mentioned earlier, being a client of Talent plus about 20 years ago, strength management became part of my life, not only professionally, but also personally, and identifying those talents. Once I had that awareness and understanding, I saw talent everywhere I looked. In my family and my customers and my team, and last summer I left the cosmetic industry and didn't know if I was going to stay in cosmetics or not. But then this opportunity at Talent Plus presented itself. And I knew right then and there that this was where I was supposed to be. 

As I mentioned earlier, it was that 20-year journey. So when the opportunity came up, there was nothing that was going to get in my way of becoming part of the Talent Plus family. It really, it was a dream come true and it still is a dream come true because just talking to people about what they're good at and what they enjoy changes people's lives, it changes their professional life, it changes their personal life. The two are so intertwined and to be able to do that and make a difference is something I've dreamed about and now I'm living my dream.

Mark Epp:

Bridget, what experiences from your career have contributed to your understanding of great managers? As a Management Consultant, you're working with managers and leaders all the time, so what experiences from your career have really contributed to your understanding of the traits of great managers?

Bridget Johnson:

Early in my career in cosmetics, I had a manager and she called me into her office one day. I was new, hadn't been there very long. And of course I'm nervous because a lot of times you get called into the office and it's not always a great conversation. And I'll never forget this, I sat there and she said, “Why are you blinking so fast?” And I was like, “Well, I'm nervous.” And she said, “Don't be nervous.” She said, “I called you in here because I want to share some feedback cause I just want you to get better.” 

And from that day on, I was asking for feedback. I was excited to go into her office. And so that was something that I incorporated into my leadership style as well. You have to set up feedback to be a great conversation so that people feel safe and they trust you and you have a relationship with them. So that feedback experience literally changed the course of my career once I was able to incorporate that into my own leadership style. And it applies anywhere to your team, your direct reports, managing up, managing down, or even client interactions as well.

Mark Epp:

I love how you shared that this manager of yours said, “I just want you to get better.” And how important that is to set that stage for people because as you just shared, you asked her then the door was open for you to come to her, and that's such an important concept. Bridget, thank you for sharing that. So, what do you think are some of the most impactful characteristics of great managers?

Bridget Johnson:

I love this question. I love it. Great managers, they're confident. They're confident in themselves and they're confident in their team. They operate with integrity. They're honest, they're transparent, they give and receive great feedback. You know they care. I've been so fortunate to work for some amazing leaders in my career and I always felt valued as a person that they truly cared about me, not only professionally but personally as well. And that contributed to my success because my most recent leader, she knew how important personal life is to the success in the professional world and vice versa. 

So she always supported that and she truly knows me. We're still friends and what is important to me inside and outside of work and a great leader also recognizes the talents in the individuals and gives them an opportunity and creates platforms for them to leverage those talents and shine

Mark Epp:

Is so important and it's unusual. And so I want to ask this question because you're talking about great managers. Have you ever been in a role where obviously you're incredibly talented, you're incredibly vivacious and interested and engaged and smart, and you develop people and you care about people deeply Bridget. Have you ever been in a role where you had a manager that was not that kind of person?

Bridget Johnson:

Unfortunately I have and I can count it on one finger. So I feel very, very blessed to only had that one experience. And it was the opposite of everything we just talked about. There was a lack of integrity, there was a lack of honesty, there was a lack of, not necessarily confidence because this person knew we were all very talented, but it was more of a power struggle, if you will, from this person's perspective. They wanted to know everything, only share things when they thought it was appropriate, maybe not at all. So not setting me up for success, not communicating, zero feedback. When I say zero, I mean zero feedback. This person created a very toxic environment, unfortunately.

Mark Epp:

So what did it feel like, Bridget, knowing yourself well, knowing you do have talents to contribute, what did it feel like having a manager who wasn't supportive, didn't bring that same level of integrity as you just expressed? What did it feel like to you when you came to work every day?

Bridget Johnson:

It was frustrating. It was demotivating. It was sad. Even though I was sad going to work every day, I continued to try and persevere because I knew I had the talent to be successful in the role, but also being me sad for that individual because I felt like they were missing out on so much talent within their team that could have made the company that much more successful. 

So it was more sad than anything. And again, my positivity was the thing that kept me going and I was finding silver linings every single day. And that's just how I navigate through those challenging times.

Mark Epp:

Again, so insightful of you for our listeners, the fact that if you have a manager working with highly talented individuals and that manager does not bring the best of those management talents to their team, the team will feel frustrated, the team will feel demotivated, doggone it, the team feeling sad. That is not what we want our direct reports to feel. 

Those consequences are really so critical for us to understand as well. So thank you for sharing those Bridget. How does Talent Plus help organizations recognize and select the best managers possible?

Bridget Johnson:

This is my favorite thing to talk about all day every day, you know as we all know at Talent Plus, we truly are the premier leader in discovering and developing human potentiality with a dream. My dream too, to actualize a better world. So, we know everybody has talent. As I mentioned earlier, every single person on the earth has talent. And our mission is to discover and develop that talent so that we do create a world where people, they get to do what they love and they enjoy and what they're good at. 

And I mean, it's mind blowing to think that we do over 3 million assessments annually. And what our assessments do that is a point of difference and sets us apart from others, is that we predict the potential for near perfect performance in that role. And so this also shows the leader how and where to invest in that person that they select to join their team, all based on their talents. We want to celebrate and develop and invest in their strengths, in their top talents. And so this is going to help to maximize that ROI as well. Because when you have an individual and you select this individual has a strong talent base, we can put more skills and knowledge and experience right on top of it. So you know we help them select their A players.

Mark Epp:

Bridget had managers say, “Oh, well that sounds like great, that all sounds good, sounds like a nice dream.” But at Talent Plus we have practical solutions to make this happen. So as you well know, a dream without a plan stays just a dream once that right manager is in the role, how can they actually start leading effectively and doing so immediately? Bridget,

Bridget Johnson:

That's another great thing about our assessments, is they're going to know what their top talents are and they're going to have an understanding of what they're good at so they can learn how to leverage those talents and lead their team. And then the next step of that is understanding the talents of your team and their individual talents because we know we all bring a different talent package, if you will, to the table. So then that manager is able to customize that coaching and developing and that investment based on what that person's unique needs are at that point in their career and based on what their talents are. 

So rather than take six months to get to know everybody and what they're good at, the manager's going to know right out of the gate, this is what their top talents are, these are what my top talents are and how we can utilize them together. And strength management is not something that should happen at your annual review. It's something that needs to be ongoing all the time, individualized. And again, based on their talents and what their needs are right now.

Mark Epp:

Richard, that's a huge revelation. When you say to somebody by looking at a person's talent assessment, they can know that person maybe even better than knowing than and just learning about them over six months, nine months, a year down the road. That is so important. 

Bridget, as we begin to finish up our time together, when thinking about our listeners, what are three things you'd like our listeners to do after listening to this podcast? What are some actions you'd like them to take to really be able to bring out their greatest potential?

Bridget Johnson:

I want all of our listeners today to go to www.talentplus.com, go see what we do and how we help organizations select the right managers. Look at our research, look at the different assessments and solutions that we offer for any organization, big, small, whatever industry. We can customize the solutions that are right for them. 

And then also look at how Talent Plus, how we help those managers better lead their teams by understanding not only their own talent as we spoke about, but their team's talent as well. And to explore with them to explore all the different assessments we have to offer. The opportunities are so endless and the other support that comes from being a client at Talent Plus is the support of the consulting team like you and I to take them even further.

Mark Epp:

Well, I tell you what, you know I really believe that the kind of positive attributes, the kind of energy that you put out is very much the kind of energy we're going to get back, Bridget. So I tell you what today, it has been such a pleasure to have this time with you, and I deeply appreciate you joining us for Let's Talk Talent here on our podcast. I can't wait for our next connection. Thank you so very much. 

Bridget Johnson: 

Thank you, Mark.