Kristen Brotherson of Alcon on tough feedback and uncomfortable conversations as a leader

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Hi everyone. Welcome to our Women in Ophthalmology Healio Vlog. I'm Femida Kherani. I'd like to welcome other members of our panel.

Hello, I'm Cynthia Matossian. I'm delighted to be here.

And I'm Priyanka Sood. Also really excited to be here with our phenomenal guest.

And welcome Kristen Brotherson from Alcon. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I'd like to start off by asking you to share your favorite leadership pearl.

Hi everybody, this is Kristen Brotherson, vice president of US Surgical Marketing at Alcon. I'm just so grateful to be joining everyone this evening. So, to share my favorite leadership pearl, it really is around proactively seeking alternative opinions. It's interesting. I think in my early days where I was getting leadership experience, it really felt like if I could just have the right answer, you know, have the right idea, and share that with others then I was accomplishing what I thought I was being asked to do. And what I've learned over time is that having the ideas is the easy part about leadership. Getting others to buy-in is the hard part. And you can do that in one of two ways. You can use your title and your influence to get others over to your side. Or what I find to be a lot more effective in the long run is really seeking folks with alternative perspectives, experiences so that you can open the feedback on ‘what am I missing here? What would you do differently?’ And I find when you do that, not only do you get to a better solution, but you also bring people along because they become part of the solution. It's not just you giving your opinion and thoughts.

Wow, that was an amazing pearl, Kristen. I wish I had that years ago as I was struggling to be a leader, you know and grow my practice.

Well, thank you Kristen. That was an amazing pearl. And as someone who's, you know newly in a leadership position, I am really grateful for that advice, because I think it's exactly as you kind of spoke about it that when you're trying to get buy-in from your team, it helps when you are able to understand their perspectives a little bit better. And I love that you actively make those attempts, so thank you for that.

Thank you, Priyanka. I appreciate the feedback and it's not always easy to do. I mean, we all move at such a pace, you know we're all challenged with moving the needle constantly and doing so rapidly. So, it really does take oddly a significant amount of energy to pause and invite those alternative perspectives to get to the better solution.

And sometimes those alternative solutions actually make you stronger, right? So it's listening to those alternative solutions and saying, hey, maybe we can incorporate that too, right?

It's so true. Isn't it funny? So maybe to summarize the pearl, I guess the wisest leader knows that they don't have all the answers, right? You really do get to the better solution when you have more folks around the table contributing to the answer.

Exactly. And you can see it from different perspectives that you didn't even know existed or you hadn't even wrapped your mind around that corner to look at it from that angle. So thank you, Kristen. That was an amazing pearl. So, our next question, our second question, is in a leadership role, clearly, we are going to face some challenges. Can you share with us a challenge perhaps that you encountered and a solution that you were able to either craft or with your team come up with a solution to kind of navigate those hurdles?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think what comes to mind immediately is a challenge that I've dealt with now a couple of different times throughout my career and that is how do you deal with a team member who may have excellent output in terms of their day-to-day job responsibilities—In fact, in one of the situations that I'll reference, I mean this person was the best at delivering against the job they've been hired to do. But how do you manage that when the person doesn't necessarily bring the values or behaviors that are good for the rest of the team to the job every day? And it's funny because I come from industry but working with a number of different practices across the country, I've experienced this multiple times. In fact, I think the term that I've heard, you know I've heard the term of the scary tech, the person that is the best tech in the office but that doesn't always get along with everyone or really bring the standards up by creating an inclusive and professional environment that people are trying to cultivate. So, you know, when I've dealt with this situation before, my responsibility as a leader was to deliver the result. And I knew that holding this person accountable could end one of two ways. They would either choose to leave because I was holding them to the standard that I would expect of others, or they would, you know rectify the situation and improve on their performance and their behavior specifically around that performance. So, you know, how do you deal with these situations? Number one, it had to start with a really open and transparent, seek-to-understand type of conversation. And it sounded something like: “You were excellent at delivering the results, you bring to the table everything that we are asking you to deliver in terms of the objective measures of doing your role. But I want to have a conversation with you that may be a little bit hard to hear. And that is, we've talked about this a few times before, but there are certain ways that you interact with your team members and even some of your cross-functional partners that don't reflect, I think, the person that you are inside, and truthfully, what we're trying to build as an organizational culture. And that's one of support, inclusion as well as hard work and delivering on performance. Now that I've delivered that information to you, how do you feel about that? You know, what are your thoughts around what I'm sharing with you?” Typically, that's responded with, you know, not a great response. It's kind of hard to hear but I think the next step is really the most critical and it's providing that person with a few specific examples of exactly how this has shown up. And in this particular situation, the example was we had a new team member on board and when your role was to teach that person how to do something, instead you criticize them for not being able to do it. This is something you've learned to do over the last 15 years. They're one month on the job. How do you think it created an environment of inclusivity and one where someone could show up and be curious and learn when they really felt embarrassed and criticized? It opened up the dialogue and it really did allow us to reset on what that person wants to do long-term and how they would need to show up in order to open the doors that they were looking to open in their career path by driving not only the result but also how they showed up as an informal leader without authority. And the good news is, I said it could go one of two ways. In this particular situation, I think nobody had given them the hard feedback before and it was good for them to hear it and they rose to the occasion and improved over time.

That's amazing. I mean, I think what really resonates with me is that you stayed curious with that person. And so then while it was still probably a hard conversation, I bet that there were some things that were frustrating that person and they were able to share that with you, so that hopefully, even for them, yes they could see that they were doing something that they might be able to change, but also maybe there were other changes because you probably saw the good in that person, knew that that wasn't what they were trying to achieve and that maybe there were other things that could help. So I love that. Thank you.

Priyanka, so well stated, it's the intent vs. impact conversation. I know their intent wasn't to alienate their coworkers but that was the impact they were having, when in their mind they were just driving to the result that they thought everybody was looking for. So, it really did lead to a very trusting and transparent conversation that quite frankly strengthened my relationship with this person for the long term because it ended up helping them drive the career trajectory they were looking for.

And it probably improved culture in the practice, right?

For sure.

And the fact that you took the time out to have this difficult conversation, to have this open conversation I think also means a lot on the person who's receiving the not such great news, but it shows that you care, it shows that you want to invest in them, it shows that you believe in them and that in itself sometimes turns a situation around.

You know what I appreciate about what you just said? I think oftentimes when we experience this situation where you have strong performance but maybe attitudinally, not the right fit for the organization, people are often talking about it and they're talking about it not directly to the person who needs the coaching and development to get better. And so talking about it with colleagues, coworkers, complaining about it, it doesn't help address the situation. So you're right, Cynthia. Really leaning in and having the uncomfortable conversation with the right intent to help someone get better. I mean that's really, you know, the leadership challenge.

That's wonderful.

Amazing.

Well, I think we will wrap it up with the third and final question. What advice would you give to your 20-year younger self?

So, I think, man, I could give a lot of feedback to my 20 years younger self, but I don't think there's enough time in this video vlog for all of that. So, we'll stick with one point. It really would be, just be genuinely open to feedback. And that doesn't mean just accepting it and hearing it, but welcoming it. Create space for it; actively seek it out. I think at a younger age I took feedback, like being right or wrong, you know, someone would provide me with their thoughts, and I would immediately, if not out loud in my head go to defending my position, and why I disagreed with what they were thinking or why, maybe what angle they had to give me the feedback they were giving. Because feedback can be hard to hear, right? Growth can be challenging. But I think now at this point in my career, I recognize that every time somebody takes the energy and the courage to give me feedback, especially when it's constructive feedback, that their intent is to help me get better. And that it's not about being right or wrong, it's hearing something from someone else's point of view based on how what I did landed on them. So, I'd really encourage myself to just take a deep breath don't respond other than being grateful and you know, appreciating that they took the time to share the feedback with you.

Exactly. They just care enough to share it with you, right? Care enough to contribute to your growth. And frankly, it's a blessing even though it's hard to hear sometimes.

Yes.

And when we're younger, we don't have the courage that we develop over time. Our skin is much thinner and more youthful. And so, you know, these types of comments can be hurtful sometimes because you're not seeing that really, this person wants me to develop and grow and do a better job at what I'm doing and reach my potential, and that maybe I'm not there yet. So, thank you Kristen for those wonderful pearls. We really appreciate your time with us tonight.

Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been wonderful hearing from the three of you and just having the opportunity. So, thank you so much.