Web Directions Summit 2023

Confronting difficult conversations

Feedback is essential for improving skills, performance, and building trust within the team. Giving feedback can sometimes be very confronting. How comfortable is your team at giving candid feedback? Or receiving it? What about you? Having to confront someone puts us in a fight, flight, or freeze response, which is a physical stress condition. Wouldn't it be nice to feel more at ease when in these situations? Or have a plan for the conversation? In this workshop you will learn what makes feedback effective, a feedback equation, and a framework to approach a confrontation. You will also role-play scenarios with examples from real life engineering teams.

Elle Meredith & Lachlan Hardy

Elle is a back-end engineer with more than 15 years of consulting experience, leading projects and teams for many technology organisations. Elle recently completed a post-grad certificate in Psychology for Business and Management at Curtin University, learning new ways to help people improve how they work. She was part of the Victorian Government's Industry Advisory Panel to help assess digital skills training courses for the new Digital Skills and Jobs Program. At Blackmill, she advises executives and engineers in effective management practices so that they become engaging, thoughtful and inclusive leaders.

Lachlan is a front-end engineer with more than 20 years of experience; working and leading teams and orgs for companies such as GitHub, Microsoft, Atlassian, BigPond TV, News Digital Media, and others. Throughout his career, Lachlan has led teams across multiple countries and timezones in numerous leadership roles, including executive levels. At Blackmill, he advises executives and technology leaders how to scale their teams and start shipping again.