Want people to give you honest feedback? J&J's CEO says the key is frequency and good listening

How do you get people to give you useful feedback at work?

The question came up as I talked to Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato about a big ‘aha’ moment he had during his career. As Joaquin climbed the corporate ladder, he realized how difficult it can be to get people to tell you what you needed to work on — and to do the same for them.

Joaquin's secret is volume: He gets insights by trying to talk to as many people as he can, to collect feedback from up, down, and across the company, much of which happens on his frequent travels.

"I do listening tours, which are 1.5 hour sessions with six, seven individuals. I am a high contact person, so I do multiple one-on-ones. When I travel to countries — and I travel to a lot of countries — my No. 1 purpose is to meet with people and I do multiple one-on-ones."

And in his regular week, his one-on-ones are never ending: he says he has 250 on his calendar.

In those, he prides himself on giving "meaningful constructive feedback" and also being open to getting that feedback back to him.

Of course, giving the CEO feedback isn't something people love doing. I mean, not if they want to keep our jobs. So Joaquin tries something basic to get them talking — he just gets to know them: "I like to understand what they are doing. I like to know what is making them tick. I like to ask them how we can do better."

Can some of those go sideways? Joaquin says no. "I mean, there's situations where you have things which are, let's say, difficult. But I consider that part of my job. It doesn't ruffle my feathers too much."

Check out the full lighting round episode of This is Working. In it, Joaquin talks more about what he’s learned from his mistakes, why he thinks a ‘no’ is often the beginning of a ‘yes’ when it comes to job rejection, the books he’s reading (here's his great list), the benefits of lateral moves, and the three things every person who is new to a team should do. 

I would love to know how you elicit true feedback in your career? And what constructive ways have you found to give it? 

Join the conversation below and subscribe to the This is Working newsletter. For last week's edition, I wrote a deeper dive into my convo with Joaquin: "J&J's CEO made 12 internal job moves on his way to the top. He's learned the one thing that gets people to stay and take risks"

And be sure to tune into the latest This is Working podcast, which I co-host with LinkedIn Senior Producer Nina Melendez Ibarra . Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

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On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from Jonathan Haber, Fei-Fei Li, Mark C. Thompson, James Daunt, The Property Brothers, Francesca Cornelli, Spike Lee, Sir Richard Branson, Kristalina Georgieva, Gerald Chertavian, Stephanie Linnartz, Bobbi Brown, Toto Wolff, Al Roker, Vas Narasimhan, Barack Obama, Christine Lagarde, Ray Dalio, Jesper Brodin, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, and many more.