Mastering the Art of Feedback
Feedback has profound implications for personal and professional growth. During my tenure at McKinsey, I was introduced to the power of feedback culture. Empirical evidence showed that the teams that fostered effective feedback loops consistently outperformed their peers across diverse tasks and roles.
The Problems
What is in the way of feedback flowing within organizations?
Lack of Routine: Teams frequently lack structured routines for feedback exchange, relegating these conversations to sporadic interventions in times of crisis. If the only time you get feedback is when something is terribly wrong, you’re not going to be particularly excited about feedback conversations.
Lack of Trust: In organizations with feedback routines, established protocols like annual reviews often fall short in delivering meaningful growth. They become stale, mere formalities devoid of vibrancy. The issue here is lack of trust. People who don’t deeply trust each other are just going through the motions rather than speaking to what really matters. An atmosphere of openness, where transparency flourishes, requires a bedrock of trust.
Defensiveness: even when there is a strong foundation of trust, our egos tend to get prickly when there’s a whiff of criticism in the air. Feedback quickly becomes useless and tense when people say things like, “I didn’t do that”, “that’s not what I said,” “I think you didn’t understand.”
One-way Feedback: Another challenge arises within hierarchical structures, where feedback predominantly flows from the top down. The manager imparts feedback to the subordinate, often resulting in one-way communication that stifles authentic dialogue. This one-sided approach limits the richness of perspective, curtailing the potential for mutual learning.
The Solutions
Build Trust: It doesn’t even make sense to create a feedback structure if there has not been an establishment of trust. To address this I like the Trust Equation by Charles H. Green (Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation). There are lots of ways this can go wrong but I find the element most often missing is intimacy. Many work cultures encourage a compartmentalizing of personal lives in a way that dampens intimacy.
Maintain Solid Routines: I suggest a two-way feedback dialogue encompassing (1) check-ins, (2) appreciations, and (3) clearings (i.e. what could be improved and what’s been troubling me). In my work with co-founder clients, this approach has yielded remarkable results. It's fascinating to witness how this concerted effort enhances relationships, dissolves unspoken tensions, and, most importantly, nurtures an environment conducive to excellence.
Listening for Learning: An important lesson I learned from Landmark Education is the fact that we are already always listening. We always have a frame from which we are receiving information and oftentimes it is “do I agree or disagree with what I’m hearing?”. Hopefully it’s obvious that this frame of listening is not conducive to feedback. A mindset of listening that seeks understanding of the other person’s perspective–without impulse to defend–is leaps and bounds more effective for learning (e.g. “I may not agree with this person but the fact that they, and perhaps others, are having this experience of me is useful data”).
Speak to Minimize Defensiveness: One of the genius results of learning a communication technique like non-violent communication is that it significantly reduces that likelihood of defensiveness. Essentially when we speak in observations and feelings rather than interpretations and judgments people’s egos are less likely to go into defensiveness when they hear feedback. This is easy to comprehend, and hard to implement! It requires practice!
In conclusion, feedback is more than a conversation—it's an ongoing dialogue that spans our professional journey. It's an art to be mastered, a culture to be cultivated. By elevating strengths over weaknesses, embedding trust, and weaving structured routines, we pave the way for genuine growth. So, let's engage in the dance of feedback, a symphony of learning that harmonizes expertise with humility, and potential with progress.
