Why is it so hard to get feedback right?
Posted on March 5th, 2009 in feedback |
Sometimes the topic for my blog posts just scream at me and to day the theme of feedback has hit me a few times from different directions I realised that I had to add my tuppence worth.
1 It started with a post over at The Career Encouragement blog about conflicting feedback. I won’t repeat any of it here - Peggy’s post is great and says it all ( in my opinion - more of which later). What I will say though is - bear in mind where the feedback is coming from. The person giving the feedback may be working from their own agenda
2 Then Dave McQueen on Twitter this morning said
“just looking at some feedback from training. why is it that we remember the one negative point so succintly?”
Do you do this? No matter how great overall the feedback has been - and how many of your skills/talents/strengths have been highlighted your mind plays over and over on the one negative?
3 Dave added later that he was reading written feedback after the event - and he would have liked to have asked for more information. As I get more into training that is one of my biggest frustrations - trying to capture what the written feedback really means. At my training sessions I ask for feedback from the audience before we finish - after all I have been training in speaking up all day. Thankfully - so far - on every occasion the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. And lest you think I just ask for superficial comments a core part of the training is giving and receiving verbal feedback - I ask for what was good, what could have been better and for suggestions for the next time. However, sometimes the feedback sheets show a low score on one aspect - and I no longer have the chance to find out why that was.
4 At my Speakers Club the format for giving feedback on speeches is that one person is nominated to give verbal feedback in front of the group ( and there is the chance for a one to one session over the break later) and the others in the group have a couple of minutes to write down their own. In my view the best givers of feedback are those who start with - “this is what I noticed”, or “in my view and others might take a different stand” because I believe that all feedback is biased. It has to be based on the experience, or knowledge, or context of the feedback giver. It might even include how they feel on the night! As I pointed out in #1 - this it is my view that Peggy’s post is good. It is up to you to make your own minds up about whether you agree with me or not.
So why is it so hard to get feedback right?
- The intention of the feedback is important. Was it asked for or offered. That starts from 2 different places
- The context matters. A superior giving feedback to a junior may influence their future decisions and it is important that thy recognise the impact of that. Peer feedback can be challenging. What expertise does the feedback giver have that qualifies them to give it?
- The model of feedback needs to be clearly understood . The only time I was in a 360 degree feedback system it was entirely anonymous unless the feedback giver identified themselves. I realised that was to encourage openness but I found the inablity to discuss the feedback further was hugely frustrating.
- The feedback giver’s personal agenda makes a difference. Are they really giving you feedback to help you improve?
Please share your own experiences -especially if you - or someone you know - give great feedback.
10 Responses
Jackie, do you think this is a matter of maculine cultures? That is cultures where pecking order and jostling for status is our core activity?
I’m trying to imagine work of the future on my blog, and so not to takeover yours, I might post suggestions for thinking about training feedback from the perspective of positive psychology - where we are extending and generating good rather than evaluating people and trying to find the bad.
I don’t know about the structure/culture issue Jo. The basic form of feedback we use in Speakersbank training ( and thankfully the one I already use myself ) is to recognise what went well and focus on that before moving to suggetions for improvement. I will watch how your work unfolds with interest.
Jackie,
You’ve hit on one of my favorite topics. I don’t know of any other part of business life where feedback is more important and more useful than in presentations/communications, since it’s all about whether or not one has “made the connection”. And the people in the room shouldn’t have any problem answering that at all.
Perhaps that’s the question to start with in “speaking” feedback:
1. How deeply and for how long did we stay connected on the topic?
2. What helped the connection?
3. What got in the way?
Numbers 2 and 3 or certainly standard, but I think if you introduce them using the “connection” framework, it’s possible to get even more worthwhile information.
As for feedback in general: I always figure if I have 20 pieces of feedback from 20 people and each comment is consistent with the others, I’d darned well better pay attention. If there are 20 distinctly different responses, then I at least know what each person prefers but that there is no over-arching issue.
Since feedback is always more indicative of the giver than the receiver, we are learning what is important to those around us. It can often have nothing to do with the actual success of our particular endeavour. So the task then carries with it a follow-up step: going to each person, acknowledging the feedback, and asking directly whether or not the noted behavior had a truly measurable impact on the attempted goal.
I like feedback because it offers a good reason to follow-up with people and find out what really makes them tick and how to be more engaging with them as time goes on.
My tuppence…
Thank you for this thoughtful and helpful comment Steve. I like your 3 question suggestion and will give it a try.
Jackie,
I currently work in South Korea at the moment, and I can tell you that the process of eliciting effective feedback within Asian cultures can be very challenging indeed.
Firstly, there is the language barrier, whereby non-native speakers of English find it difficult to express their thoughts in a language other than their mother tongue, and often fail to understand fully any questions which you ask.
Secondly, there is the culture. In Korea, and no doubt in many other Asian countries, practices which are culturally acceptable are very strictly defined, and the giver of feedback is typically more concerned about saying what is culturally ‘appropriate’ than the provision of fully honest feedback.
In other words, they say what they think they are supposed to say, not how they really feel.
Hi Andrew
Thanks for pointing out the challenges in giving meaningful feedback in some cultures. Sadly I see that here too - the saying what you think you should say - not what you feel.
[...] Feedback is one of the themes on the internet in the last 10 days and as a psychologist, I almost always weigh in. [...]
Honestly I think Americans as a whole go one of two ways:
1. They give feedback solely based on their agenda often coming across as whiney and non-constructive.
2. People are so careful about not wanting to come across as having an agenda and being one of those “whiney” types that they remain silent because they do not know how to tactfully verbalize their feedback within their comfort level.
My wife and I have been working on this lately, for customer service problems we run into throughout our lives. We tend to write letters and have had good results so far. It is a hard thing to get out of to not “let things go” and address issues you may have with strangers. Especially since, by nature, we tend to be pretty subdued. We never ask for anything in the letters we just state how we would like to see things improve. I have found that practicing giving feedback has made me more receptive in receiving it.
[...] Johnson commented on my recent post Why is it so hard to get feedback right with such a great idea I decided to repeat it [...]
Hi Dan
I loved your suggestion about feedback for better customer service so much I posted about it separately.
Thank you. As usual your comment got my mind working !