Hidden Pitfalls of Anonymous Feedback

When done correctly, feedback can be that helpful push you need in the right direction, but it might derail you when done badly. In general, people understand the value of feedback and want to collect as much as possible.

However, when they receive feedback and it is less than they were expecting or it’s not very useful, they think that it’s because people are afraid to give open feedback. The idea of anonymous feedback then pops into their head as a good solution here.

This cannot be further from the truth.

Anonymous Feedback Is Solving the Wrong Problem

The quality of feedback is low not because people are scared to give you feedback but for other reasons:

• They don’t see any benefit from it.

Your feedback form is yet another daily survey popping into their inbox. This is understandably not the most exciting and high priority thing in their life.

Even if they bother to fill it out, they receive little to nothing back from that activity. Answers often sink into some black hole, and that’s the end of it.

Thoughts like “Was my action useful?” “Was my time spent meaningfully?” “Why do I even bother filling these surveys out when I do not see any changes later?” come into people’s heads.

• They do not care about you.

Saying that people do not care about you can be harsh, but often it’s true. It doesn’t mean that they do not like or don’t want to work with you but rather that they have their own challenges and interests in their own lives. Your feedback is often not the most urgent thing that needs to be solved for them.

• They don’t trust you.

You might work with the people every day, but have you built trust to a level that people feel comfortable helping you to understand your flaws?

Remember that giving feedback is a delicate process, and people react differently. If there is a slight possibility that this person is going to get offended by my feedback, then why would I take that risk and introduce complications into my life? People know that there is never fully anonymous feedback. Everything can be traced back.

First, what does giving good feedback mean for the person leaving feedback?

• It takes effort to think (or sometimes research) about you deeply.
• It takes their valuable time.
• It is altruistic, which means their gain is way smaller than that of the person who receives it.
• It is not always comfortable to give or to receive.
• It is backed by real examples and reveals their private points of view.
• It takes effort from them to structure the message for the receiver and effort to deliver it in the best way possible.

All in all, giving good feedback takes their time and effort while making them personally invested and accountable.

Anonymous Feedback Will Backfire

• It is missing accountability and a filter.

By the nature of anonymous feedback, it makes you NOT accountable for the feedback you give. You can splat out your emotions or point out problems without putting any real thought into it.

Remember, the person who receives this feedback is missing a lot of context, and it really is an easy way to derail a person.

• People are not encouraged to put any meaningful effort into it.

It’s an anonymous process for both sides. The receiver does not see who is sending the feedback, and the sender does not know much about what happens with their feedback.

Why should you make an effort for something non-personal, something that has little impact on you?

• A lot is lost in translation.

People think differently and have different backgrounds that mold their thoughts.

It’s already difficult to write something down and get a message across exactly like you were thinking in your head. An anonymous message makes it especially hard as it misses a lot of its context and personality.

• It is often pseudo-anonymous and encourages the wrong assumptions.

You receive feedback as a block of text, but you know the people who were sending the feedback in. As you are reading this feedback, you try to match the responses to the individuals who likely gave that particular feedback.

All this encourages shallowness, misunderstandings, and noise, and it destroys the trust in your organization.

Turn It Around and Make It Personal

The answer to these problems is not to make feedback anonymous but to make it personal.

Make people care about your development, show how this benefits them, and build trust between the two of you.

First of all, ask people personally to participate in your feedback process:

• Explain why you chose them.
• Show how it works and who the other people are in the process.
• Remind them what have you done recently so that they have a better overview about your plans.

Next, work with your feedbackers:

• Listen and let them speak, and don’t get defensive or try to justify your actions or explain why they are wrong.
• Be open about your good and bad feedback, and share what others have been saying to you. Work with the other person.
• Show that you are making an effort to understand your weaknesses/strong points and that you want to improve. Show the steps you are planning to take to respond to your feedback.

Lastly, remember to follow these tips:

• NEVER take it personally.
• Come back later to show how you made changes or what have you learned.
• Thank people for the feedback, and show that their feedback has been useful and successful.

This will build trust between you and the person who is trying to help you. Only then will they be happy to spend their valuable time to give you feedback.