Feedback — How important is it for you and your teams?
In a world where companies’ and teams’ cultures and philosophies are centered around fast delivery, time-to-market, lead-time and boasting about those 5 shining stars on your app page in the AppStore, feedback is more crucial than ever. And this is why you should look past it being just a buzzword.
When was the last time you had to fill a feedback form? It doesn’t matter if it was a feedback form that was sent by your company as part of its quarterly efforts to measure employee satisfaction or if it was a form sent by a colleague’s manager via Slack that would be used in a very black box salary review process.
How did you feel like when you were completing the form? Maybe it was one of those neatly organised Google Form surveys with 1 to 5 ratings and a free text box right underneath, you know, in case you really care about telling us more. And by the way, isn’t it weird that those text boxes, the ones which should actually give us the raw feedback, the unadulterated points of how we can improve, are always not mandatory? Why is that? Or maybe it was one of those Typeforms with cool animations and 18 pages of 10 questions each that seem they want to be the be-all and end-all of feedback collection (for which you might want to fire up your Lo-Fi playlist and brew some mint and chamomile tea before starting to look into it).
I’m a big feedback fan, I really am. I try to use it as much as possible as tool for self improvement (both professionally and personally) and whenever I’m asked for feedback (regardless if it’s coming from a colleague, a company survey or an e-mail that I get after ordering something online) I always like to give an objective, structured and exhaustive piece of feedback, hoping, always hoping, that the receiver will see past the first-at-hand emotion of “How dare he think I’m not the best at what I do?” (as we all think about ourselves more than we’d like to publicly admit).
Feedback is an invaluable tool that we’re not using to its maximum potential. Let’s be real about it, we all like to say that Yes, feedback is part of our personal philosophy and we deeply believe in giving and accepting feedback yet how quickly are we skim-reading over received feedback and going first to the ratings? Because, we’re not looking for advice or improvement, we’re looking for validation. Deep down, we don’t want to change, why should we? People should like us by default and all the feedback should not be feedback in its true sense but rather pure validation. In that case, your perception is skewed and you’re disqualifying yourself from potential growth just because you’re instinctively casting aside anything that you don’t agree with and just focusing on the good part, the part that is agreeing with your ego. Yes, the giving part of the feedback is valuable (takes a lot of care for the other person to even think about doing it) but the accepting is also very important (if not even more).
Feedback should be as ubiquitous as Dailies or Refinements. It shouldn’t be listed on the company list of values because it’d be as if you’d list “We pay you at the end of the month, scout’s honor” there, you shouldn’t even mention it, it should be a given, not something you proudly advertise. Giving feedback is not going the extra mile, it’s doing the bare minimum. However, my own experience taught me that we as individuals (and professionals), teams and companies are treating feedback like a buzzword, like something that we have to do because we’re (kindly) asked to. And not even in this case you’ll see 100% participation. I’ve seen C-level people get excited when they have above 50% participation rate to company surveys, yet they don’t do much apart from “Come on team, I know we can do better next time” to foster or make sure that participation is increasing.
On a team level
As a professional, don’t wait until someone asks you for feedback (if ever!) or until you get the form in the mailbox because it’s the appraisals time of the year. Your duty towards your colleagues is to help them grow, support them and let them know when they’ve done something wrong.
Positive reinforcement is key when you want to develop a habit or encourage a newly formed one. Don’t just pat someone on the back at the end of a strenuous 6-months MVP development hell and tell them what good job they’d done. Be there for them and with them at each step of the way and positively reinforce the things that they are doing well, letting them know that they are seen and appreciated. Nothing kills inspiration turned to action faster than not being acknowledged. So make sure you’re nurturing and fostering your colleagues’ habits and actions by letting them know they’re on the right path or why not, by offering your help in case they are going to hit rocky terrain.
Constructive feedback is also important for when things are not going as well as planned. Make sure you’re addressing the problem, not the person. Be hard on the issue, soft on the person. This needs to be your go-to way of approaching this because by putting yourself in the other’s shoes, they’re not in a happy place so by providing something else other than support, guidance, understanding and coaching, you’re not going to help them too much. Focus on the actions that need to be taken to get to that better place, draw up a timeline, a roadmap, set up some follow-ups, touchpoints, what have you, just show your support and understanding.
In the end, be timely with your feedback, be it positive or constructive. If you see a good behaviour and you want to reinforce that, don’t wait until the 1:1 that you have scheduled in 3 weeks to tell them. Say it then! Same goes for the constructive feedback, not wasting time between when you observe the action and when you share the feedback is very important.
On a company level
I’ve mentioned earlier about people who are working on the C-level and get super excited when participation is upwards of 50%. That for me is setting your expectations low. What would I do in their situation?
First of all, my target would be 100%, all of the time. Much like my team’s OKRs would not accepting anything below 100% uptime of our website, I don’t want to believe that people are not invested in helping me take the best decisions for them. And if they’re not, why aren’t they? Getting to the bottom of this is what will help you understand what is broken in your company-employee relationship and why people can’t be bothered to say if they like working there or not.
Most of the times, what I’ve seen is that people do make the effort and take the time to write well thought feedback in your 50-questions survey and then … nothing. No update, no follow-up, nothing. Fool me once, shame on me, the second time I won’t lose time just to play feedback-giving with you. Why?
My expectations as employee (or general feedback giver for that matter) are that once you collect the feedback, you analyse it, categorise it, prioritise it and derive actions from it. Those actions would ideally follow a timeline and some expected results. To not feel cheated and to still want to participate I’d feel the need to be given this transparency and this sign of yes, we actually do care about feedback and this is how.
As employees, we’re getting hit with feedback requests on a weekly basis. What’s the thing that I’ll get out of it if I take the time to think and structure my ideas as content for your feedback form? This is a question I’d need you to answer before you even send the form.
But the above doesn’t only apply to company surveys but also to surveys that you might run after a workshop or a team building activity (or any other frequent collective action). Don’t fall in the trap of thinking that if you ask for feedback you job is done. It’s done only 50%. The other 50% is giving back the people the information about what you plan to do with their feedback.
Then, of course, it’s the feedback that we as consumers give (should we have the means to) to companies, but I think that would deserve its separate article.
Conclusion
If you’re part of a team (manager or not), think about how you apply feedback to your day to day life and how you could get better at it. Both at giving it but also at accepting it, when someone shares it with you.
If you’re running feedback surveys on a company level, always have a clear plan in mind what you’ll do with that feedback before you even ask for it. Showing engagement and transparency from your side drives participation and commitment (and people will actually want to give you feedback for real, not 1–5 ratings and no text).
As a manager or leader, feedback should be one of your go-to tools that you’d employ on a daily basis. If you want to read more about a common pitfall you might do unconsciously now that you’re managing hybrid teams, you might want to check this other article of mine.
If you’d like to get in touch on any of the subjects above or about leadership in general, I’m always reachable through my LinkedIn profile. Drop me a line! Whether you had a similar or totally different experience, I’d love to hear about it.
