Thanks for the Feedback: How Feedback Leads to High Performance

Peek behind the BFA platforms that delight our members, and you’ll find talented and interdisciplinary engineering teams that work together to drive continuous improvements and new features. But such a synergistic collaboration is rarely inherent — so how can teams begin to build the rapport necessary for creating this type of relationship? One way is through feedback.

Feedback, at its core, is information relating to a past event or behavior from an individual that is then communicated to that person to encourage future actions and habits. It’s a key factor in building a high-performing team, and while we may all understand that it’s important to give and receive feedback, doing so isn’t always as easy as it seems. Questions tend to plague even the most experienced of managers: What is the “right” way to give feedback? When should I be giving feedback? Should I approach feedback differently if it’s positive versus negative?

The questions (and answers) are endless, and there is no silver bullet. But below, I’ll outline some ways we leverage feedback at BFA and within our engineering teams to set employees up for success. Keep reading to learn more.

How We Give Feedback at BFA

Each year, there are four formal processes for exchanging feedback at BFA: two performance reviews and two career development conversations (CDCs). While the former is more retrospective, the latter is about the future, focusing on short- to medium- (six to 12 months) and long-term (two to three year) career goals. Biannual CDCs also allow you to check in on career development and personal growth, as you can define a vision for yourself, working with managers, direct reports, and peers to define tangible action items to focus on over the next six months. Whether it’s shadowing a team member, completing an online course, or finding a mentor to develop soft skills, you can get creative with what you want these action items to be.

If you manage others, it’s vital that you set aside time for CDCs and help your team members develop strategies for growing at BFA. Identify a project that you can delegate, set attainable goals, and coach as often as needed. You can make all the difference when it comes to a team member’s professional development.

Tip! Culture Amp and 15Five are two tools you can use for gathering feedback from your team. Culture Amp can help you gain team insights through easily-to-create surveys (and more), while 15Five is a hub for weekly priorities, recognition, and career development plans.

How to Give Technical Feedback

Once a plan for growth and development has been established, it’s time for employees to do the work. But how do they know if they’re on the right track? You guessed it: more feedback. Giving technical feedback is a core responsibility of tech leads, architects, and other senior roles, and it’s through quality feedback that can reinforce best practices, develop standards, and mentor other engineers. Feedback can occur during meetings, through pair programming, or in a technical design document — but one of my personal favorite feedback opportunities is during pull requests for code reviews.

Key Benefits of Code Reviews

• Efficient quality control: During code review, not only are reviewers able to audit the quality of code and the success of a ticket’s acceptance criteria, but they can also leave feedback in the form of suggestions, questions, and requests for changes. That means that in just hours after working on a piece of code, a code author can learn about the accuracy of their code or be coached on ways to improve, thereby shortening the feedback cycle.
• Tactile learning: Rather than receiving feedback weeks or months later (when the specific code may no longer be top of mind), an author can receive real-time feedback that allows them to better retain new knowledge and apply their learnings to both the project at hand and projects in the future.
• Growth and development: Code reviews often spark discussions filled with insights that both developers and reviewers can learn from. Even when suggestions are postponed, a viewer of a pull request can glean fresh information or new techniques to add to their toolkit.

How to Give One-on-One Feedback

As an engineer manager, I enjoy giving feedback to direct reports and prioritize it in my day-to-day work — but I also believe that delivering feedback to my own manager and the leadership team is equally important. I make sure to relay my own thoughts and opinions, in addition to key information I hear from my team, and I regularly seek feedback about my work from my direct reports, peers, and leaders. I maintain this communication line through one-on-ones (or 1:1s), regular check-ins between two people, like a manager, and a direct report.

The main objectives of a 1:1 are to build a relationship based on trust, discuss career development, gain alignment, and give support in the form of coaching, recognition, and feedback. These meetings provide one of the best platforms for giving and receiving feedback, and it’s the manager’s responsibility to engage in these discussions, ask difficult questions, and listen without judgment.

Main Objectives of 1:1s

• Build trust: During 1:1s, your people skills take center stage. As a leader, you’ll have to approach conversations in a respectful, helpful, and constructive way, remembering that each individual is different — and that what works for one may not work for another. So get to know your direct reports and what the right approach might be for them. Personalization is at the heart of everything we do, from how we pick Glam Bags to how we communicate with our colleagues.
• Stay on track with career development: Remember those action items we talked about creating after having a CDC? A 1:1 is the best time to check in with each other about them. Is progress being made? Is there feedback to share? Are any defined metrics improving? An action plan isn’t effective unless it’s being executed, so make it a priority to review it with your team and hold each other accountable.
• Coach and get aligned: When you manage others, you’re exposed to many different situations. Each person on your team has a unique personal life, drive for success, and career goals and a 1:1 gives you the chance to coach them as they navigate their time at BFA, plus get aligned on goals and responsibilities.

Respect, Communication, and Our Cultural Behaviors

Feedback is essential to embodying our BFA cultural behavior of “We respect each other and communicate honestly.” If you observe something about a colleague (whether positive or not, recognition or criticism) that you think could provide an opportunity for them to learn or improve, find the right place, time, and way to communicate it — then do so. Be honest, empathetic, humble, and offer your feedback with sincerity and kindness.

If you’re in a leadership role, then listen. Ask for feedback if it does not arise spontaneously, and be ready to listen without judgment. And, most importantly, be grateful when someone shares their opinions with you.

Once feedback has been shared, discuss action items, create a plan, see it through, and then review the results. Whether you’re sharing constructive criticism or receiving it yourself, creating a feedback loop fosters an attitude of self-improvement that equips teams for success and helps working relationships thrive.

So, what do you think?