What method are you using?

The question you should ask whenever someone requires feedback, or there’s a brainstorming/ideation/innovation session you’re invited to, or you want to understand what’s in people’s head.

There is an extreme corporate laziness when dealing with people. We have blueprints and process in architecture, we have testing principles, design standards in software and a workflow for our sales process.

But yet, no method of dealing with the most complex and irrational item of all – people.

You are guilty of this if you don’t have good answers to the following

• When you practice a presentation with a group of colleagues, how do you ask for feedback?
• When you want to understand a teams motivation, how do you ask for it?
• When you do a brainstorming session, how do you do it?
• When you want to understand what a group of people do, how do you do it?
• When you want to get consensus on something… do you simply ask?
• If you are deciding what’s important and what’s not, what is the method?

A cookbook is a set of methods to achieve an outcome. The outcome being a chocolate cake. It gives you the ingredients, the timing, the steps. Each serves a purpose. You balance the sweet and the savoury, you don’t let any of the ingredients over power the others. You use certain tools like a sifter to make sure certain ingredients work in unison. You also have permission to put your own icing on it, or make amendments. But without the recipe you can’t have any certainty that you’ll come out with something like what you want.

You need to take people more seriously, more deliberately than baking a cake.

I’d like to get feedback

Let me explain using a simple method called Rose Thorn Bud. This method is to get/give feedback, critique, classify.

The tools/ingredients. Per person

• 3 different colour post-it notes. Red, green and blue.
• A sharpie

The recipe

Whilst I show you this presentation, I’d like you to

• Your post-its are Red for a rose (good things), Blue for a thorn (not-so good things), Green for buds (suggestions).
• As I speak, whilst I speak – for each point you like, write one clear item on a Rose post-it. One clear item on a Thorn post-it for things you don’t like. One clear item for a suggestion on the Bud post-it.
• Please try write at least 2 per colour. The more the better.
• To reiterate, do this privately whilst I’m presenting, put the post-it’s in front of you whilst I present.
• I’ve now finished my presentation. It’s time to get feedback
• The golden rule – the person receiving the feedback has to keep quiet the entire feedback period. No defending, no justifying, no explanation. This is purely feedback for consideration. It may be incorporated, it may not.
• One at a time, could you come up with your Roses (things you liked), place them on the wall, and talk very briefly on each point that you liked. It should take about 30 seconds to 1 minute person.
• Group the same roses together as you place them on the wall.
• Next for the thorns. Things you didn’t like. Do the same, one at a time. Face the room, explain it, place it on the wall.
• Next are the buds. Put your suggestions one at a time, group them, explain them.
• The group receiving the feedback thanks the audience for their feedback, and may reach out for more information.
• This process takes between 5 and 10 minutes for a group of 10 people.

What just happened?

• Writing the notes as people present encourages active listening.
• Seeing others around you filling out post-its encourages others to do the same.
• If you’re more introverted, putting it on a post-it releases it from your mind on an object that can be moved around and shared in a format you’re comfortable with.
• By asking for at least 2 thorns per person, the team receiving the critique is setting the expectation that this isn’t an assessment, but an opportunity to improve objectively.
• Start with the roses- the good things. Even in the bad times there is some good worth hanging onto.
• By having team members come to the front of the room, face the crowd, share their feedback to the audience – it is executed as objective feedback about the presentation, rather than directed to the people giving the presentation. It takes away the personal confrontation.
• You have post-it’s in front of you… you have to do something with them. It won’t get lost, you don’t close your book or keep it in your head. It’s shared, even if you’re shy. You don’t have to think on the spot, it’s already captured.
• The team receiving the critique isn’t allowed to comment, other than to thank for the feedback at the end. It’s tough, but it’s purely feedback to consider. You may do nothing with it, you’re allowed to do nothing with it.
• It’s visual, the big groups and themes are grouped.
• It’s easy, it’s repeatable.

It’s an illness how lazy we are when dealing with people. This is one method, there are 100’s of others. Google “Design Thinking methods” as a start. Also follow this blog, my daily job is running design workshops with the largest companies in Australia about topics ranging from “How might we enable our people to bring their best selves to work”, to “How do make sure this project doesn’t fail”. I write about these methods frequently.

Methods are critical.