Can feedback be a team sport?

Feedback sits as a foundation stone to positive improvement and (when done right) leads to both personal and company-wide growth. We’ve been running a lot of group and team coaching recently, so it inspired us to explore through our twitter chat what changes when we start thinking about feedback in a group, rather than individual, context.

#awful

The initial response surprised us as people from twitter began to share the awfulness for individuals when they are given feedback by their team or in a group setting. People questioned the logic: are people comfortable about asking for feedback?; what if feedback wasn’t positive?; does the group being asked to feedback know the person well enough to give meaningful, actionable insights?

My initial thinking as we chatted live was who would make an individual give and receive feedback in a group? That night I woke at 4am with a memory of having 360 leadership feedback. We had to select 7 people to write feedback about us and then we got to read and talk about what was shared in the group. It was awful. At the time although I didn’t have a name for it I was struggling with imposter syndrome and had a completely different leadership style to everyone else on the leadership team. I was the only one with a high collaborative style and was given feedback from people with a strong directive or pacesetters perspective. I was too ‘green’ to realise this and was left with a deep feeling that I didn’t belong and a list of actions I didn’t want to do.

I also remembered with shame encouraging my team to share what they appreciated about each other in an open group. I hoped to raise morale and boost positive feelings. Instead people awkwardly muttered to one another and recipients judged their ‘appreciates’ to see whose was the best.

In our twitter chat we agreed feedback works best when it is either one person to one person or many to many

One person feeding back to a group doesn’t work because: it may feel like a dressing down; there is little opportunity for a conversation; you need a high level of psychological safety to ask a question or query what is shared.

A group feeding back to one person will be a challenge to get the right level of psychological safety, even if you are sharing positives.

Examples of many to many feedback conversations

There are lots of uses for team feedback: team analysis of client or project work; and explorations of the dynamics of the team itself. Great topics for team exploration include: effectiveness; ways of working; communication; and impact.

The agile community uses retrospectives so the team can look at the most recent work they have done; reflect on successes and areas for improvement. When done well these sessions can provide a helpful ‘step back’ for the team so they can look at their work from a different perspective and consider opportunities for improvement. When done badly retrospectives can be mired in blame and get stuck in the details of project challenges and issues.

I personally love a retrospective. I use them in an open dialogue with clients after each delivery so we can understand what has worked and what would be even better if. My working process is iterative. I start with discovery calls to understand client needs and use feedback to recalibrate and adjust so how I work and what I deliver is spot on. Working in this way deepens the partnership between me and my clients. I personally get a real buzz from hearing the answers to ‘even better if?’ because it means I am always learning.

Bigger benefits from team feedback

It was felt that both the risks and potential rewards for group feedback are higher. When a team shares their feedback as and with their team, the level of peer learning is greater; because each member of the team is able to hear different perspectives; which in turn will boost understanding. By exploring issues as a team it opens up the opportunity to tackle more systemic issues that may be impacting on the team.

Exploring feedback as a team is likely to upset the existing dynamic and enable the team to establish a new normal.

A big challenge is feeding upwards. This means leaders can develop blind-spots and be the last to hear what’s going on. Group feedback is therefore a great way to gather perspectives.

So, what’s needed to make group feedback work?

From the discussion it was clear that much is exactly the same for great one to one feedback. You need to establish high trust; create high psychological safety and a safe space; ensure there is equal air time; and make it a two way conversation.

Priming and preparing a group feedback session is more complex because of the number of different people involved.

You need to set ground rules and expectations. You need to make the purpose of the feedback clear e.g. Why are we asking these questions? What will we use this information for?

A team is full of all kinds of different humans. Some are external brain thinkers. Some may feel their ideas aren’t good enough to be voiced so stay quiet. I ask people to capture their thinking in chat or on a post-it first before speaking. This helps the external brain thinkers to think through what they want to say and gives the reflectors time to consider their views.

You need to think about the interplay of different contributors. When sharing feedback in a group we need to consider how comfortable people are being vulnerable. The trust levels within the group need to be high enough for honesty.

You need to understand what triggers you & your team; avoid judgement and the shame it brings; and work as a team to build trust with one another.

In addition when working within a team you need to consider how you welcome and value divergent thinking; and how we support those less confident to speak; or who articulate themselves in a way that requires further clarity or exploration.

You need to consider familiarity with one another, how long people in the team have worked with each other. The leader’s role is vital, as they can not express clearly enough how open and happy they are to hear what people have to say.

Invest in independent facilitation

An independent facilitator can bring a lack of judgement, set the tight tone, establish the rules of engagement and create psychological safety. They are someone with no agenda, who is able to create the right sort of space and ask the difficult questions.

You can watch the summary of our Twitter chat here:

A great exercise for gathering feedback from your team

If you want to have a go at gathering feedback from your team here is a great exercise you can try.

How effective are we as a team?

Ask everyone to rate 1–10 [1 being not effective at all to 10 being very effective] how effective the team is. Ask them to put a number on a post-it and share it.

Ask everyone to write a brief explanation of the thinking that led to their score, putting one idea per post-it.

Take it in turns to share one idea. Ask if anyone else in the team had a similar idea and if yes to cluster like post-its together. When everyone has gone through their post-its and grouped them together, ask:

What would make the team +1?

If the score was 7/10 what would make it an 8 etc.

Ask everyone to write one idea per post-it on what would improve the team.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the twitter chat: Hannah Pinnock, Simon Cookson, Stefan Powell, Aitch Are, Neil Miller, Esther Barbar and LND HR TECH

Everyone is welcome at the #HumanLeaders Twitter chat we meet every Thursday 1–2pm.