Developing our feedback culture at Royal Greenwich
Written: 12 December 2023 by Alex Sturtivant, Senior Product Manager
Feedback is something a lot of us feel uncomfortable about.
We understand the value of feedback, but we frequently push it to the bottom of our to-do list, telling ourselves we’ll do it another day. In the Product team at Royal Greenwich we wanted to change this and get more comfortable with giving each other feedback.
Why we want to get better at feedback
Our team is relatively new. We first formed in 2021 and since then we’ve grown to a team of over 40 people. Being a new team means we’re often facing new challenges together for the first time. We don’t always have a set way of doing things, so we’re regularly exploring new ideas and ways of working to see what works best. This can naturally feel quite difficult, but if we’re open to giving each other feedback about how we’re working, we can learn faster and work more effectively together.
But how do we get more comfortable with feedback?
We started with a discussion in the Product team about the reasons why we avoid giving each other feedback.
Why we refrain from giving each other feedback
We found that the biggest reason for avoiding feedback was our fear of upsetting someone and damaging our relationship with them. A lot of us worry how the feedback will be received by the other person and whether they’ll take it personally.
“I’ve always been very cautious and gentle with my feedback because I know working life can be tough and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I tend to be protective of others in my team, so although I knew feedback was important, I didn’t think it was important enough to risk upsetting anyone.”
This was supported by a feeling of not having the authority or justification to give feedback.
“I sometimes worry that I’ve not done enough to understand the underlying cause”
We talked about wanting to feel confident that we understand the context before giving someone feedback, in case we’re making premature conclusions. We also spoke about worrying whether we’ll be put under the spotlight if we give someone feedback — what if we’re no better ourselves?
A personal reflection
As a Product Manager, I’ve always felt strongly about the importance of feedback within a team. We’re all affected by our own experiences, assumptions and biases, and often it’s only feedback from someone else that can help you spot those. When a team feels comfortable to give each other feedback, we can make progress faster and build better products for our users.
A couple of years ago I read Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Radical Candor is a framework to help teams give each other more effective feedback. It’s now one of the books I refer back to, and recommend to others, most often.
I introduced the framework to the Product team in one of our weekly learning sessions, to see if it could help us on our journey of feeling more comfortable with feedback.
Understanding radical candor
Radical candor is based on a simple principle: we should give feedback that is clear but kind.
This means being specific with our feedback, challenging the person directly, while also showing that we care about the person we’re giving the feedback to. We can show we care by doing things like:
- describing specific behaviours rather than personality traits
- giving feedback shortly after the event happened
- observing how they respond to the feedback and ensuring they feel okay
The framework also highlights what happens when we don’t practice radical candor — we slip into other kinds of feedback that are much less helpful or even damaging. These were called:
- ruinous empathy
- obnoxious aggression
- manipulative insincerity
In our session we found that ruinous empathy — the misconception that staying silent is the kindest thing to do — is a trap a lot of us fall into.
“The concept of ‘ruinous empathy’ was eye-opening to me. It helped me see that by being too gentle and vague in my feedback, I was actually holding others back from achieving their potential and doing them a disservice.
It was really useful to see that feedback can be a caring thing and that sometimes it is more hurtful to the person to not give them the feedback and leave them in the same position in their career and development.”
Feeling more comfortable with feedback
We spent some time looking at examples and then reflecting on our own experiences of giving and receiving feedback and how this framework might help. We also created a pledge that people could sign if they wanted to use it to show others that they were trying to practice radical candor.
“I liked that [radical candor] encouraged people to detach feedback about work from themselves as a person — it is not a criticism of you personally but simply a way for us to work better together.”
Since our discussion, there’s been a notable shift in the team of how we give and receive feedback. There’s been a general sense of people being more open to receiving feedback, and less fear about being direct with giving feedback.
“I’ve been more proactive about giving people difficult feedback. I see giving feedback as kind now. It stops unexpected surprises, makes expectations clear and helps people know where they can grow which we all appreciate.
I always make sure the feedback is action/outcome based and never about how people do something or personality traits which is the best way to avoid upsetting people.”
Each person in our team will want to practice a different flavour of feedback, but taking the time to explore this topic together has been a useful step in helping us better communicate our feedback and feel more comfortable in the process.
If you’re in a similar situation, check out the framework by looking at the Radical Candor website, reading the book or listening to the podcast. Kim also posts on X (formerly Twitter) regularly on the topic of radical candor.
