Feedback for the future
How to give valuable feedback without hurting people
It’s annual planning time and the executive staff at Wizeline organized an offsite meeting to develop our 2018 business plan. For team building, we decided to spend the first part of this meeting giving feedback to each other, followed by a “What would I do if I were CEO?” session.
Starting your most important meeting of the year with executives giving each other feedback is risky because it sets the mood for the rest of the day, and potentially for the business planning process. Years ago I made the mistake of working with a consultant who facilitated a feedback session with senior leaders in which we used the Stop-Start-Continue approach. The process surfaced negative feelings that left participants feeling shocked, angry, confused, or betrayed. Several were distracted for the rest of the meeting and couldn’t let go of some of the criticisms received.
The Stop-Start-Continue approach can be just as ineffective as a praise sandwich. You are essentially highlighting two criticisms: Things someone needs to stop doing (because they are driving you or others crazy) and things someone needs to start doing (and the fact that they haven’t started is also driving you or others crazy). The positive feedback, or the things the person should continue doing, gets lost in this open-faced feedback sandwich.
I didn’t want to fail again so I first thought about the goals and desired experience (and residual emotions) for our session before designing the feedback framework. The goals for this session were: 1) to continue building a cohesive and transparent leadership team, 2) to make each other successful (and as a result help make our company successful), and 3) to be role models for the company in creating a feedback culture.
Some of us are fans of the Radical Candor approach but I sensed we needed a more uplifting experience and a forward thinking design since we were planning for the following year. Additionally, our roles had evolved over the past few months and we needed an opportunity for everyone to understand our responsibilities, prior to giving feedback.
Here is the framework we used with three questions we answered for each other:
1. What do I believe success looks like in 2018 for you in your role?
This is not the same as “What would I do if I were you?”. This question gives an opportunity to state and clarify expectations and visions of success for each other, either personally or for their job function. It’s important to first determine what you are giving feedback on — or what success should look like. Imagine trying to ride a bicycle for the first time, when you’ve never seen it done before, and someone is saying “Not like that, yes like that, etc.” until you are cycling successfully. Understanding someone’s vision for success (and agreeing on that) gives you permission to provide feedback.
2.Where do I believe you are on track for success?
This question is about positive feedback on what is working in order to achieve success, versus generic or vague positive feedback.
3. What do I think are the top things you need to work on to be successful?
Here is the part that could pinpoint improvement areas but it is designed in a way that the feedback giver must focus on what the person needs to do from now on, versus what they have not been doing.
Notice that there is nothing in this framework that addresses mistakes? It’s because everyone makes mistakes and no one can change the past. Since our executive team has daily standup meetings and weekly one-on-one meetings, we have plenty of opportunity to give each other ongoing feedback so that we can quickly course-correct. The purpose of this feedback session for our offsite meeting was to target our efforts on the most important actions for the future.
Prior to the session, I asked everyone to prepare a sheet of paper for each person with answers to the above three questions. In the two-hour session we took turns in pairs, sitting knee-to-knee facing each other, and shared what we wrote. In any group of humans, you’ll usually have at least one person who didn’t read or follow the instructions. In our group, one person didn’t complete his prework but fortunately he is a fast mental processor and a feedback junkie so he was able to wing it effectively.
Each pair met for ten minutes — five minutes for the first feedback giver to share their notes and for the feedback recipient to respond and ask clarifying questions. The pairs then exchanged roles. After ten minutes, we rotated and formed new pairs. This process continued until everyone had the opportunity to pair with another person. We had an odd number in our group so one person acted as timer for each rotation so that everyone played the role of timer for ten minutes each.
How did this play out? For me, I was particularly nervous about the feedback I would receive from one executive. Over the past few weeks, I could tell he was frustrated with me in meetings. I had assumed it was because he and I had different opinions about how things should be done. When it was his turn to give me feedback about what I needed to work on to be successful, he took a deep breath and said “I need you to ask me more questions before sharing your opinions about my department.” He could have talked about where I annoyed him but it wasn’t necessary; we both knew something wasn’t quite right with recent interactions. Instead of brewing about where I had made mistakes, his words motivated me to focus on what I needed to do to be successful with him, an instrumental leader of our company.
With another individual, after we went through each other’s feedback, we had additional time and started talking about personal challenges we had been facing. This deeper dialogue was possible because the feedback framework set up a safe environment where we felt comfortable opening up about things outside of work that may be affecting our presence at work.
At the end of the two-day offsite, we held a town hall and shared highlights of our 2018 business priorities as well as the feedback activity. One of the executives revealed to our employees that he got feedback about how his organization needs to communicate better with another organization. With an authentic and heartfelt tone he stated his responsibility to address this important need, one that many employees had already voiced in our employee engagement surveys.
Like many companies we have great people, innovative technology, and a proven track record of growth. We have a ton of work ahead of us in 2018, but with a culture that has this level of commitment to each other, I feel we are well poised for success.
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