Have you used Magic Feedback?
An avid dreamer finds magic beans, an amazing chef discovers a secret ingredient, a great leader develops key principles. These personalized findings, to each their own, make an individual, a process, an organization better than others around them. These discoveries are not hidden secrets rather the ability of the finders to identify critical factors that can take something from okay to outstanding.
At Synavos, we studied our process to find this critical factor for ourselves, our employees and partners. What is that makes and will further help make us stand out from the crowd?
We call it ‘Magic Feedback’.
It works like a charm and makes our processes, products and projects downright amazing. When a business values feedback of the people it is working with, outcomes are smooth and successful, way beyond the level achieved in the market. We are the magic wand that our stakeholders use and together we create solutions that solve user needs like an on spot spell.
So what is Magic Feedback?
It is a tool, a system and above all a culture that helps nurture and hone relationships and ideas. Magic feedback is more than a just a small step part of a larger process; it is a complete way of working that breeds strong values and a people-centric work environment.
Like any great concept it has some cornerstones that make it effective.
- There is no such thing as negative feedback: if you don’t let your ego become a burden, all feedback can be used either to improve yourself or just understand the other person!
- Failures makes futures: we believe failures are a better teacher than successes. So convert failures in to experiences, useful for growth and progress.
- It is one of the rare free resources: fortunately this method of improvement doesn’t have any cost. So ask, analyze and transform!
- No whining, only constructive criticism: complaining ruins morale and productivity. Make sure you only encourage feedback that opens up possibilities of doing things in a better way.
How does Magic Feedback work?
The results of Magic Feedback are phenomenal and pay off through improved quality of relations and services.
Step 1: Gather input from the different feedback points are established across the whole organization. These points may vary for each organization depending on the nature of their activities and team size. Establishing these touch-points will help the culture to be adopted company wide by making stakeholder an active user of this system.
Step 2: a process of giving feedback is established to maintain smooth inflow. This is very critical. Since every stakeholder is different, the process needs to be customized. We have always tried to maintain a flexible and open culture that encourages direct feedback from everyone. The point is to make it easy for everyone to actually give feedback so that the system can reap rewards.
Step 3: convert feedback in to action items that can actually be ‘fed back’ in to the process. The process of successful feedback can only be a loop. People will only continue giving feedback if they know it will be valued enough to bring about change.
Step 4: the action item are then discussed with the relevant executioners in the organization. This helps employees understand why the iteration is needed and how it will improve the current situation.
Step 5: back to step 1 again. The loop is infinite as long as you seek improvement.
Who feels the magic?
Employees
Magic Feedback empowers each employee to be an initiator of improvement and change.
Teams
Inter and intra- team relations are made stronger through mutual support towards career and personal growth.
Customers
In an agile way of working, iterations ensure a focused and prioritied development with continuous integration of feedback.
Culture
Magic Feedback pioneers a healthy culture that is change-friendly, autonomous and progressive.
