Feedback in action
Given the perspective we have offered, we don’t want to add another prescriptive tick-box list to the many that already exist. But we do acknowledge that our analysis suggests some elements that should enable fruitful dialogue around feedback. These are as follows:
Preparation and opening
1. What is the feedback giver’s intention? What is their mindset? Which system are they representing? Are they primed to turn up as a partner, or are they ready to judge or teach?
2. What have they observed or noticed, both patterns of behaviour (with examples) or significant events that might be representative or outliers – offering data and facts. The key skill here is high quality observation.
3. The impact of those actions or behaviours – offering data and facts. In this, and the next element, clear communication is paramount.
4. Why do they think that impact matters for the individual, team, or organisation – giving an opinion or perspective.
Dialogue
5. Listening to the receiver’s response, inviting, and answering questions – clarifying data and perspective. All the skills of active listening help here.
6. Asking about the receiver’s experience, perspective, and intentions – collecting data and noticing the receiver’s state of mind. Curiosity and openness are indicators of a productive mindset, whereas urgency, defensiveness and judgement are not.
7. Working towards a common understanding, or at least a shared awareness of how their perspectives differ.
Bridge to the future
8. Seeking resolution and conclusion – what the receiver takes from the conversation, what they might do, how the feedback giver might help. The mindset and intention here is towards growth and a willingness to support experimentation.
Conclusion
Feedback is a simple idea that repays the investment of time, skill and awareness if done well. Done right, feedback not only benefits from relationships based on trust and a culture that prizes growth, but it also helps to create them.
The most positive paradigm for feedback is systemic and inside-out. The feedback giver’s and the organisation’s operating paradigm for personal development informs the meaning of feedback. That means that personal change and growth ultimately happens through sense-making and insight: when something makes sense to the receiver, there is adaptation. This premise provides a foundation for both well-handled feedback and for creating an environment of trust and collaboration. The receiver is more likely to recognise the feedback as valid and relevant. That in turn means that both parties can engage in a conversation that promotes openness, ease, recognition, and hope, not one that creates defensiveness, discomfort, insecurity, and despondency.
Organisations, and those who lead them, therefore need to invest in both systemic and individual awareness if they wish to harness feedback. They need to build on that awareness to support strong, trusting relationships and an environment that has more of the Pride and less of the Jungle. Then training on process will have both traction and credibility.
Offering feedback is an opportunity to have a different type of conversation. A conversation in which great listening, curiosity and shared exploration leads to greater awareness, insight, and innovation, as well as a deeper, more trusting relationship.
If someone has some feedback to give, and they want to help release the lion inside another, they need to embrace SIMBA: developing themselves so that they have the Skills, Intention, Mindset, Beliefs, and Awareness required.
Stephen Burt and Marien Perez, May 2024
If this article has provoked any thoughts that you’d be happy to share with us, please get in touch. Equally, if you think we might help you explore the implications of this article for you, your team or organisation, let us know and we’ll arrange a conversation. We can be reached at:
stephen@gibsonstarr.com
marien.perez@coach-you.co.uk