The Secret Of Feedback
Article | Accountability Insights
Most successful leaders agree that honest feedback—received and given, appreciative and constructive—is a matchless expression of mutual respect in the workplace. So, why don’t we do it more often? Do we lack mutual respect on our teams? One business leader, determined to change his team’s and his organization’s culture, began asking his direct reports a few simple questions around feedback:
“Do you think not giving feedback to someone is respectful?”
“Do you think not seeking feedback from someone is respectful?”
“Do you think going around someone to his or her boss is respectful?”
“Do you think going to a peer in hope that he or she will say something to someone else is respectful?”
“Do you think not telling the truth, as you see it, is respectful?”
“Do you think not hearing the truth, as someone else sees it, is respectful?”
Within a few months, his direct reports got the message and started exchanging feedback more honestly and frequently. And, yes, the culture of the team and the organization changed for the better.
Over the past two decades, we have implemented the feedback process in thousands of organizations with hundreds of thousands of people at every organizational level in countries around the world. The experience has taught us invaluable lessons about the extraordinary power associated with the giving and receiving of feedback. Here are a few of them:
| • | Feedback doesn’t happen unless you make it happen. | |
| • | It’s easier to ?lter feedback than it is to accept it. | |
| • | People don’t usually act on feedback without some sort of follow-up. | |
| • | Feedback declines after people improve because they inevitably assume it’s no longer necessary. | |
| • | Organizations underestimate the dif?culty involved in getting people to give and receive feedback. | |
| • | People appreciate the feedback they receive only after they have applied it and seen its impact on their results. |
When we regularly seek and offer feedback with the intent to improve individual and organizational performance, we not only demonstrate genuine respect for each other, we also consistently achieve better results. That’s the secret of feedback.
To learn more about how feedback can help you create a Culture Of Accountability for achieving desired results in your organization, we invite you to join the Accountability Community at www.partnersinleadership.com, where you can review actual client case studies.
Culture Of Accountability and Accountability Community are registered trademarks of Partners In Leadership, Inc.