Feedback is a loaded term. We have been conditioned to expect the worst when someone asks “Can I give you some feedback?” That’s because most people avoid giving feedback when the issue is a small one that is easily corrected. We often wait to provide feedback until the issue is so large it cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet—it must be addressed, immediately. By this time the issue is, or feels, bigger and more daunting than if it had been addressed at the outset.
When we receive feedback, we can experience an amygdala highjack—moving into fight or flight mode—interrupting rational thought and focusing instead on readying to defend ourselves. No wonder we have learned to avoid giving and seeking feedback on a regular basis.
However, we must break that cycle if we want to provide a consistent, day-to-day, rich development environment for employees; one in which colleagues learn from each other in the flow of work, day in and day out. The question is: How do we do that?
At Chartis, we started at the beginning. We chose a simple feedback model that would easily work in our environment. Any model that is appropriate for your organization will fit the bill—the key is to agree on one way of thinking about feedback organizationally, so everyone is speaking the same “feedback language.”
Once we chose the model, our learning team designed the innovative “Everyday Feedback” program for all colleagues. This program combines self-directed, on-demand learning with practical application to embed the learning. The on-demand portion provides content that teaches each colleague about the feedback model, why feedback is important, what can get in the way of feedback and the cognitive implications of giving and receiving feedback.
Next, we created an interactive, three-hour live, virtual workshop that follows the on-demand content, during which colleagues apply what they learned. In advance of the workshop, colleagues are given a realistic (but simulated) scenario with instructions that they will have to provide feedback to the colleague in the scenario. In the workshop, colleagues practice giving feedback to actor-coaches who are well-versed in the feedback model. The actor-coaches play the role of feedback recipient in the scenario and adapt their responses to what the colleague says and how they say it. Staying “in role,” based on the learning points in the scenario, they respond realistically to what the participant is saying, allowing the learner to experience authentic reactions to how they frame the feedback.
Colleagues have realized huge value from working with these actor-coaches who don’t break role and allow the conversation to play out. That said, if a colleague is “stuck” or has created a nonproductive situation, the actor-coach will take a time-out and provide coaching to the colleague on how they are managing the feedback conversation. After that coaching moment, they go back into the scenario and try again—with much better results. That real-time, in-the-moment coaching—and feedback—allows colleagues to try out different approaches and experience the impact of their words and actions—and then try again to refine the impact.
In each of these practice rounds, another colleague observes the practice feedback session, learning from others’ experiences. The observing colleague also practices their feedback skills by offering their perspective of the role-play to their colleague giving feedback to the actor-coach (following the feedback model), creating a meta-feedback practice loop.
Colleagues are also instructed to bring a real-life feedback situation to the workshop and spend a session practicing giving that feedback to another colleague. They rehearse saying the words they would use in the real-life situation, and get input from their practice partner on what they might change in their feedback planning or preparation to make the real-world feedback conversation as constructive and collaborative as possible. This peer coaching session helps bridge the practice from a simulated scenario to a colleague’s real-life situation.
Lastly, colleagues spend some time in facilitated small groups discussing how to plan for, conduct and follow up on a feedback discussion, reinforcing that a productive feedback conversation is not done off the cuff but is a thoughtful and respectful sharing of perspectives to define a common understanding and way forward. The best feedback conversations are intentional and are not one-and-done. These conversations, like all important conversations, have the best result when thoughtfully planned and executed, and their outcomes reinforced. As colleagues plan for feedback conversations, we ask them to consider questions like: What behavior should the colleague start, stop or continue? How can we support someone, ongoing, who is trying to alter their behavior? What role does the manager and the organization have in reinforcing the shift?
We rolled out this program firmwide and as a result, our colleagues have a common feedback language. This helps when not only giving feedback but when seeking it as well. A colleague seeking feedback can guide the feedback provider by asking questions related to the model, thus allowing the receiver of feedback a more equal footing with the provider of feedback in the process, and, in the best cases, reducing the power dynamic in the conversation.
A productive feedback session is essentially a conversation about a discrete behavior in a specific situation. If both parties can objectively discuss the behavior and the impact it had, they can talk about how to reinforce that behavior in the future (with positive feedback) or how to demonstrate different behavior in the future (with constructive feedback). Either way, feedback should be a sharing of perspectives—a discussion—not a one-way diatribe that leaves the listener confused, hurt or feeling misunderstood or disrespected.
We use the language of “everyday feedback” to help each other remember to provide those insights of positive and constructive feedback. We also ask colleagues in our various engagement surveys if they are receiving timely and useful feedback. We have shown great progress towards making giving and receiving everyday feedback routine— – and we continue to embed this in how we work, every day.
Feedback is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal for our own continued development and to help develop others. Our “Everyday Feedback” program has given colleagues at Chartis the language and the practice to embed feedback into our daily workflow. Colleagues are more aware of the need, and the benefit, of giving and receiving feedback.
