HARD FEEDBACK FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT|

As Marshal says that ‘FEEDBACK’ is a step forward, he calls it FEEDFORWARD-one of the fundamental methods of growing people at work to their best potential. For any company feedback at the right time is a way to save people from the embarrassment of non-performance. It informs employees, fuels productivity, and helps managers establish credibility. But there are several obstacles to a healthy feedback culture and even the best leaders sometimes avoid it in name of people orientation. Without the feedback, both the organization and the employee suffer. A potential growth opportunity for the organization and the employee may be lost.

Recently watched a perfect example of the same in a series called Jeet ki Zid- A series on Zee5 which shows a real-life story of a special forces officer, who was able to make a come back to life because of the hard feedback and a push towards his potential. This army story on motivation and feedback by the team -family, and friends is an inspiring journey of a professional to combat challenges of life. It is only the people watching you, who sometimes make the best assessment about your shortcomings, and support you on making the right judgment calls to make amendments and course corrections.

It’s vital to provide honest, at times difficult feedback that provides key insights to employees about their performance, establishes a consistent, values-driven culture, and rewards people for their efforts. Engaging in a feedback conversation is an art that needs to be nurtured over some time by the managers and leaders. Understanding the subject before you engage is important homework that needs to be done. Equipping leaders with appropriate skills to engage in feedback conversation is essential.

A healthy feedback culture is one in which every team member feels comfortable giving constructive positive or negative feedback to any other team member without fear of retaliation. It sounds simple, but even an otherwise strong organization can struggle when it comes to feedback. Unhealthy habits develop such as ambiguity or zero feedback can later snowball into other complexities in customer feedback or employee morale.

For healthy feedback to become a core value in an organization, there needs to be trust. The giver and receiver need to have a healthy understanding and trust to participate in the process of feedback. The receiver of that feedback needs to trust that the giver has their best interests at heart and genuinely wants to help.

Unfortunately, trust like this is increasingly rare in the startup community. Even the generosity gap is one of the reasons for trust failures. This is the tendency to be more generous in evaluating ourselves than we are in evaluating others.

6 Steps For Healthy Feedback Culture

1. Close this generosity gap – which starts with understanding why such a gap developed in the first place – the answer, in most cases, is defensiveness. Leaders need to become examples for their teams in this and start by recognizing the subtle ways that they promote the generosity gap by being defensive with each other and with others. Hard feedback plays an important role here – both in accepting it from others and providing it to employees. Good hard feedback is information that flows between two people that the receiver accepts and learns from.
2. Being attuned to the goals and needs of employees -Regular one on ones and relationship building before you get into the feedback conversations. Like a sports coach, the exact identification and remedy for the challenge to be discussed. The regular feedback conversations to address performance-productivity and potential growth can develop every individual into their best versions.
3. Speaking directly to individuals -Sharing feedback in a private and not in public forum to get the best results.
4. Not using Exaggerated language –The verbiage needs to be appropriate to get the best outcomes. Sometimes offensive and exaggerated words and comparisons can have adverse effects.
5. Defining the problem and the solution -Objectively structuring the solution and the problem for better understanding and clarity.
6. Behavior Change or action needs – Change in current actions and behaviors for better outcomes in performance can be more impactful.

Focus on a healthy feedback culture promotes trust and relationship building. It is designed to maintain a healthy, open relationship, and it validates the feedback process in future interactions – instead of creating pain that both parties will seek to avoid in the future. In a strong feedback culture where these relationships are prioritized and the process by which feedback is given is thoughtful and intentional, a defensive response is less likely.

What is the frequency of your conversations with your directs? Are you comfortable giving hard feedback? Have you established a relationship of trust to facilitate a better feedback mechanism? Have you used coaching methods to grow and groom your team? Do share with us, your perspectives on hard feedback and how it has helped your team?