The art of sharing feedback
Being able to share feedback constructively is a skill that is difficult to acquire, requires empathy and compassion, and is also an underrated skill.
All of us share feedback all the time - with our colleagues, juniors, seniors, managers/bosses, and also friends and family. Many of us fail several times to deliver our feedback constructively.?
A failed feedback delivery often results in blaming and/or shaming someone and sometimes both.
Unfortunately, our traditional education system uses shaming as a badge of honor while delivering feedback. I was a topper in my class. I still remember how I was made to stand on the bench in front of the whole class by a teacher because she caught me checking the watch of the student sitting beside me. Shaming leaves scars on our minds that are difficult to erase. This culture of shaming many times reflects in our behavior when we grow and, it comes out frequently when people get any authority position.
In today's work environment, using shaming while delivering feedback easily backfires wherein the person who got shamed gets angry, feels humiliated, and may not want to comply or cooperate with the manager and other colleagues. When this happens, the reason behind sharing that feedback does not serve its purpose.
So, if you are compassionate enough and practice empathy, shaming while delivering the feedback is something that you will avoid under any circumstances.
Shaming should not be an option in any work culture; it should be prohibited. And it has been prohibited in many workplaces, but sadly, shaming still exists in some corners.
Despite all this, many times we fail to deliver feedback constructively. One of the common reasons is misunderstanding the feedback with blaming. The person who is receiving the feedback misunderstands the feedback as blame. Hence, it can have negative consequences on the final outcome.
For many of us, this is a considerable challenge. How do we ensure that our feedback results in a healthy and positive outcome and not a negative experience?
In my opinion, you can never ensure that and, many times you will come across a situation where you will find that the feedback has been misunderstood by the person and not giving the desired outcome.
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The only way to handle this situation is by following two important values while working - Integrity and Courage.
Integrity - While delivering the feedback, I will always ensure that my heart knows that I am just delivering the feedback so the person will get to know how to improve and take necessary actions to recover from the possible impact in the future.
Courage - If still the feedback is misunderstood with blaming, my courage will ask me to accept my mistake, show empathy and compassion towards the person, and help them understand the issue rather than putting them off. The courage to keep my ego aside is essential in this situation.
The entire purpose of sharing the feedback is to help people understand where they are lacking or where they can improve so their improvement will help me improve our work and the quality of the delivery.?
The moment this narrative turns into blaming and shaming, the person who has received the feedback loses trust and respect for the person who gave the feedback. All this can result in creating a negative bias about us in the mind of that person, gossiping about us in the office behind our back, and eventually resulting in unproductive work even though the feedback was valid and up to the point.
Many of us are lone players and can deliver maximum output when we work alone on a project or task, but we fail to deliver the same when we have to get the same thing done by a team of professionals.
I have failed many times.
Learning to deliver feedback constructively is an ongoing learning activity. The person who delivers maximum output with maximized efficiency by delegating the work is a unicorn. Companies should never let go of such people if they ever want to become unicorns in the future.?
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