How to harness the power of feedback for actual change

Much has been written about the value of feedback and how it can help an individual, a team or an entire company change for better.?

But is all feedback equally valuable?

And then comes the next big question. How do you use that feedback to actually bring about the desired change?

It’s extremely human and perfectly natural to have a knee-jerk reaction to a critical feedback.?

First, we get defensive. Our next impulse is to then immediately try to fix the problem so that it goes away.

Instead, what if we took a slightly more pragmatic and measured approach? Let’s first evaluate the source of the feedback. For example, is that just an irate customer having a bad day? Or is that a genuine problem that has been repeatedly flagged??

Then, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Fixing the immediate problem may be easy. But is that actually addressing the issue? Or can you think of a solution that may perhaps take more time but prove be a more intelligent and cost-effective answer in the long run? Many a times, product owners tend to respond to the literal customer complaint instead of analyzing it deeper to identify the actual problem.

Let me share an example. Early in my career, I had come across a customer complaint regarding our Contact section on the website. The customer was having trouble finding the telephone number to reach the company.?

Now we already had the contact number listed on three separate places on the website.?

The first instinctive, knee-jerk response of the team was to add it to a fourth place. But do you think that was the ideal solution? Me neither.?

So I suggested that instead of adding it to yet another place, we should take a look at the whole flow of the site and then redesign it to offer a simpler, clearer contact path.??

Now that was just one way to solve the issue. What we can also do is to try and come up with different solutions. And then pick the one that best addresses the actual issue.

Quite often, people are really good at pointing out problems, but they’re not so good at identifying the solutions. The trick is to not ignore a customer complaint, but also not take everything being said at face value.

The other and equally important side of the coin is to avoid that first instinctive reaction of being defensive and feeling attacked on encountering negative feedback. The human truth is that people just want to feel heard and advocated. When you encounter a dissatisfied customer, stakeholder or even a fellow team member, that’s because they not only feel that something is not working, but more significantly, they feel like they are not being heard. So the first step is to simply listen.

Then, instead of taking the critical feedback personally, take a step back and try and see the bigger picture. Try and understand what lies behind this feedback, and where it’s truly coming from.

This would not only help remove the personal sting, but enable you to actually empathize with the person giving the feedback. In turn, this would empower you to take the feedback constructively and come up with real solutions that create stronger bonds.

Feedback can be destructive or constructive. But it’s how we handle it that can actually help us grow and improve.?

#feedback #constructivefeedback #feedbackforchange #positivechange #teamwork #feedbackforimprovement