Some reflections on exchanging weekly feedback and its value to Business Performance.

Firstly, I was moved to view Gallups 30 minute webinar, which I have provided in a link below.

Amongst a valuable array of messages, I particularly noticed their reference to the key importance not of annual feedback, or even bi-annual feedback, but their underlining of the value of?weekly?feedback.

My immediate reaction was a gut reaction to oppose this.?On reflection, I give this practice of weekly feedback my full support.?Why??I engineer my life to receive balanced feedback almost every day… so, “weekly feedback” is then a much easier a concept to embrace.?It is backed up by the research that I read and embraced about leaders of high performing teams who had developed the habit of giving frequent feedback with an emphasis on strengths together with a suggestion for change going forward.

In a world where we are more acutely aware of mental health, I am reminded that the absence of feedback is a significant source of poor mental health.        

Many of us, without feedback, remember or emphasise more the things we have done wrong, and do less justice to the things we do well.?Others have lived a life with little or no positive feedback and subsequently find rare positive feedback difficult to take on board.

I recall working with a senior group in a high-tech context: as part of the close to the first day of an event, the group paired off to exchange positive feedback.?I noticed one good person in tears and went to talk to them. They disclosed;

“in over 15 years with this company this is the first time that people have said how and why they value what I bring and it was suddenly overwhelming”.?

As much as critical feedback if helpful, it is a reminder that even 50 years ago the British School of Motoring (BSM) noticed that instructors who gave mostly positive feedback, with suggestions for the next part of the journey had a higher pass rate than those who dwelled on negative feedback.

Feedback or Feed-forward

I also recall that a long time ago, I somehow quietly dismissed the “new” term “feed-forward” as a mere play on words for “feedback”.?How wrong I was!

Somehow “feedback” puts a focus on the past. ?This has its place; in a murder investigation it is indeed the case of looking back and looking critically at the evidence.

For less serious issues, the notion of “feed-forward” reduces defensiveness and encourages change.?In my own case, a trusted colleague said: “a strength is that you always answer my email swiftly.?As my life is busy and intense, going forward I would value your emails more if you reduced their length by 70% and trust that your “pithy” insight is enough.

If we were an athletics team in a game or on a track, then this would be close to the perfect form of feedback: although I cannot undo the past, I can raise my game going forward.

So sad if this “feed-forward” happens just once each year, or twice or four times.?It is self-evident that as an athlete I will benefit from motivational feedback each and every week, if not every day, or after every game: what I did well and GOING FORWARD what I might do more of or less of.

Three summary points:

1. The absence of regular feedback undermines good mental health: as people we often dwell on our perceptions of what we did wrong.
2. The switch from feedback to feed-forward is not just a play on words.?It brings a psychological gain.
3. All this is cemented by Gallup’s research that WEEKLY feed-forward is one of the game changers (even though they use the term “feedback”

Stay observant, connected and contract with others for weekly feed-forward, possibly two-way.