Why Feedback is Important
CHRISTINE COATES
Empowering your team success. Lead with confidence and impact and unlock the potential of your team | Coaching | Leadership & Team Development | Psychometrics | Talent Analytics | NLP | E Learning | Change
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Why is feedback important?
When we were little, although we didn't realise it, we utilised feedback as a mechanism to learn, adapt and grow. We tried, tested and practiced everything until we had either found out about it, mastered it, got enough of it or decided it wasn't important enough to keep going. Feedback came in many different forms from physical or emotional pain, from success and triumph, from praise, rules and boundaries given by the grown ups (or the other kids) in our lives, from the excitement of mastering a new skill and from failure.
As grown ups, we desire feedback just as much as we did as a child. Feedback is still available to us in the same way it was when we were a child through all of our senses except now, in my experience, we rarely recognise feedback as anything other than a purely verbal occurrence which is often not sought, not welcome when received and not often given well if at all.
However, we are wired to seek out feedback whether we are conscious of it or not.
Why do we need to give feedback in the workplace?
Feedback in business provides valuable information that enables decisions and choices to be made. Top performing businesses stay on top because they constantly seek ways to improve and build on the success they have. They ask for it and they act upon it. Similarly, top athletes and high performing business individuals constantly reflect and review their own performance, seek feedback from others and look to implement those elements that will enable them to become even more effective and successful.
Why would you want to give feedback …….. and why would you want to receive it in the workplace?
It's not just top performing businesses. Think about yourself for a moment and reflect on your career. Have you ever wondered but never been told .......
When you were wondering, how did you feel? What were you thinking? What stories did you tell yourself about your performance? Did you ask?
Whether we admit it or not, we all need regular feedback on goals, direction & performance in fact 65% of employees say they want more feedback . Specifically the type of feedback desired is the type that will develop skills and stretch, grow and aid personal development.
Many managers and leaders feel uncomfortable giving feedback and often lack the necessary skills to do so but without feedback people are in the dark; they have no idea how they stand with their line manager, their peers, or how they are performing in terms of what is expected of them.
Without feedback from a leader, team members will tend to gauge their success or performance against their own measure of success. This makes performance management difficult, difficult conversations even more challenging and any performance issues will only get worse as time passes and they go unaddressed. Equally, unrecognised success can overtime lead to demotivation and disengagement and an inability to maintain successful performance.
There is an art to giving and receiving quality feedback, feedback that will genuinely help. It's a learnable skill, crucial to leading and managing well and a part of communicating effectively, enabling leaders and employees to stretch, grow and fulfil their potential and for businesses to achieve and exceed their results. And yet managers and leaders are often not taught how to give feedback and so avoid it fearing the consequences.
Setting your intent for giving quality feedback
It’s often said that feedback is a gift !!
Sometimes we get exactly the gift we want, sometimes it's unwelcome and sometimes we wish we could give it back.
So how do we give feedback well?
For me its starts with identifying the purpose for giving feedback. The intent.
One of the pre suppositions of NLP ( Neuro Linguistic Programming) is " there is no failure only feedback"
Holding this belief to be true, in my view, helps to promote a culture of continuous improvement and curiosity, a growth mindset where living and role modelling feedback as just the way things are done helps to create a culture of open, honest communication and growth focussed performance . It takes away some of the fear associated with giving perceived "negative feedback" as everyone receives feedback regardless of whether the starting point is under performance, average performance or excellent performance.
In a continuous improvement culture you reflect and review everything. You get into the habit of reviewing success and failure or more simply results and performance. Feedback becomes a part of how you do things. You don't have to take time for it, you don't have to prepare yourself for it, you just do it. So people will come to expect it and will readily start to give feedback to each other and you too.
Feedback becomes then a key part of a set of many people systems and processes, routines and rituals that happen every day and make people more aware of what they are doing and the effect that it is having. When the focus is about continuous improvement, feedback becomes about driving, stretching and growing the individual, team and business, being curious about why something was effective or not effective, worked or didn't work. And of course as a line manager role modelling this behaviour by asking for feedback on your own performance and impact and acting on it. ??
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Tips for giving feedback
Feedback needs to be clear, concise, timely and purposeful in order to be useful so,
Tips for receiving feedback
See my next newsletter for feedback models that can help you to give effective feedback consistently.
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I'm Chrissie and I talk about Leadership Coaching and Development and Organisational Behavioural Analytics. I empower business owners and leaders to realise their potential and grow their business?results.