If you point a finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you

why feedback has been one of my biggest learnings in life.

One thing that I was taught early in my career was that ‘if you point a finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.’ I was younger, more naive, and I thought my manager was really poor at their job. 

I complained a few times about my manager to their direct line manager, and on one of these occasions he told me that quote. He also imparted wisdom. Instead of getting annoyed, frustrated and bypassing the root of the problem, why not give and receive feedback to move forward together. 

I started to have very open conversations with my direct line manager; our relationship improved up to the point that we became a great team and we developed a personal friendship.

After this conversation, I started to look at my relationships at work in a different light, and since then I can say that feedback has been one of my biggest learnings in life.

There are a lot of resources on how to give and receive feedback but in this article I want to share with you two points, the true cost of not giving feedback, and how to react when you think you are presented with unfair or wrong feedback.

The cost of not giving feedback

Many managers are scared of giving constructive feedback because they worry about hurting someone’s feelings, or because of the way they think they might be perceived. However, I would like to pose a thought here: 

The negative cost associated with not giving feedback is huge, don’t kid yourself it’s not!

If you shy away from giving feedback, your team members may continue to engage in “wrong” behaviors - and overtime this may become a significant issue.

Let me explain:

Imagine that John lacks attention to detail during a presentation, and Paul, John’s manager, believes that he has missed a couple of key points. 

John, on the other side, believes that he has delivered an amazing presentation and that his content was clear. He has no reason to think otherwise unless someone gives him feedback. 

Now imagine that Paul thinks that if he tells John that his presentation was not clear enough this will hurt John’s self esteem and motivation. 

Paul decides to do what he believes is “better” for John, and tells him nothing. 

Presentation after presentation, though, Paul’s frustration mounts up. In his mind, he believes that John is becoming a worse and worse performer over time, up to the point that Paul decides to terminate John. 

Other than the extremely painful conversation that Paul now has to have with John, he will also need to embark in the journey of finding a replacement for the role, probably having John’s position vacant for a while. 

It is crazy to think that we prefer to go through all this hassle rather than having one single conversation. A conversation that could make John a better professional and make him grow. 

If you look at it from this perspective, giving feedback is the best gift you can give to your team, and the best you can receive from them.

From John’s perspective, this scenario looks extremely unfair, could he have done something to prevent it? Of course. It’s not just Paul that has to provide feedback but John as well should seek feedback from his manager (and provide him as well). Feedback is always 2 ways. 

A common reaction: ‘That feedback is wrong’

One common reaction that we have when we receive feedback is to be defensive about it.

• You might believe that if someone tells you something like “You are overlooking this area of your scope” they are wrong. 
• You may even have proof that you are on top of things and reject that feedback. 

You might be right or you might be wrong. However, sometimes it’s worth exploring. Take a moment, and ask yourself ‘why does someone have this perception of me?’

The key learning here is that whenever we receive feedback, whether we believe it to be right or wrong, it’s always worth conducting a deep investigation on what are the causes triggering that perception in our colleagues. Sometimes just a communication issue or a misunderstanding might lead to giving the wrong impression. Right or wrong, it is indeed common for humans to attribute attitudes to a person based on a specific behavior. 

A deep analysis of good constructive feedback helps fix these situations as well. More often than not you will surprise yourself and grow because of it!

Our feedback culture at talabat

At talabat we strive to continue to develop our feedback culture. One of our three values, ‘together we grow,’ enshrines that ‘feedback makes us stronger,’ and it is definitely a cornerstone of our DNA.

We implement monthly connects where we want our team leaders and their team members to give two-way open and honest feedback with each other on a formalized monthly basis, however we encourage our people to give open feedback on an informal basis, which is vital to make sure that we are moving forward together in such a fast paced, agile organization.

Your feedback

I’d love to hear about some of the best feedback that you have ever received, and how it has helped you move forward and grow.