Relational Feedback

Why Feedback Fails and How to Make It Meaningful

Lise Lewis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138063914
• eBook ISBN: 9781351663267
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business generale
• Index: Business

People are increasingly disenchanted with performance improvement techniques that fail to deliver. This book offers a new and refreshing way of engaging in authentic feedback that is willingly given and well-received. It demonstrates that focusing on the quality of relationship improves the activity of feedback.

The Relational Leadership WAY© that is the core of this book was created from a thematic analysis of a doctoral research study. The framework encourages effective relationships and works through perfecting a 'way of being' that is generative and productive in interactions with others; especially in feedback conversations, whether we are the giver or the receiver. The 10 themes integral to the framework are organised into 3 parts that relate to pivotal points in a conversation and that when given focused attention will improve relationships:

1. What needs preparing to establish relationships that stimulate constructive conversations
2. Active engagement in co-creating generative conversations through adopting relational behaviours

3. You both noticing and reacting to what emerges and impacts on sustaining the quality of the relationship.

This book will appeal to those seeking an innovative approach to performance management and who welcome a reprieve from the relentless pursuit of a universal feedback tool. It is essential reading for:

• Business managers and leaders expected to motivate teams to become high performing work units
• Organisational and independent coaches, mentors and practice supervisors developing trust by building effective relationships that encourage disclosure through engaging and authentic feedback
• Managers, leaders, HR and OD specialists to use as a business text for performance management programmes
• Training organisations to use as a core text for delegates.

1

What perceptions exist about feedback?

‘How to give feedback is one of the hottest topics in business today.’

(Buckingham & Goodall, 2019)

If feedback is this high on the business agenda, why is it so susceptible to tokenism and sometimes completely avoided? My observations when listening to and participating in feedback conversations was to notice that the behaviours underlying this reaction were often driven by negative feelings – anxiety about what to say and how to say it so that the feedback was sympathetically received, and fear at the haunting prospect of what might be said. This is a strange dichotomy when feedback is both the saviour and persecutor of people development.

Talking with receivers of feedback exposes diverse scenarios ranging from benevolent mentors offering a guiding hand to a gripping fear synonymous with heavy footsteps following you in the dead of night! The individual’s perception of feedback is influenced by their worldview, coupled with the significance of the giver and their perceived and actual competence in delivering feedback. Without acknowledging these factors the efficacy of feedback will be questioned.

Cavanagh (2006) states that ‘we need to have an understanding about how to nurture effective levels of openness’; suggesting ‘openness’ as an antidote to avoiding what he describes as ‘derailment.’ I take this reference – relating to managers – as advice to nurture a culture of transparency. In this environment employees are persuaded to voice suggestions through joint feedback on different and improved ways of working. Ideally, everyone is encouraged to take responsibility for their own personal development. Such an improvement culture avoids people being unaware of how to meet expectations and managers inadvertently being held responsible for undermanaging. This accepting of responsibility chimes with the article ‘Dealing Positively with Criticism’ (Warner, 2013) in recognising that ‘despite our natural suspicions, as adults, we also appreciate that criticism can be valuable, particularly if it is well intended or constructive and not maliciously intended or destructive.’ I prefer the terms ‘supportive’ or ‘developmental’ feedback to ‘criticism’; however, the message is clear that given the right conditions people are willing to be open to others’ opinions.

Setting aside the ideal world we need to acknowledge that some people just don’t like feedback; in fact in my experience most don’t! People fear that their performance will be perceived as poor or that they will be criticised for making mistakes and automatically assume the feedback message will be negative (Zenger, 2016). Managers and leaders may fear that their direct reports will react adversely to even the mildest of criticism – possibly with anger and tears. This explains the unwillingness to welcome or give feedback and contributes to perpetuating a cycle of avoidance or diluting the improvement message.

The timetabled scheduling for planning performance management meetings can, therefore, arrive and clash with the urge to procrastinate in arranging these conversations because of the negative associations about content. Even when performance conversations do happen the result is that feedback is reduced to a sterile and disingenuous activity confined only to cosmetic positive comments.

Case study

This fear exhibited by managers and leaders was illustrated by a client who introduced their topic for coaching with the statement: ‘We just don’t do performance management here; no one wants to tackle it.’ Further exploration elicited a scenario of frustration with ‘working around’ one specific manager, resulting in reorganising operational teams to avoid potential confrontation with direct reports at ‘breaking point.’

The prevailing culture was one where managers generally colluded or were in denial about the toxic potential of this attitude. We can conjecture on the reasoning: hoping the situation will ‘go away’; not taking responsibility; believing it’s the role of human resources; mobility of roles meaning that managers were in transit to various locations much of the time and more. In this case study the reason was that ‘everyone is afraid of this person, particularly the immediate line manager.’

You can probably identify different solutions to gain resolution; however, for this client the options were limited. The ‘likelihood of anyone being prepared to listen or discuss the situation was doubtful’ and ‘my only choice may be to leave; a decision I’m starting to accept.’

This may be the best solution for this individual although not necessarily for the business who may be losing a competent employee. Neither does the individual leaving resolve conditions for those remaining. The ‘disrupter’ also continues to damage business operations. The problem will perpetuate until someone has the courage to give feedback and manage the consequences.

In this chapter, I share case study examples from performance management discussions and coach/mentoring conversations to illustrate a range of perceptions about feedback. You will also learn more about the psychology of feedback and how this influences our ability to engage as individuals, teams and leaders, with particular emphasis on reaching the realisation that it’s time to move on from outdated assumptions about feedback. We have to recognise that the catalyst for reciprocal learning and transformational insights informing the continuous improvement essential for the future of work is fostering authentic relationships.

Let’s start this voyage of reframing by giving feedback definition before moving towards how feedback can be viewed differently by using the relationship as launch pad.

Definitions of feedback

An internet search will find you a range of descriptions for feedback confirming that there is not one universally agreed. A simple explanation is that feedback is a ‘reaction to behaviours and actions.’ This may be implicitly recognised without comment or explicitly observed and expressed through shared experiences of feelings, thoughts and perceptions.

Heron, (2009) offers a menu of feedback ‘types.’ I see these as informing an entry to or regulation within the feedback conversation.

• Verbal: content, meaning of what is said, choice of words, construction of statement, tone, volume, pitch, speed, pauses, silences
• Non-verbal: eye contact/use of eyes, facial expression, touch, posture, gestures (arms, legs, head, neck), relative position (near – far – beside – in front of – behind – opposite), breathing
• Awareness: distinguishes between behaviour that is ‘aware of’ and that is apparently ‘unaware of’
• Source (prioritised in order of importance): self, client, others, practitioner
• Corrective: obvious error or omission
• Subjective: general impression, unsupported by evidence
• Objective: with supporting reasons.

CIPD (2017) tells us that ‘essentially, performance appraisal is a means for managers and their employees to review and discuss the latter’s performance, to identify areas for growth and improvement and inform suitable development plans.’ I don’t get a sense of reciprocity or signs of a learning partnership from this definition.

An example from coaching literature is Starr (2012) who defines feedback as ‘normally information or opinion given to a person, who is related to that information or opinion.’ This is a simple description of relaying data attributable to the receiver although the source generating the feedback remains undefined and intangible, giving a feeling of detachment similar to the CIPD definition.

I like the definition offered by Scoular (2011) as this explicitly refers to ‘relationship’; a key feature in this book: ‘the coaching relationship offers a unique opportunity for a client to receive from their coach that rare thing, direct and honest feedback, (relatively) free from the influence of hierarchy, politics, history and expectations.’

In my experience from HR and as a coach, when this transfer of ‘information or opinion’ is lacking, the individual inevitably makes their own assessment about their performance. People understandably assume their contribution at work is at least acceptable and at most valuable. This reinforces the intention of most of us to ‘do a good job,’ and why wouldn’t we believe we do in the absence of data disabusing us of this perception?

This impression of ‘acceptability’ generally results from a culmination of life experiences informed by the sociological perspective. Oetting (1999 pp. 947–982) illustrates this when stating:

Developmentally, the only primary socialization source for the preschool … child is the family. In early grade school years, the primary socalization sources are the family and school. Peer clusters emerge … later, with … greatest effect occurring during adolescence.

The psychological debate adds another dimension when contesting ‘nature vs. nurture’ by emphasising innate ability over learned capability and vice versa. Consequently, various factors shape our knowledge of self as well as the individual’s propensity for self-reflection and scrutiny. An example of this impacting on performance can be comparisons of self with the opinion of influential others. My experience suggests that some people can be highly introspective and externally focused in gaining a sense of self. Others seem to have little interest in self-reflection or knowing what others think of them, to the extent of exhibiting the adage ‘I am what I am.’ Most of us will probably judge ourselves as being at different points along this continuum.

When providing HR expertise to organisations, I noticed recurring misconceptions about what represented potential sources of data for forming opinions of others and informing feedback:

• people’s perceptions of each other shaped from anecdotal exchanges of perceived or anticipated behaviours
• observations peppered with bias and stereotypical judgements
• psychometric test reports claiming to be an objective diagnostic measure based on test publishers’ statistical data and assumed as a definitive profile.

These examples inherently carry varying degrees of subjectivity and complexity when founded on diverse interpretations of perceptions and evaluative observations.

Defining feedback, therefore, is a challenge in itself. As creating a new definition was not an outcome of the research, a simple definition was chosen for identifying the context of the study and the definition assumed in this book:

Feedback is an activity to raise self-awareness and improve the contribution of individuals in a business environment.

The purpose of the ‘activity’ is to have a conversation that alerts the receiver to how their behaviour is perceived by the giver. This conversation is intended to draw attention to opportunities for change by identifying a shortfall in performance expected by the business and creating development needs for the receiver. ‘Performance’ in this definition focuses on personal attributes and behaviours rather than the task completion or technical expectations in the receiver’s role. The reason this route was chosen was that, in my experience, a shortfall in technical/task-based skills is usually easily remedied. Feedback on task-based competence can be endorsed with evidence of capability aligned to business standards. A solution is addressed by a range of training interventions matching the individual’s learning style.

The more challenging performance issues arise when behaviours create disruption in interpersonal relationships. These disruptions are based on perceptions which are, of course, reality to the individuals experiencing the disconnect. The research informing this book will disrupt in the opposite direction and demonstrate the positive power of relationship that nurtures rather than diminishes mutual growth and produces a thriving working environment.

Willingness to engage in feedback – the psychological perspective

‘Successful organisations actively embrace feedback accepting that recognition of both weaknesses and strengths are vital contributors to continuously improving. Feedback, when effective, benefits both the giver and the receiver’ (DeFranzo, 2015).

Logically we know that feedback is best managed ‘in the moment.’ The challenge is how we ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Author overview
• Introduction
• 1. What perceptions exist about feedback?
• 2. Why feedback and whose responsibility is it?
• 3. Current practices in feedback exchange
• 4. The importance of relationship and how it influences engagement in feedback
• 5. Part 1 of The Relational Leadership WAY©: What needs preparing to establish relationships that stimulate constructive conversations
• 6. Part 2 of The Relational Leadership WAY©: Active engagement in co-creating generative conversations through adopting relational behaviours
• 7. Part 3 of The Relational Leadership WAY©: You both noticing and reacting to what emerges and impacts on sustaining the quality of the relationship
• 8. How artificial intelligence (AI) may impact on the future of feedback
• Bibliography
• Index