Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices

Give It, Ask for It, Use It

Brodie Gregory Riordan

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000178180
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psicología
• Categoría: Historia y teoría en psicología

Feedback is an incredibly valuable source of information – it enables us to be more self-aware and understand what we are doing well, and it tells us what we could be doing differently, more of, or less of to improve our performance and achieve our goals. Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices: Give It, Ask for It, Use It provides an essential overview of feedback fundamentals, what gets in the way of effective feedback exchanges, and the impact of technology on feedback interactions.

The value of feedback is often unrealized because people dread giving it, dread receiving it, and may not know what to do with it once they get it. Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices balances research, testimonials, and practical tools to provide readers with a thorough understanding of feedback exchanges. Critical findings from decades of research in psychology, business, and other disciplines are distilled into tools and strategies that readers can easily adopt in their own lives, regardless of who they are or what they do. Throughout the book are a wealth of examples from a variety of people and situations, both within and outside traditional work contexts.

Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices: Give It, Ask for It, Use It is a crucial resource for professionals, leaders, and anyone of any industry or stage in life looking to give better feedback, proactively ask for feedback, gracefully receive feedback, and put that feedback to use.

Part I

Feedback Fundamentals

Chapter 1

Why Feedback Matters

I give feedback that is honest and direct. I focus on people’s actions in ­specific ­situations. I emphasize my feelings, the impact on me. I think my honesty about what I’m seeing and feeling makes it constructive. I try to make it forward ­looking – “Next time you might handle it this way.”

Christopher, alumni member of Back on My Feet

It’s easy to associate the word “feedback” with formal experiences, like an annual performance review or a customer feedback survey. But actually, feedback is all around us, all the time. We get feedback from others, from our environment, even from our own observations and inner monologue. Giving and receiving feedback are dynamic experiences that shape and are shaped by our relationships and the context of the conversation.

The purpose of this book is to illuminate the value of feedback, the many shapes that feedback can assume, and just how often we are immersed in feedback in our day-to-day lives. My hope is that by the time you finish this book you understand, value, and appreciate feedback a little more, see feedback from a different perspective than you did before you started the book, and find giving, receiving, asking for, and using feedback a little easier. This book is intended for anyone and everyone who deals with feedback. Which is pretty much everyone. It draws on a wealth of research findings about what makes feedback work and what gets in the way, and presents these findings in a way that will enable you apply them in your life and work right away.

Nearly two decades ago, in the early months of my PhD program, I met with my PhD advisor to talk about what I would focus on in my thesis and ongoing research. When he told me that his research focused largely on feedback, I thought to myself, “OMG that is so boring. How can you spend your entire career studying something as dull and specific as feedback?” Clearly, as time went on, I saw the light and became his feedback-studying protégé. What I initially considered a dry, dull, transactional exchange gradually evolved into a rich, complex, and important human interaction. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate just how prevalent feedback is, what a difference it can make in people’s lives, and how little most people know about the feedback best practices that we’ve learned from decades of research in psychology, business, and other disciplines. We often talk about feedback in the context of work, but, in actuality, feedback impacts relationships and interactions in all parts of our lives.

I am intrigued by people’s feedback behavior both inside and outside of work. Why does this colleague get so twitchy and nervous when people give him even the most basic feedback? Why did that manager just give her team member tough feedback in the middle of the company kitchen where everyone could hear? Why would people rather disregard useful feedback than embrace their opportunities to grow? It’s easy to over-index on formal and uncomfortable feedback events, like performance reviews, but, in reality, we are immersed in feedback of all shapes and sizes, all day, every day. To get a better sense of just how much feedback I encounter on a day-to-day basis, I decided to pay close attention to the number of times I had a feedback “event” on a typical day. At the end of the day I had given, asked for, received, or used feedback 25 times (and I probably missed a few!).

The morning started with a few data points that led to some self-generated feedback (among others):

1. I was still tired when I woke up and needed caffeine to get going, which was important feedback that I need to be more disciplined about going to bed on time (received)
2. On my morning run my tight hamstrings were feedback that I’ve been sitting too much lately (received)
3. I asked my husband if my outfit looked okay, he suggested a plain blue blazer would look better than the patterned one I had on; I agreed and then changed blazers (asked, received, used)
4. The chill I felt when I left for work told me I needed a heavier coat and that I should remember to check the weather before I leave the house (received)
5. The countdown on the “walk” sign told me I needed to hurry up if I wanted to cross the street before the light changed (received)
6. I told the coffee shop barista that my café Cubano was a little too sweet for “medium sweet” (gave)

Once my workday started the feedback was more likely to involve other people, and technology played a significant role throughout:

7. The 75 new emails in my inbox told me I should have checked my email one last time the night before (received)
8. On a team call, three colleagues shared helpful suggestions on a document we were developing, which informed my next round of revisions later that day (received and used)
9. I asked a colleague for his candid reactions to a website my team is developing, and he shared a variety of positive comments and opportunities to make the website more tailored to the needs and preferences of our end users (asked and received)
10. I asked a few colleagues to weigh in on a budget proposal and share their feedback on where and how certain allocations are being made (asked)
11. A colleague told me that a recent survey I sent out lacked a “Not Applicable” option, which made it hard to respond to some items (received)
12. An instant message from a colleague told me that I was 9 minutes late to a conference call (received)
13. My sister texted me to ask me to weigh in on how she handled a recent conversation she had with our parents (gave, in response to being asked)
14. A colleague suggested I reconsider bringing paper handouts to a conference that aspired to be paperless (received)
15. A designer shared an updated concept of a visual document and I provided her with a few changes to make in the next round (gave)
16. I used an online feedback tool to formally recognize four colleagues for the great work they did launching a program that touched 16,000 users (gave)
17. A team member asked for feedback on a document for our leadership team; I told her what was strong and high impact about the document, shared two specific recommendations for enhancements, and thanked her for taking the lead on it (gave, in response to being asked)

And the feedback continued into the evening:

18. My yoga teacher asked for feedback on a new sequence of poses and her new playlist; I told her the sequence was very challenging and that the tone and tempo of the playlist was a great match to the sequence (gave, in response to being asked)
19. The director of a nonprofit whose board I’m on apologized for taking a few hours to send me a document, and I told her that there was no hurry and her timing was fine (gave)
20. I commented on my niece’s Instagram post, to let her know how much I liked her picture (gave)
21. I read Yelp reviews of the two restaurants I was considering for dinner and made a choice largely based on other users’ reviews and photos (used)
22. I sent my mother-in-law a note letting her know how much I appreciated her calling me the week that my grandmother had died, and that our conversation had helped me process my emotions (gave)
23. I weighed in on a few options for my father’s birthday dinner, taking into consideration his preference for steak, down-to-earth authentic places, and not too much noise (gave)
24. My husband told me that he wished I didn’t have work calls at 9:30pm on a Thursday, because Thursday nights are for relaxing (received)
25. At 1am I knocked on our neighbor’s wall to let him know that it was a little late to show off his impressive sound system (gave)

What’s interesting to me about this random sample of feedback is that most of it is positive or neutral – not particularly negative or critical. Most of my experiences were also so mundane and routine that they could easily be overlooked as feedback experiences. Out of all the 25 feedback events in my day, none triggered a strong emotional reaction, nothing insulted me or hurt my feelings, and none resulted in inconvenience or major changes in direction for whatever I was working on. Contrast this with my recent nonscientific survey: I asked 154 people about their immediate reaction when they hear the word “feedback” or “let me give you some feedback” – 67% reacted in a decidedly negative way. For example:

• “No specific words come to mind but I get this feeling in my body – like I raise and tighten my shoulders, I feel like I’m bristling.”
• “My first instinct is, ‘I wonder what I did wrong!’”
• “Yikes! Duck and wait for criticism.”
• “Brace yourself!”
• “Ugh!” (this specific reaction was cited by six people!)
• “Poker face now!”
• “Sweaty palms, racing heart, fake smile, “‘sure, I’d love to hear it!’”
• “I steel myself to hear something negative. Rarely hear positivity wrapped up in ‘feedback.’”
• “I overthink it and my anxiety hits the roof even though I know feedback is a gift.”

Some described their reaction as an almost Pavlovian¹ response. Simply hearing the word “feedback” provokes an instant physical and emotional reaction. Feedback is clearly a powerful word and loaded with baggage from unpleasant past experiences if it can elicit that kind of immediate response. However, feedback is an extraordinarily useful source of information. It helps people be more self-aware, gauge progress toward goals, know what they are doing well and should keep doing, and identify things that they might want to do differently. Feedback provides the information necessary to perform at a higher level, achieve goals, grow, and have deeper self-understanding. But for people who actively dislike feedback and dread receiving it, that value is lost.

How did we get to this point? People are not born dreading feedback – it’s a learned response. Most of the feedback we receive is nonthreatening and helps us to navigate the world around us, our relationships, and our social interactions, and to stay on track with our work, life, and personal goals. I suspect that most of the feedback we receive on a day-to-day basis doesn’t even register as “feedback.” Somehow, the word has come to connote a harsh, painful, sometimes unfair dumping of information that is outside of our control.

For people who have had just enough unpleasant feedback exchanges that elicit a strong emotional response and that have become deeply engrained in their memories, their orientation toward feedback plummets. Every person has a feedback orientation that underlies how they think about, feel about, and are motivated to use feedback (Linderbaum & Levy, 2010). That orientation is shaped largely by our past experiences with feedback, for better or for worse.

Feedback orientation is disproportionately influenced by the teachers, coaches, parents, bosses, and colleagues who give us feedback over the course of our lives, many of whom are just as uncomfortable providing feedback as they are receiving it. Negative feedback – that which identifies gaps between our goals and our current performance – provides some of the most useful information, but is often disliked and avoided. It tells us exactly what we need to do to close the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Negative feedback is often misconstrued as “feedback given poorly” and therefore referred to instead by less daunting names like “constructive feedback” (really, ALL feedback should be constructive. Why would you ever give unconstructive feedback?). The word “negative” simply means the feedback highlights a deficit, or gap, between our goals and our current state. When faced with providing negative feedback, people are likely to stall, avoid giving it, or provide it in a way that is so diluted or sandwiched between positive feedback that people are left completely unclear as to what the real issue is, why it matters, and what they should do about it. This discomfort providing negative feedback results in a loss for everyone involved. The person providing the feedback misses an opportunity to share their valuable perspective, help another person grow and improve, and potentially highlight a blind spot for that person. The person who would be the target of the feedback misses out on valuable information that would help them better understand their current level of performance, and how close or far that current performance is from their goals. Without negative feedback we are blind to what we need to do better or to how we can close in on our goals.

Are Goals without Feedback Goals at All?

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? More importantly, without feedback on our goals how do we know how we’re tracking against those goals? Our behavior is driven by goals. Sometimes those goals are explicit – those that we deliberately set, actively track, and maybe even share with others. But many of our goals are implicit. Perhaps the reason you brush your teeth at night is to have good dental health, to avoid a trip to the dentist, or to have fresher breath. Whatever your goal, you probably don’t actively think about it every night, yet it drives you to brush your teeth every evening. Anytime we are motivated to do something, a goal is driving that behavior.

Our progress toward attaining goals depends on feedback. Feedback tells us where we stand in relation to goals, expectations, and standards. It comes from other people, our environment (e.g., your scale or car speedometer), our ­bodies (pain, hunger, discomfort, etc.), and our own inner monologue. Feedback helps us to gauge where we stand in pursuit of our goals and the things that are important to us and, as a result, serves an important motivating (or demotivating) function. As we work toward achieving our goals, the closer we get, the more motivated and inspired we are to press on. A lack of progress against goals, despite our best efforts, can deflate and demotivate. Making progress more rapidly than anticipated may inspire us to revise our goals to be more challenging (Locke & Latham, 2002). But, without feedback, our efforts to achieve goals occur in a vacuum. We lack visibility into how close or far we are from attaining our goals and, therefore, if our level of effort is appropriate, too little, or too great. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon in 4 hours but you have no mechanism for assessing how far you have run or how much time has elapsed, your goal is meaningless and your efforts will feel fruitless. Without feedback on your progress you won’t know if your pace is on track, too slow, or too fast. Feedback provides critical data that empower us to self-regulate our behavior, our effort, and even our expectations.

Feedback enables increased self-awareness, tells us exactly what we need to do to have higher performance or be better at just about anything, and can fuel growth and development. Negative feedback – that which highlights a gap between where we are and where we want to be – can also tell us exactly what we need to do to close that gap. This deficit tells us what we need to learn, how we need to change our behavior, and what we need to do more of, less of, or differently to achieve our goal.

Figure 1.1 Feedback tells you the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

Positive feedback lets us know what we are doing well, that we have met our goal or expectations, and that we might be able to slow down our efforts or keep doing the right things that are working for us. Without feedback we would be adrift in a world with little context or direction. Imagine a world where you had no idea how you were doing in school, in your job performance, your marriage; where you didn’t know how others perceived you and what they found lovely or recalcitrant about you. Our work, relationships, and sense of self would all suffer in a world devoid of feedback.

Sort of like a Thermostat

Feedback and goals work together in a way that is similar to a thermostat in your home. You set a desired temperature on your thermostat, and the heater or air conditioner responds by sensing the current room tempera...