There’s surplus feedback all around you
In this post I’m going to talk about surplus feedback. Surplus feedback is what I call all the insights and information that’s locked…
In this post I’m going to talk about surplus feedback. Surplus feedback is what I call all the insights and information that’s locked inside the consciousness of an organization. Surplus feedback prevents an organization from operating more effectively as a result of missed learning opportunities.
I’m confident this post applies broadly, both in personal life and at work. However, I’m writing this from the perspective of an engineering leader of a local platform team. As the leader of a local platform team I often find myself reflecting on the following questions:
Are we working on the right things?
Did the work we deliver meet expectations?
What should the team start, stop, or continue doing?
How are the individuals on my team being perceived?
How is the team being perceived?
How am I being perceived?
Ultimately, these questions help foster a growth mindset for the team and help the organization to execute on its objectives more effectively.
Note: I am using “you”, “we”, and “team” somewhat interchangeably. These concepts apply at an individual level, as well as at a group/team level.
Note: When I talk about feedback, I’m referring to constructive feedback. This can be positive feedback like “keep doing X” or critical feedback like “when you do Y, it makes me feel like you’re undermining my work.” I’m not talking about fluffy feedback like “nice job” or unhelpful feedback like “that didn’t go well.”
Awareness and Feedback
Feedback is just one of the many ways in which you can become aware of the unknown unknowns and bring them into consciousness where they become known unknowns. In terms of competencies, this is analogous to making the shift from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent. This is where awareness starts and the journey along the next growth curve begins.
Cognitive dissonance is what exists when there is a gap between awareness and incompetency. This can lead to something called the Dunning-Kruger Effect where you can be initially overconfident in your competencies.
There are many mechanisms that are capable of bringing awareness to incompetencies. Broadly, I tend to think of them in terms of internal mechanisms and external mechanisms. Feedback is an external mechanism. Reflection is an internal mechanism. Finding time to bring awareness through reflection is critically important, but the rest of this post will focus on feedback.
Creating an environment for feedback
Everyone around you has feedback for you (or your team or the work you’re doing or all of the above), you just aren’t aware of it. That begs the question, how can you become aware of it? The answer is that it’s challenging.
First, you need the foundation in place to even create the opportunity for awareness and the discovery of insights that might lead to feedback. One of the critical parts of this foundation is the environment. The environment for promoting constructive feedback requires a set of shared values and a culture around fostering feedback. The people in the organization have to live the culture and demonstrate these values through action. One of the core values everyone must be aligned on is having a growth mindset. Without a growth mindset, feedback cannot become actionable. Feedback without action is futile.
Action is just one ingredient for creating a successful feedback culture. Let’s look at a few more ingredients.
Five ingredients for a successful feedback culture
There are five critical aspects to creating a culture of feedback: awareness, courage, trust, curiosity, and action:
Awareness — Awareness is a dependency for insight. If people aren’t aware and paying attention to what’s happening around them and how things are making them feel, insights will not surface.
Courage — Courage is what overcomes inertia and sets growth into motion. Courage needs to come from two directions: the giver and the receiver. The person giving the feedback has to muster the courage to share feedback, and the person receiving the feedback has to be courageous in terms of being vulnerable. Vulnerability helps to build trust.
Trust — In general, there are two types of trust: vulnerability based trust and earned trust. Vulnerability based trust is formed by being an open, honest, humble, relationship-oriented, human being. Earned trust is formed through action. For example, if you step in to help someone overcome a challenge, you have just earned their trust. Trust is the bridge to feedback, and it has two lanes. In the one lane, the giver has to trust that the receiver will be willing to sincerely receive the feedback and exercise control over their emotions (i.e., it has to be safe). In the other lane, the receiver has to trust that the giver’s feedback is genuine , sincere, and with the right intentions.
Curiosity — giving feedback is challenging. It can be nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing. It’s important that the experience is perceived as positively as possible by both participants in order for the flywheel effect to kick in and create a positive feedback loop for future feedback discussions. In order for this to be possible, the receiver of the feedback must work to control their emotions and stay curious. Seek to understand rather than judge or be defensive. It can be difficult, but there are tools that can help. Sometimes it’s helpful as a receiver to simply thank the giver, adjourn, reflect on what was said and let the emotions calm down, then schedule a follow-up discussion to demonstrate curiosity and dig deeper.
Action — Without action, nothing will come of the feedback and creating positive feedback loops will be nearly impossible. Lack of action shows a lack of a growth mindset and diminishes trust. Without trust, there is no bridge to feedback. In the short term, taking action will be difficult, but over the long run, it will pay off.
These ingredients will work to create positive feedback loops and a flywheel effect that will increase feedback and ultimately, learning. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Feedback is part of the fiber that holds an organization together and without it, traveling far will be impossible.
Unlocking surplus feedback
So we now understand how important feedback is and some of the ingredients for allowing it to flourish, but now what?
There are two different types of feedback that can help us understand how to unlock surplus feedback:
Passive feedback
Unsolicited feedback — both positive and negative, unsolicited feedback is a great sign that you’ve cultivated a successful feedback environment. However, no matter how strong your feedback culture is, unsolicited feedback will likely remain a small part of the available feedback.
Active feedback
Broad feedback — seeking broad feedback will often unlock some amount of surplus feedback. Some of the tools available for broad feedback include: retrospectives, team meetings, & surveys. You should seek broad feedback, but often the feedback is surface-level feedback. The goal of seeking broad feedback should not necessarily be to get deep insights, but rather, it should be used to get high level signals, build awareness, and to gauge the trust level with the team.
Targeted group feedback — great insights can be gleaned by forming a group of trusted advisors. These are people you trust and will be honest and forthright with you if you ask the right questions. Open-ended questions will be less useful than targeted questions.
Targeted 1:1 feedback — again, if you ask the right questions, and have a high degree of trust, you can clean great insights from 1:1s.
You will require increasing levels of shared trust as you move from broad to targeted 1:1 feedback in order for this process to be successful.
Takeaways
Feedback is necessary, but challenging. Creating an environment for feedback is only half the battle. You then have to work to encourage feedback and solicit feedback, otherwise you’re left with surplus feedback. This surplus feedback will prevent you from learning and going far together as an organization.
Each of the five ingredients for a successful feedback culture are required and begin with a growth mindset.
Passive feedback is an artifact of a healthy feedback culture, but active feedback is necessary to unlock the surplus feedback. Seek broad, targeted and narrow feedback through a variety of channels (i.e., meetings, surveys, retrospectives, 1:1s).
How have you worked to unlock feedback in your organization?