The power of feedback

How often have you dreaded a potential feedback session fearing criticism from your boss? Or ignored handing out feedback to your subordinate in order to avoid sounding like a parent? If the answer to both questions is “many times”, then there’s much that can be done to making feedback a constructive and welcome tool for personal improvement.

Feedback, or the flow of information usually in the form of an evaluation of a project or work completed, is imperative for an organisational workforce to consistently improve upon itself. You could be giving feedback to people you report to, down to those you manage, and, laterally, to your colleagues. It doesn’t have to be a painful process, but employees often neglect crucial feedback sessions, fearing it will damage a sound working relationship. Shilpa Bhardwaj, Director (People Success), Sapient India, suggests putting in place an open work culture and a series of tools and processes to ensure a healthy exchange of ideas. “Through a series of specifically designed practices and programmes like Sapient Start and Feedback Primer Training for Facilitation, we offer real time solutions to our employees. We work closely with strategists to train our managers and organise skip-level meetings to get an unbiased view of situations,” she says.

Organisational expert Jamie O. Harris considers feedback to be an essential tool for organisational learning and recommends checklists. Employers could plan for a feedback session by gathering all facts and data, listing the issues, the purpose and the possible barriers objectively. Evaluating the feedback process later, with a clear-cut action plan and questioning what worked and what didn’t comes next. For the employees fearing the worst, Harris recommends a feedback readiness checklist and a planning commitment worksheet. Stating matters objectively, presenting your response rationally, developing an action plan for change and working with the employer in following the action plan could help both employees and organisations immeasurably.

GIVING FEEDBACK

1. Praise in public, criticise in private. Make the person the focus of your conversation. Avoid using the telephone or e-mail.

2. Start with what’s going well. Emphasise the positives.

3. Gather all the facts and data, and state matters objectively.

4.Emphasise on job skills, time management skills, and work process. Avoid discussing personality traits/habits.

5. Ask questions. Constant enquiries will bring clarity.

RECEIVING FEEDBACK

1. Don't think of this as something negative but instead as a conversation that will help you grow.

2. Prepare for the session by gathering your own data.

3. Decide what you can learn from the session.

4. Develop an action plan and ask for your manager's support in following the plan.