How to promote a Healthy Feedback Culture

On the way to a healthy feedback culture: What does feedback mean – and why is it so important?

The word feedback was first used in mechanical systems before the term began to be used in industrial relations when talking about people and performance management. Literally, feedback means “feed” corrective information back to the point of origin, “the employee” (Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen) to fix and make it more performant.

The reality is that “we swim in an ocean of feedback,” as Stone Douglas put it. And “feedback is not just what gets ranked, it’s what gets thanked, commented on, and invited back or dropped. Feedback can be formal or informal, direct or implicit, it can be blunt or baroque, totally obvious or so subtle that you’re not sure what it is.”

Nowadays, and even more in Agile teams and organizations, feedback is a vital tool in developing products, customers’ love, building resilience, developing talent, and increasing well-being in the workplace.

If feedback is that important, then why are performance reviews that hard and uncomfortable for most of us? 

The first possible answer is because we are just human, and it is hard to receive bad or even constructive feedback. It triggers feelings of self-doubt, frustration, and vulnerability. Our brain responds to negative feedback or ranking with the same fight-or-flight reactions of a physical threat, which causes a “brain hijack” to give people rapid responses and aggressive movements. But ill-suited for the kind of thoughtful, reflective conversation that allows people to learn from constructive feedback according to an article in Strategy + Business magazine, titled “Kill Your Performance Rating” by David Rock, Josh Davis, and Beth Jones.

The second potential answer concerns the environment around us. Is there enough trust and psychological safety in the workplace? “Do people feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution? Are they confident that they can speak up and won’t be humiliated, ignored, or blamed?” as defined by Amy Edmonson. Is vulnerability promoted or punished?

Characteristics of a healthy feedback culture

Now more than ever, knowledge, creativity, and innovation have become vital sources of competitive advantage in all business sectors. To make these advantages yours, you must shift to a learning organization, and one of the most powerful ways to do it is to promote a healthy culture of feedback, where:

• Feedback-seeking behavior is the norm. Feedback is no more something to be endured but something to be actively sought.
• Feedback is no more a one-directional flow, related only to one individual, but a team sport that helps improve the whole. 
• Not only performance but learning is also promoted and awarded, stories of learning are abundant and shared between co-workers.

Tips on how to establish a healthy feedback culture

Here are some tips that can help you kick off this journey.

Create an environment of psychological safety and trust towards a healthy feedback culture

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to building a safe climate lies in remembering with “mindfulness”, to be vulnerable, as well as to be interested and available for others. Amy Edmonson suggests in her book, The Fearless Organization, a straightforward and actionable set of questions to help anyone (manager or not) create more safety in the workplace:

• Express vulnerability to help others do the same by saying more often: I don’t know, I need help, I made a mistake, I’m sorry.
• Don’t miss the opportunity to express interest and availability by asking questions such as: What can I do to help? What are you up against? What are your concerns?

To promote a healthy feedback culture, train people to receive feedback as a gift

Research about effective feedback shows that the most decisive part in a feedback relationship isn’t the givers, it’s actually the receivers. They are in control of what they hear and sense, and above all what they do with it.

We are all different and unique, which is an additional challenge in feedback relationships. Our diversity can result in misunderstanding, frustration, and lack of clarity between givers and receivers. That’s why understanding ourselves, to help others better understand us is critical. The gained confidence by doing so is the foremost step to shift receivers from push (endure feedback) to pull (seek with enthusiasm and curiosity for feedback, speak up when supportive mirrors, like additional appreciation or coaching, are needed. Or rather, seek an honest mirror when they are confused about where they stand).

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen highlighted three primary triggers to negative or constructive feedback (we will talk about positive feedback later, but obviously, it is easier to handle, even if sometimes quite complex).

Those triggers block us from using the information given to us from the receiver and the whole context. But the good news is that they also offer a way to read them in order to overcome the perception of feedback as a threat.

Truth Trigger: The problem is with the feedback itself. It feels wrong, unhelpful, or untrue which makes the person indignant and exacerbated.
➜ Keep in mind that we all have blind spots and need to be curious to better understand the actual message.

Relationship Trigger: The problem is more with the person giving the feedback as they can seem not credible.
➜ Separate the what from the who and step back to better understand the relationship and how each part contributes to the problem.

Identity Trigger: Here, the struggle is all about us, no matter how the feedback is, something is threatening our identity.
➜ Cultivate awareness from our own patterns. See the feedback as it is without distortion and cultivate a growth identity so you’re not trapped by Ego.

To promote a healthy feedback culture, train people to give feedback:

Remember that feedback is more than anything a relationship between givers and receivers, both sides must be trained!

• Always start by asking for permission to give feedback.
• Positive intent and caring. If there must be only one rule, it must be this one: Feedback must be motivated by helping the person, the team, or the company, never to hurt, to express personal frustration, or to look clever. Anyone who has been part of an agile team knows how testers become more impactful when they move from “Gotcha ! I break your code or the product” to “I help you create better products.”
• Use belonging cues: If there is one desire that can balance or stop the learning needs, it is the human’s need and desire for acceptance and belonging to the group. That’s why it’s essential to use belonging cues when delivering feedback. It can be as simple as saying: As part of this team, or simply a tiny gesture like using an appreciative tone.
• Overcome your own identity biases: Know your own pattern, and most of all, be curious about your co-workers to give them the feedback that suits them best, not the one that you want to have.
• Shift from conflict avoidance to embracing healthy discussions: Often, feedback givers and especially managers lack the courage to give honest and constructive feedback. That’s why it’s important to help your people understand the why and the benefit of the feedback for the receiver in the long-term instead of focusing on the short team discomfort.