Feedback paradox
People tend to avoid giving critical feedback while people would like to receive it
- Feedback is very important for self awareness
- Feedback is a gift
- “Feedback is the breakfast of champions” – Ken Blanchard
- Companies with a high culture of feedback have:
- 2x better financial performance
- 15% less employee turn over
- 3x higher engagement scores
- 4x higher chance to become top performer
- Study on people who got fired showed that:
- 75% did not get feedback before they got fired
- 8% of of managers think that performance management system is effective
- 90% of employees want to develop in their jobs
- 33% receive the feedback necessary to develop in their job
- Research showed that no single feedback model is better than another (Shit sandwich, stop start continue, feed forward, oops)
- Give feedback with the intention to develop the person
- Be specific in behaviour/performance and explain the effect it had on you
- Don’t underestimate the power of positive feedback
Psychology of feedback
- Basic stress response: Fight | Flight | Freeze
- Brain does not make a distinction between a physical threat subject to basic stress response and a social threat
- Receiving feedback is perceived as a social threat and that is why it is so hard
- 5 basic social needs of people: SCARF model (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness)
- Any threat to the SCARF will generate a stress response
- Number one task of a leader should be to put emphasis on minimizing social threat and create safety
- Make the issue a team issue so we can all work on it together
- Focus on learning
- The threat is reduced if you are the one asking for feedback and gives permission to the counterpart to speak out
- People who could control the amount/frequency of feedback felt much more comfortable
- Must shift from giving to asking feedback culture
- Train people to ask for feedback