It's one of the least-loved words in the English language, at least if you work in a corporate business environment where you know you're going to get a kick in the stomach when someone approaches and asks, "Can I give you some feedback?"
In 2006, I attended a week-long workshop in Cape Cod with two of the gurus of group dynamics -- Charlie and Edie Seashore. The Seashores were in the thick of the original T-Group work that originated in Bethel, Maine, after World War II. In the decades since, they've been hugely influential in the world of social psychology and group dynamics.
The very first words I captured during the workshop speak volumes about how we might begin to think differently about the notion -- and value -- of feedback:
I feel certain that Charlie said this, because later in the session I captured a second important notion of feedback, and what it might mean to us. I'll use Charlie and myself in the example:
When John is giving feedback to Charlie, there is no Charlie. There is only the Charlie in John.
And I wrapped up the week the way I started it -- with a memorable quote about feedback:
What all of this tells me is not that feedback is useless, or should be avoided, or makes no sense. Feedback is an important way of helping others see two things -- what we value, and what we perceive of them. But it is a terrible mechanism for compelling change in others.
Because I pay attention to things I value most, my feedback to others is almost always rooted in what I find valuable or important. When people create space for others in a group to open up and share, I appreciate it -- and I tell them how much I appreciate it. I usually leave myself out of it, actually. I tell them how much value I perceived it added to the group. When leaders become so task-driven and action-oriented that they risk leaving the group out of the conversation or decision-making process, it pushes my inclusion button in the other direction -- and I let them know it.
What I have learned from years of teaching classes on feedback, providing feedback to others and receiving more feedback than I ever could have asked to receive is simple -- when I feel compelled to provide someone with feedback, step back.
Step back and ask what the feedback I want to provide says about me -- and what I value or find important in the situation at hand. Step back and reflect on my version of the person I am planning to provide with feedback -- what is my story of them, and how does it color or inform my feedback? Step back and ask what I could do differently to create the change I apparently want someone else to create.
None of this is a red light in the feedback loop. At best, it is a cautionary yellow light -- a call to look both ways before proceeding through the feedback intersection, and to give the right-of-way when necessary.