Leaders must understand that feedback is now more important than ever

Leaders must understand that feedback is now more important than ever.

“Happy are they who can hear their detractions and put them to mending”
William Shakespeare


If Shakespeare is right then no one can perform optimally without feedback. Yet
according to the revered American psychologist Abraham Maslow most of us are torn
about giving and receiving critical feedback. He referred to this as “the need to know and
the fear of knowing.” Managers especially have a hard time obtaining useful feedback.

In power relationships such as between the boss and the subordinate, people will not speak
“their truth” if they believe it will come back to bite them.

Right now, I am involved in a very big project with a company and everyone is afraid of
speaking their minds. There is this fear that if they cross some of the sacred cows in the company, they will be out the door. Since we are in a difficult employment market people are playing it very safe and that means that they can see the boat sinking and they will simply not speak up.

When there is a lack of trust in a company, everything slows down and costs more. When there is trust in a company, things are done faster and more economically. Lack of trust can destroy a company.

One way we are getting some good feedback is soliciting confidential feedback. For employees to believe this, there must be a third party involved doing the surveying. Here is where we come in.

Beyond confidential feedback, managers, if they are to improve, need what my colleague
Jorge Fernandez calls Strategic Self-Awareness. Allow me to explain; things that are
known to us and known to others is public knowledge. What is known to us and
unknown to others is private knowledge. The fascinating knowledge is the information
that is known to others but unknown to us, commonly referred to as blind spots. When
that information is revealed to us, those are illuminating moments that facilitate dramatic
change. These blindside moments are sometimes hurtful but always instructive. What is
unknown to us is usually well-known to others. To see ourselves as others see us is
strategic self-awareness.

Through the use of assessment tools (personality tests, 360 evaluations) managers can
systematically enhance learning and gain self-awareness. However, not all assessment
instruments are equally effective in building strategic self-awareness. Firstly, the
assessment should be designed for the workplace. This means that managers are profiled
and compared to other managers along dimensions that are relevant to job performance.

Secondly, the assessment should be able to detect two types of performance problems:

deficiencies when managers display too little of an important leadership behavior and
excesses when managers apply a particular behavior too much. Deficiencies normally
fall in the category of public knowledge. However, excesses which ironically are
strengths overused constitute blind spots. Feedback delivered in terms of too
little/under doing and too much/overdoing makes it instantly clear what you (the manager)
needs to do to improve. Regrettably, most leadership assessments operate on the
assumption that more is better.

We must understand that a great deal of a company’s value is entrenched between the ears of the employees and this means that we must know what they are thinking and they must know how they are doing. To increase employee loyalty, they need to know what is expected of them. They need to have the tools to be able to do the job right and they must have the opportunity to apply their strengths in the job they are currently performing.

First Seek Feedback, then Feed Forward

We all require feedback to determine where we stand, to establish the direction we are
headed and to measure our progress along the chosen developmental path. Feed forward,
the brainchild of renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith comes in the form of
ideas you can put into practice in the future. Simply put feedback is about yesterday and
feed forward is about tomorrow. The procedure is easy to implement: Describe your
developmental goal in a one to one dialogue with anyone you know, ask for two
suggestions and end by saying thank you. No evaluation or discussion around the ideas
put forth are permitted by the solicitor of ideas. The beauty of feed forward is that it does
not arouse defensiveness. In fact, it is energizing and forces us to follow-up: by asking,
listening and enlisting others in our initiative for personal change.
So remember first seek feedback then feed forward.

Looking out my window here in the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver, Canada, I can see hundreds of companies. How many of those companies have talented people working for them and yet a few are not going to make it. Getting feedback and feeding forward is a good way to improve the chances of making it.