"Delivered in the present, feedback is information about past behavior to influence future behavior. Feedback is fundamental in helping individuals, teams or units in your workplace to reach an objective or avoid unpleasant reactions to their efforts. It also allows your people to work with others in achieving that which they could not achieve alone. Most importantly in these times of constant change, effective feedback is essential for maintaining consistent performance.
Feedback not effectively given can reduce the receiver's self confidence, lower their motivation, and cause simmering feelings of anger as well as increasing the tendency to attempt to resolve interpersonal conflicts through head-on confrontation rather than through compromise or collaboration.
While giving feedback is seldom easy, you can learn to give effective feedback. To be effective, you must understand what is going on during the process when feedback is being delivered and received. You also need to develop a strategy for being secure enough to tolerate the unpredictability of feedback. Finally, according to Edie Seashore, past president of the NTL Institute and co-author of What Did You Say? The Art of Giving Feedback, you don't have to be perfect to give good feedback.
Seashore says feedback is " an interactive process, a rapid fire and complex flow of information gathering, internal processing, and response, often with both parties being givers and receivers at the same moment." Feedback between people really is a system. Many factors enter into this system and affect the quality of it.
Your feedback must be heard and understood by the receiver to be effective. It must also be devised and delivered by you so that the relationship between you and receiver stays intact and future interactions are possible. Effective feedback provides information that can be used. Most of all, effective feedback is not criticism, because criticism is evaluative where feedback is descriptive.
Seashore says that productive feedback between people involves several critical factors. To complete an effective feedback process through to closure, you are required to explicitly or implicitly share your goals for the process. All parties involved in the process must manage the climate to reduce resistance. Any conflict that arises during the process must be addressed to prevent the feedback process from being derailed. You must also allow time for people to digest and integrate the information you share with them, with an opportunity for them to return later for clarification. Finally, directness and openness are vital.
Communication is at the core of giving and receiving feedback. Author David Emery explains communication begins with intake, which is an active process whereby the receiver selects what information will be received. Next, the receiver interprets the message, based partly on information present in the message itself and partly on information based on their own experience. Then the receiver assigns significance and decides whether the effect is good or bad. The fourth step is acceptance, when the receiver, usually unconsciously, decides if it is okay for them to feel the way they are feeling. The final step, based on the previous four, is when the receiver starts thinking of possible responses. Errors can occur during any one of these steps in the process. During the process everyone involved must remain engaged and alert to the many possibilities for miscommunication, or misunderstandings.
Also, possible influences on the feedback process are the context of the conversation, the parties' priorities, self-perceptions, and affiliated needs such as approval and belonging. Other factors, according to Seashore, could take priority over the substance of the message and might reflect the power imposed by you as the sender, the emotional power of your message, and your personal style.
You should give feedback in a non-threatening environment. The lessons you offer must be apparent and concrete to the receiver, and your feedback should be dramatically presented. Humor, another key element, allows you to explore alternatives. Humor, during the process, also allows you to introduce new material in a safe way.
In summation, feedback is vital to the success of all organizations as well as for teams and individuals. It is an interactive process that centers on communication, and it is a process you can master through understanding and practice.
Keep in mind that feedback has to be shaped so that the receiver can understand it. It must also be presented openly and directly with the goals of the feedback process shared explicitly or implicitly. Conflicts that arise during the process must be addressed, and the receiver has to be given time to digest the message and be able to return later for clarification. Feedback, most importantly, must be concrete and given in a non-threatening environment.
Dr. Frank Fletcher is chair of the business division at Midway College, and his e-mail address is ffletcher@midway.edu.