How to Create a Quality Feedback Culture

Is Feedback Transactional or Transformational in Your Environment?

When I ask managers about the feedback environment on their teams, I get a lot of questions, starting with, “What do you mean?” While many managers work hard to construct and deliver timely behavioral feedback, few spend time working on their feedback culture. As a result, performance feedback is transactional—given on a one-off basis, but it doesn’t propel growth and learning across the entire group.

Consider your group’s environment.

Is there a shared understanding of the purpose of feedback?
Do your team members regularly give feedback to each other?
Do they give feedback to you?
Are the expectations for timely, behavioral feedback clear across the group?
Do team members truly understand the critical importance of the flow of quality feedback on performance?

If the answer to the above questions is mostly “No,” there’s more you can do to bring a healthy feedback culture to life.

First, Get the Fear Out of Feedback

Feedback for many is a frightening proposition.

Managers delay giving the tough kind of feedback over concerns about being liked or eliciting negative responses.

Individuals dread receiving feedback, especially if it’s vague or feels like a personal accusation.

This toxic combination keeps people from asking and giving feedback. Yet, the solution is simple. You can boot fear out the door when it comes to feedback by aligning on a common purpose and setting proper expectations for these important performance-focused discussions. Start by setting the expectation that giving and receiving feedback is everyone’s responsibility.

Teach the Importance of Omnidirectional Feedback

I ask all of my Feedback Skills Boot Camp participants: “How many directions should feedback flow?”

The most common answers are one or two. That’s wrong. (Kudos to the one participant who creatively offered “All of them.”) The answer is three: up, down, and sideways.

We spend a great deal of time agonizing over manager-to-direct report feedback and too little on peer-to-peer and employee-to-manager feedback. For a healthy working environment, constructive and positive feedback must flow in all directions, not just from the boss down. Unless you bring this concept to life, expect feedback to be clunky and chunky and mostly downward in direction.

Have “The Discussion” and Create a Shared Purpose for Feedback

Ask yourself if everyone on your team understands the purpose and necessity of quality constructive and positive feedback. Unless you’ve had “the discussion” with them, I can assure you they are not on the same page.

Here’s my feedback purpose statement:

The purpose of performance feedback is to reinforce and strengthen specific behaviors that contribute to high performance and help individuals eliminate or adjust specific behaviors that detract from high performance.

Feel free to tune the words; just don’t leave out the emphasis on specific behaviors or high performance.

Set Expectations for Quality, Timely Behavioral Feedback

Feedback is a flow, not a communication transaction. It’s imperative you teach individuals what constitutes quality feedback and establish expectations for both giving and receiving it.

It should happen easily and in every direction.
Positive feedback is rocket fuel for continued growth and performance.
Feedback must be given as close to the observed behavior as possible, subject to the issue of privacy for the tough type.
Feedback must be delivered in a quality manner that describes the observed behavior and its impact on performance.
Quality feedback is a dialog about future performance, not a debate over the past.

Bring Your Quality Feedback Culture to Life

It’s up to you as the manager to close this gap. Work to establish a common understanding of the purpose of feedback. Set expectations for feedback to flow in all directions, and teach your team members how to engage in these discussions as givers and receivers. And, of course, ask for feedback on your performance and listen fiercely when it’s given.

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Wishing you great success as you chase growth and performance!

Ready to change the culture of feedback in your organization? In the Feedback Skills Bootcamp, learn how to design and deliver quality feedback and promote constructive dialog, even when the topic is tough for all parties.