What is sharing/getting feedback policy in your company/country?
We are elaborating some research regarding sharing feedback, both positive and negative, in different companies all over the world. We would be glad to hear your thoughts. If you have something in mind, please comment on the following:
What is the attitude to sharing feedback in your organization/company/country? Is sharing feedback strongly encouraged or maybe fully prohibited? Do you share feedback with colleagues? What about sharing (negative) feedback to a person who is higher in position? Is there any (agreed) sharing positive/negative procedures at your company ? Any other thoughts regarding aspects of sharing/collecting feedback.
I have learned in my career that if anyone summons the courage to give you feedback, it’s because they are deeply invested in you. Listening is an appropriate reward for those who care about you thriving in life and the value is priceless. I started a global marketing and digital branding firm 20 years ago and have managed teams since the early 90s. Learning to give and receive constructive feedback that motivates people to perform at their best can be tough. Positive feedback is both easy to deliver and hear because you agree but it is different to both give and receive feedback/criticism especially if it doesn’t ring true or where we may even disagree. In my experience you don't have to agree, but you need to consider other opinions and feedback is another person’s opinion. If you are willing to consider it, you may find it extremely helpful and use it for positive change – or you can choose to ignore it. I believe most feedback has some value, but the most valuable comes from people who care about you, whether you know them well or not. I try to spend as much time learning to express what others do well as we are tempted to spend more explaining what they do wrong. Reinforcing someone’s strengths raises their awareness of them. When you learn to give sincere, specific praise, giving sincere, specific criticism gets easier. Just don’t give praise and criticism at the same time or you dilute the effectiveness of both. This has worked well for me.
@Mary Mai , I know you asked a similar question about feedback for Small and Medium businesses! Would love to read your thoughts/learning since then!
Dear @Eloah Paes Ramalho , @Paige Arnof-Fenn , thank you very much for detailed insghtful responses. You know, our team has carried out a research on negative feedback culture, and we saw that business professionals face difficulties when building an open feedback culture in their teams. And it is even more challenging to do so in cultures where sharing feebdack is not practices by default
Indeed, like you mentioned, personal attitude play a vital role in feedback's perseption - people are fine with sharing and gettin positive feedback, but negative one is a more complicated thing because it is always percept personally. So business leaders have to deal with it when building negative feedback culture in their companies.
I don't know your name, I'm sorry @Artur Prokopchik . What were some helpful stories or examples you drew from that research? How are you applying them in your business now?
Glad you asked @Eloah Paes Ramalho . Well, we interviewwed more than 100 business professionals. The subject of our reserach was negative feedback culture in countries/organizations in general and inside the team in particular. We also asked about feedback delivery culture from an employee to a manager. Here are some insights we catched:
Business professionals noticed that negative feedback delivery from a manager to an employee is a common practice everywhere. However, reverse process, that is negative feedback delivery from an employee to a manager is not so simple issue. Responses of business professionals helped us to identify that, in fact, there are 4 deep-seated approaches to this:
1. Sharing negative feedback with managers is not practiced at all, like in some conservative Asian countries.
2. Sharing negative feedback with managers is not practiced, but employees sometimes do it, when the only option remaining is to ask for manager’s attention. Like in Arab countries.
3. Sharing negative feedback is not a usual practice, but is delivered by employees on request only be means of some organizational activities, such as polls, questionnaires, personal or group interviews.
4. Sharing negative feedback is welcomed and encouraged, but constructive, detail-based way of its expression is expected.
What's more, here are some more facts:
Business leaders are able and many do their best to build a feedback-oriented workflow in their company, regardless of national culture and mentality features.
Many business professionals understand that feedback is not a one-time action and do their best to apply some continuous procedures for feedback collection in their organizations. Examples of such activities: polls, questionnaires, personal or group interviews.
@Eloah Paes Ramalho if you don't mind, can I share the link to the research? There are 2 complementary articles, one in our blog and one on Forbes.
Eloah Paes Ramalho, Community Manager at SavvySME
This is so powerful, @Paige Arnof-Fenn ! So many gems in what you shared! 1. Choosing to separate praise from criticism. 2. Focusing on celebrating strenghs. 3. And listening harder for feedback from people who care about you. I also gain so much from acknowledging that whenever someone gives feedback, that is often related to something they deeply care about! If we can be really curious and look closer, that person is sharing their world with us! Sure, it may also translate into something helpful we can use and grow for our own sake, but in and on its own it's such a wonderful opportunity to connect when we don't take things personally!