Notes from Why Feedback Doesn’t Work

Source Webinar 📖 Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life (Blinkist Source)

Marcus Buckingham

• people grave frequent attention, they don’t grave feedback

3 Fallacies with Feedback

Fallacy Nr.1 - You own the truth about others

• assumption - she is blind, I’m not blind
• the feedback receiver rejects feedback
• especially true, when providing even ratings e.g. on behaviors
  • my scores are moving with me
  • idiosyncratic rater effect
  • it’s more bouncing me back on me
• there is a fundamental flaw in my source of data. And adding more of data makes it even worse

Fallacy Nr. 2 - Learning is information transfer

• I just tell someone what is missing and they will pick it up. Like an empty vessel
• Scholl is often about that approach on learning

Fallacy Nr. 3 - Excellence can be defined in advance

• skills and competency matrix are a problem
• you can define average in advance and a minimum

What should we do instead.

You own your reaction - share it

• I am a reliable reporter on what I feel and on what I intent to do
• we are really good at reporting on our feelings
• “I was lost when you said that”
• This is really good data for a feedback receiver
• Stay on your side of the river

Learning is insight - help others discover it

• Feeling on knowingness that happens inside our brain
• Help discover those insights … create occasions where a learner can discover insights
• link to Montessouri

Excellence is connected to the person - replay their moments of excellence

• get a person back into a moment that worked (coaching)
• source of greatness is their goodness
• essay - underline couple of sentences that really work and expression your emotions with it
• replay on what you already did super well
• leads to replication and repetition of what works super well

Way forward - Q&A notes

• What are the performance outcomes?
• What is my way of contributing to that?
• How to best collect data on feedback?
  • you can count things – e.g. lost work days
  • what can you rate?
    • you can’t solve the idiosyncratic rater effect
    • people can rate their own experience and feelings on the team
      • Do I feel respects in the team?
      • Do I know what is expected of me?
      • Do feel that your manager is caring about you?
      • Does someone encourage you to grow?
      • bundle that and bring that back to the manager
  • So the questions in performance reviews need to change!
• As a manager share your reactions as raw material for the other to discover themselves
  • they learn to know when they are their best selves
  • give people self advocacy
  • they can discover when they are at their best
  • get increasingly specific in describing for yourself when and at what you are your best
• feedback in remote environments
  • most engaging state is hybrid
  • remote and onsite are about 10 points lower
  • people are grown ups! and they want to manage their times and at the same time people (often) love meeting with other people
  • frequent check-ins - every week, that matters
    • How did you feel about last week?
    • What are your plans for next week
    • leads to higher level of engagement and resilience and lower levels of turnover
    • in the frequency lies detail
• frequency of interaction is what really matters. (Don’t become a people lead if you don’t like doing that)
• change the vocabulary
  • no one is rated by someone else
• Cisco as an example that changes their feedback culture
• Mindset of broadening and building

Linking

• MOC Feedback
• [[Radical Candor]]
• Idiosyncratic rater effect
• [[Effective Communication For Leaders]]
• might be well connected with the Leadership Formula too

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