When I was younger I thought feedback was something rock musicians experienced when they were playing an electric guitar and got too close to an amplifier - An uncontrollable, high-pitched, squealing feedback that hurts the ears of everyone. More enterprising musicians like David Bowie, Lou Reed and Frank Zappa tamed and utilised this phenomenon to enhance their music.
Nowadays “feedback” is more often than not associated with formal or informal comments about how you do your job. The Oxford Living Dictionary defines this sort of feedback as Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement. It used to be more one way – a boss telling you how to do the job better. Nowadays it can be given by anyone – colleagues, managers, subordinates. It can be 180 degree feedback where your raters are at the same level as you (peers or colleagues), and a person you report to. Or you can have 360 degree feedback defined by Wikipedia as a process through which feedback from an employee's subordinates, colleagues, and supervisor, as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves is gathered.
In fact, it seems there can be any manner of degree of performance appraisal from 90 degrees to 720 degrees – see this academic article which describes each of these. A 720 degree appraisal is basically a 360 degree appraisal performed twice and performance is appraised from 5 dimensions and feedback.
Have we all gone mad - 720 degree feedback! But the real issue is whether feedback is constructive or destructive. As I look back over the last 12 months I or the teams I have been in have definitely received both. As this short guide suggests bad feedback Demotivates, focuses on blame; creates defensiveness and confrontationwhereas good feedback Encourages, focuses on improvements – achieved or possible; creates trust and cooperation.
I like this article Learning to Deliver Feedback Effectively: Good and Bad Examples which starts with a quote from Ken Blanchard, an author and management expert, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” and goes on to cite some good examples of positive and negative feedback.
This article cites a Harvard study which indicates that giving or receiving peer-to-peer negative feedback rarely leads to improvement.It suggests that:
"There's an assumption that what motivates people to improve is the realization that they're not as good as they think they are. But in fact, it just makes them go find people who will not shine that light on them. It may not be having the intended effect at all."
I think this is the challenge. We may well not be able to improve if we are never given negative feedback, but given feedback the wrong way we may become defensive. It also depends on our basic makeup and how we receive any kind of criticism or indeed praise – do we have a fixed mindset which tend to make us over sensitive to negative feedback of a growth mindset which embraces an opportunity to learn - see the Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck’s excellent book mindset.
Delivered or received the wrong way feedback may at best be ignored or at worst act as a real disincentive to improve. As George Bernard Shaw commented truthfully if a little enigmatically “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Ultimately feedback should be at the very least sensitive as to its likely impact and as sympathetic and understanding as is possible in the circumstances. It should as with electric guitar feedback be used constructively, in the way Jimi Hendrix, one of the innovators in this musical form, did - and not just be a high-pitched whining noise. The American writer and cartoonist Frank A. Clark said “Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.”
Nowadays “feedback” is more often than not associated with formal or informal comments about how you do your job. The Oxford Living Dictionary defines this sort of feedback as Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement. It used to be more one way – a boss telling you how to do the job better. Nowadays it can be given by anyone – colleagues, managers, subordinates. It can be 180 degree feedback where your raters are at the same level as you (peers or colleagues), and a person you report to. Or you can have 360 degree feedback defined by Wikipedia as a process through which feedback from an employee's subordinates, colleagues, and supervisor, as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves is gathered.
In fact, it seems there can be any manner of degree of performance appraisal from 90 degrees to 720 degrees – see this academic article which describes each of these. A 720 degree appraisal is basically a 360 degree appraisal performed twice and performance is appraised from 5 dimensions and feedback.
Have we all gone mad - 720 degree feedback! But the real issue is whether feedback is constructive or destructive. As I look back over the last 12 months I or the teams I have been in have definitely received both. As this short guide suggests bad feedback Demotivates, focuses on blame; creates defensiveness and confrontationwhereas good feedback Encourages, focuses on improvements – achieved or possible; creates trust and cooperation.
I like this article Learning to Deliver Feedback Effectively: Good and Bad Examples which starts with a quote from Ken Blanchard, an author and management expert, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” and goes on to cite some good examples of positive and negative feedback.
This article cites a Harvard study which indicates that giving or receiving peer-to-peer negative feedback rarely leads to improvement.It suggests that:
"There's an assumption that what motivates people to improve is the realization that they're not as good as they think they are. But in fact, it just makes them go find people who will not shine that light on them. It may not be having the intended effect at all."
I think this is the challenge. We may well not be able to improve if we are never given negative feedback, but given feedback the wrong way we may become defensive. It also depends on our basic makeup and how we receive any kind of criticism or indeed praise – do we have a fixed mindset which tend to make us over sensitive to negative feedback of a growth mindset which embraces an opportunity to learn - see the Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck’s excellent book mindset.
Delivered or received the wrong way feedback may at best be ignored or at worst act as a real disincentive to improve. As George Bernard Shaw commented truthfully if a little enigmatically “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Ultimately feedback should be at the very least sensitive as to its likely impact and as sympathetic and understanding as is possible in the circumstances. It should as with electric guitar feedback be used constructively, in the way Jimi Hendrix, one of the innovators in this musical form, did - and not just be a high-pitched whining noise. The American writer and cartoonist Frank A. Clark said “Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.”
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