Tag Archives: feedback

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Understand me, please

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The act of imparting or exchanging information, providing direction, or passing on the news is more of an art than it is a science.  Clarity is founded on an individual perspective and to some extent, it is unique to each of us.

Strangely, because of the subjective quality implicit in any message the being coherent and intelligible with what we perceive to be full transparency can still result in misunderstanding.

Assumptions

In almost every communication both the sender and the receiver include things they accept as true or certain without the need for elucidation (i.e., assumptions)

Without assumptions being explicitly identified and defined it is easy for parties to believe the information being exchanged has a unique and clear meaning.  Sigh, sadly this is often not the case.  Depending on the assumptions the message could be very different.

Avoiding Miscommunication

One way communication is most likely to be misinterpreted.  Without the opportunity to test the message (i.e., two-way exchange), combined with a message that appears complete and clear it is easy for the recipient to assume they understood.

This situation applies to the information provider as well.  Without receiving feedback they can only assume the everyone understood the point and all is well.

In these situations, surprises occur frequently and the result is often by choruses of “that is not what I meant” and “well that is what you said”.    The intent of the message is not achieved.

Keeping the content simple is obviously one way to achieve clarity but most important is testing/validating the communication on multiple sources, getting feedback, and modifying accordingly.

This of course is really critical when providing directions or instructions on how to do something.  Misunderstandings can lead to costly mistakes.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Feedback

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Lately I have found more people using the term feedback when they are more accurately providing advice.   Granted there is a fine line between these terms, but they do have different foci.

Feedback involves providing information about your reactions to something or someone (e.g, a person’s performance of a task)  which can be used by them as a basis for improvement.

The giving of advice seems similar to feedback but is more specific.  It involves guidance or action recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action.

Gently Done

Whether couched as advice or feedback, providing direction to others must be done with care lest it is misconstrued as criticism.  Perceived criticism is likely to result in resistance by the recipient as a natural reaction.

The giving of feedback can be tricky in this regard as by it’s nature the points of improvement imply criticism about actions to date.  Consider providing advice or couching the feedback as an opportunity to make it more palatable.

Overcome Resistance

Both advice and feedback can be useful tools but my experience is the natural reaction by most recipients is auto-shutdown.  That is, as soon as you offer advice or feedback you lose your audience.

Suggestions and recommendations, not explicitly stated as such but worded accordingly work much better.  You may still achieve your objective of giving some advice or feedback but it is more likely to be received positively when delivered softly.

A word to wise, when you are providing advice or feedback always includes the reasons why someone should be motivated to accept what you propose.  Action usually will not result without motivation.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Performance Feedback

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One of my pet peeves is the fact most feedback we provide to others about how they are doing is negative.

Social media is a great example of this, while positive reviews of things have a few positive comments typically negative reviews are both more common and more detailed.

My own experience, and many psychological experiments have proven humans first instinct is to provide negative feedback. Positive comments are usually the result of conscious effort, negative feedback flows naturally.

Focus on the Positive

Years ago I discovered my suggestions for behavioural change rarely worked when focusing on things I perceived to be below my expectations or basically in my view, bad.

On the other hand positive comments led to continuous improvement focused on the foundation of things that were perceived to be good.

In short, as an effective leader, I found little point in commenting on the negative or opportunities for improvement. By focusing on the winning behaviour I noticed consistently it not only became more frequent but also more effective.

Motivation

Success motivates us. Focusing on success when providing advice to others intrinsically includes an element of positive motivation. Not so when telling someone they are doing it wrong, usually in this case change is only motivated by consequences.

Consequences may work for a while to motivate change but observation shows this approach is typically not sustainable. The fear of negative impacts slowly fades away.

It may go against your natural instincts but I strongly urge you to give this approach a try. Drop the opportunities for improvement or changes in behaviour you want to and focus on the behaviours that are worked – provide positive feedback EXCLUSIVELY.

I think you will surprised by the results.