Why ‘It is fine’ is the worst piece of feedback you can receive…

A culture of feedback is one of the key elements that all high performing teams have in common. On an individual level – the ability to accept and respond to feedback is one of the most important skills a person can develop.

But how do we create a culture of feedback?

How do we improve our ability to give and receive feedback as individuals?

As with any element of an organisation’s culture – ‘the feedback culture’ is a reflection of the organisation’s leadership.

If the leaders invite feedback from above and below their hierarchy as well as their peers – other people will feel that it is safe to do so and replicate this behaviour.

If leaders don’t invite this sort of behaviour or feedback only flows down the hierarchy – the organisation and the individuals will suffer.

You lead by example – it is up to you what sort of example it is.

To put it another way, if you work in an organisation that has an unhealthy or non-existent feedback culture – the impact is on you – and it is not positive because it is not helping you to grow and develop.

You don’t need to spend too long in an organisation to work out what the culture of feedback looks like. Do they ‘debrief their wins and their losses’ properly or do they just brush past successes and failures without taking time to stop and ‘deconstruct’ why it worked or why it failed.

Organisations and individuals that do both react to their environment faster.

They’re more agile and they adapt – and this is the simple formula for winning.

John Boyd described it in the OODA loop (Observe Orientate Decide Act) which forms the basis of Manoeuvre Warfare. Lean has PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) and Darwin – the father of these theories – described it in his theory of evolution.

Change is the only constant. It is your ability to handle change, to react to changes in your environment or market that marks you or an organisation out for success.

The first step in building a feedback culture is that the individual has to be able to take their performance, both good and bad, and divorce it away from their personality.

There is you. There is the performance. The two are separate.

A bad performance does not make you a bad person.

In the same way, a great performance doesn’t make you a great person.

The two are related but they are not the same. By all means, give everything you do, your very best shot – try your hardest. You can control the input.

But accept that sometimes, you will make mistakes, things will go wrong or the pitch may fall flat because you cannot always control the result.

You can do everything that you can to influence the result – but you cannot always control it.

Feedback is all about the result. It is designed to help you improve and therefore should be treated as a gift.

This is important because if you don’t understand this concept, you will misread the feedback as an attack on you as an individual. You might even react defensively which in turn has an impact on the person giving you the feedback.

This reduces the likelihood of them giving you feedback in the future. That’s a problem for you now because you have just created a blindspot to your performance – you have just closed down an avenue for valuable information to flow your way.

As part of my ‘Sharpen the Saw’ activity, I listen to the Start-Up Camp podcast with Dale Partridge. This guy knows his stuff and he asks great questions. He interviewed Dr John Townsend who surmised the point well which I will attempt to relay in the following paragraph.

There is a difference between ‘hurt’ and ‘harm’ which can be explained using a workout metaphor.

If I go to the gym for a workout, what I am effectively doing is tearing muscle fibres so that when they rebuild, they are stronger. The feeling I might get afterwards is called ‘delayed onset muscle soreness’ or DOMS.

This process hurts but it is healthy – it does not harm me.

If I don’t go to the gym and I eat a large bag crisps (its never happened!)… this does not hurt me but it does harm me.

Giving and receiving feedback is painful – it hurts – but it does not harm. It is never nice to hear that the project or business idea you have been working hard on isn’t very good. No one likes to hear that.

But it is better to hear it sooner rather than later – and it is how you react to feedback that makes you successful.

If you take it on-board and process it, it can be the most valuable thing you receive.

I know this because when I decided to set up my own business, people didn’t really ‘get it’ at first – or if they did, they weren’t enthusiastic about it.

On reflection, it became clear that they didn’t really ‘get it’ – they didn’t understand what I was selling. How can anyone recommend you or help you if they don’t understand what you do?

This was a painful but valuable realisation and after I had dried my eyes, I realised that this wasn’t about them. It was about me.

They didn’t really understand what I did because I had failed to make my proposition clear enough. Long story short, I created this document . It is a work in progress – like everything – but it does help to explain what I do and why it is unique.

This process hurt – but like going to the gym – it made me (and my proposition) stronger.

The worst thing that someone can do when you explain your proposition to them is say, ‘yeah… it’s fine’.

This doesn’t hurt me – but like the crisps – it harms me because it doesn’t force me to do something different and improve my pitch.

Giving feedback and receiving it requires a very high level of emotional maturity. This is not something that has come easy to me – it is a tough lesson that I’ve learnt.

Feedback is not about you. It is about your performance. The two are related but separate. Each piece of feedback is a ‘data point’ and there might be anomalies. Some people won’t ‘get it’ and some people might not even like you.

The key is to reflect on what people tell you and start to pick up on patterns. If you spot any and you’re not getting the result you’re looking for, you might want to take a moment to reflect and make some changes before you keep going.

The following few lines might really help the next time you ask for feedback.

I am okay and you’re okay.

We’re both just a ‘work in progress’ trying to get better.

My performance is not a reflection of my personality.

High performers and high performing organisations give and receive feedback – they seek it out knowing that it will help them improve.
What does your feedback culture look like? Do you ask for it – and how do you respond when you’re given it?

Leadership behaviour creates culture.

Culture drives performance.

Without a culture of feedback – you are blinding yourself to all the ways in which you could get better.

In my next article, I am considering explaining ‘how to give feedback so it lands perfectly’ and doesn’t create a defensive reaction – it’ll be out on Thursday. Drop me a comment below if you want me to write about this… give me some feedback…

Roderic Yapp is a former Royal Marines Officer who used to coach leaders in the nuclear industry. He has specialist experience in areas where ‘leadership failure’ leads to death or serious injury.

He now works with the leaders of rapidly growing businesses, coaching them to create high performing organisations.