Yesterday I facilitated a four-hour workshop on feedback, and I am still recovering. Two years into my facilitation journey, I am getting better and more confident, but there is so much thought and energy (and time!) that goes into planning a successful workshop. I find myself constantly drained afterwards, processing what went well and what didn’t, acknowledging the good intentions behind the increasingly better work I am doing and following up on all of the logistical stuff that needs to be done before putting a workshop to bed- submitting invoices, following up with workshop participants, posting to social media, processing evaluations…
Yesterday’s workshop was so different than any other workshop I have ever done, and I find myself needing more time to process than usual. I have long since accepted that I will never make it all the way through one of my agendas. (An unfortunate aftermath from my first year as a teacher when I ran out of things to do one time and never fully recovered.) I over plan and over stuff and make sure we always have lots of wonderful options to choose from based on the needs of the group. I let participants know as much and design my slides and handouts so that whatever we do not get to is fairly self-explanatory and can be taken back to the office to work on independently. Most of the time I get through about 75-85% of wh
at I plan. Yesterday, I didn’t even get through half.
The goal of yesterday’s workshop was to learn the skills and mindset necessary to give and receive effective feedback. However, with a four-hour slot, my fear of running out of things to do set in, and I broadened the topic to include coaching and other impactful communication. In hindsight, this was a mistake. We did not even come close to the coaching section and barely scratched the surface of the feedback one. Because for every question I posed- questions that are often met with silence- several people wanted to respond. These responses were honest and thought-provoking and important, and they were clearly contributing to people’s learning. As a result, we shifted gears and spent time- a lot of time, most of our time- on each person’s comments and situations and suggestions. It essentially became a four-hour feedback discussion rather than a feedback workshop. The discussion was so rich and so helpful and so powerful, that I did not see any effective or justifiable way to thwart it. People had a lot to say and what they had to say simply needed to be said. It was the fastest four hours I have ever experienced.
So, as I sit here still in my bathrobe, waiting for my soup to cool, I’m trying to use this week’s post to work through exactly what happened yesterday and what we can learn from it. Here’s what I have so far:
FEEDBACK HITS HOME
Feedback has a lot of weight and baggage attached to it, and unfortunately, much of it is negative. Because so many people struggle with feedback- both on the giving and receiving ends- nearly everyone has a personal experience associated with it, and this experience is often emotional and raw. Sometimes the experience involves receiving too much feedback or not enough. Often it is about receiving harsh, unfair and even ridiculous feedback. On the giving end, people often share the experience of wanting to hide the shame and discomfort they feel around their perceived inability to give feedback successfully and effectively. Perhaps they have experienced a particularly negative reaction when they have given feedback in the past and avoid it altogether for fear of it happening again. Whatever the reason, it is there looming for most people, and when they finally make it to a feedback workshop like the one we had yesterday, they take advantage of the opportunity to share. As they should.
FEEDBACK IS HARD
Communication broadly and feedback specifically are challenging to implement well. Any time we engage in any kind of communication with another person, we are experiencing all sorts of similarities and differences in how we process and understand. These differences range from individual to cultural to linguistic and everyone’s formula is different. Learning how to adapt and adjust to best communicate with everyone equally well is a gargantuan task and often feels overwhelming enough that we give up altogether. But we can’t. No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, feedback is an important and central part of our working life and when it is delivered well, it is essential to our growth and success. Avoiding it only hurts ourselves and those we are charged to serve, and it is simply not an option worth considering.
People seek to improve their feedback because they recognize how important it is as an employee and as a leader. As a leader, it is your responsibility to your team to provide feedback in order to help them develop and grow. As an employee, it is your obligation to yourself to seek and adjust to the feedback you receive. Regardless of how self-aware you may think you are, there are always blind spots you will never see. Other people can help shed light on them. And because human beings and their communication are inherently complex, you will likely get very difference feedback from different people. You know that expression about seeing things as you are rather than as they are? That holds as true for feedback as it does for anything else. Seek and listen as much as you can to as many different perspectives and pieces of feedback as you can from as many people as you can. You don’t need to agree with everything but being open is essential to the process’ success.
FEEDBACK ISN’T TALKED ABOUT ENOUGH
Most people are never taught how to strengthen their feedback, and many don’t seek help with it because they either don’t know where to get it or they assume they should know how to do it naturally. Too many people are not given the time or space to work through their challenges with feedback, so when they get an opportunity like they did yesterday, they take full advantage. And why shouldn’t they? People should have the opportunity to receive the support they need with feedback (and with any other challenge, for that matter) but we know that that is not always the case. We need to provide support and guidance to our teams so they can better give and receive feedback as the gift that it is rather than something to be feared or dreaded. Whether that support comes in the form of a feedback workshop or coaching or something else, the important thing is that it comes.
FEEDBACK IS VULNERABLE
Being completely honest with people and having them be completely honest with us is not something most of us are used to. When you commit to giving feedback honestly and intentionally and seeking it earnestly and consistently, there will be words that will not be initially well received, which of course does not mean they cannot also be helpful and true. Admitting that we need help and opening ourselves up to these honest conversations can only result in positive changes in the long run, but it requires a willingness to slog through the discomfort and hurt in the short term. Too often when we garner the courage to have an honest feedback conversation, we give up and say, “See, it doesn’t work!” But what you need to realize is that the initial challenge as well as subsequent ones are part of what it takes to get to the good stuff. So, don’t expect it to be easy or comfortable but do know that it will be worth it. In order for this to happen, there needs to be a safe space. With yesterday’s amazing group of participants- a group that was smaller than expected- we created such a space where people allowed themselves to be vulnerable and I could not in good conscience direct them otherwise.
I will allow myself the rest of this now much shorter day to sit with the thoughts and awarenesses that came out of yesterday’s session. After that, I will begin to prepare for my next presentation. But I do hope that we are able to glean important lessons from what happened yesterday in order to better support our teams going forward. I hope we create the time and space our teams need in order to actively participate in a feedback culture that is positive and impactful. I hope that we become the type of leaders who are willing to work through the challenges that come along with the good, hard work necessary to create positive results. I hope we are thoughtful and caring when we talk with other people and that it is always our intention to use our words for good. I hope that we support our teams in working through their challenges and fears surrounding feedback and that we create a culture where all staff can benefit from the gift that feedback is intended to be.
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If you would like more support to effectively give and receive feedback, you are invited to join our self-paced, value-packed virtual course. This course will give you everything you need to better support your staff while becoming a stronger leader. Start today and revisit the material as many times as is helpful to you. Click the photo below to learn more.
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