Culture of Feedback – The Business Case

The most under-discussed topic, especially in executive level teams, is how individuals should communicate with one another. Many underestimate the value of creating a feedback culture that provides and supports an appropriate channel for individuals to express their needs and work-related challenges while diffusing any potential frustration.

In every engagement you have with someone else, especially if there’s any disagreement at all – there are two different elements – some degree of task (assertiveness) and some degree of relationship (cooperativeness). Both are essential. It’s emotionally intelligent to learn your own type preferences and to study (typewatch) and learn to appreciate the differences and similarities of others.

In a feedback culture, each team member learns to influence the behavior of teammates by giving them information quickly and helping them to see that a different decision or a different set of behaviors is in their interest. You can say, I can’t tell you to stop, but I can tell you that if you do this, it makes me feel this way, or incites others to react a certain way … I don’t know if you see it that way but I wanted to give you this information. So maybe you should do something differently. You do that through feedback.

A feedback culture is especially desirable in a technical and predominantly closure-oriented environment. The nature of that environment is that most people work in a system where it’s reinforced that their organizational life is one of structure, order and accountability. In other words, if you mess up, you should be provided constructive criticism by the person in charge of you so you can fix the problem.

The question is, “Do you tell a teammate about their blind spot or not?” You can choose not to tell them and be dishonest. However, to build a profitable business and develop healthy relationships, that’s a discussion that has to happen. And, it’s vital to remember that feedback doesn’t have to be used just to identify and correct behaviors. It can be for something praiseworthy.

The goal of a feedback culture is to arm team members with ideas and tools – personal tools – that help fuel everyone’s role in task completion and relationship building.