‘Feedback is the axis on which your organisation’s culture turns.’

This quote, from an excellent article by David Rock – Using neuroscience to make feedback feel and work better – made me stop and think.

Other memorable quotes for me from the article include:

– Feedback is the essence of intelligence . . . allows us to develop more complex responses to the environment . . . allows us to follow a purpose.

-Typical feedback conversations are about as pleasant as a root canal.

-When you ask for feedback,

you’re licensing people to be critical of you . . .

it may feel a little more uncomfortable but you’re going to get honest, more constructive feedback . . . and you’ll avoid ‘brittle smiles’. (Brittle smiles refers to the feedback giver smiling too much and being overly positive with their words).

– Asking for feedback is the path to get to minimal threat response, because it appears to offer both the receiver and the giver much more psychological safety than a giver-led approach.

– Organisations would be wise to roll out the initiative according to three criteria, in an effort to get feedback that is less biased, that promotes a growth mind-set, and that cements the habit as part of the corporate culture. Those three criteria are:

Asking for feedback (1) Broadly (2) Explicitly, and (3) Often.

Own the Conversation

On reflection, in recent posts, it seems like I’ve been on a feedback band wagon.

Still, you, as a top performing executive need to model the way to improve your organisation’s culture – and that means modelling how to ask for, and give feedback.

Implementation idea

• Within the next seven days – increase by 10% – your rate of asking for feedback, broadly and explicitly.