In this issue: How feedback is a necessary element of growth. And why we need both feedback and feedforward to Move Up Faster.

Experience

I often haven’t told people who reported to me, what I really thought about their performance, over my 25 year career in marketing.

Positive feedback has always been easy to me. Praising people for a job well done – that’s so much fun!

But sharing feedback when someone who reports to me is underperforming in their role?. For me, such ‘constructive feedback’ – which is always a euphemism for ‘negative feedback’, isn’t it? – has not been easy.

How do we share “observations” about performance, that both

a) recognize those times when someone on our team hasn’t met expectations (aka giving them ‘feedback’), and

b) in such a way, that they walk away from that tough conversation motivated to continue to perform (aka ‘feedforward’?)

Going forward, let’s agree that retrospective or forward looking “observations” about someone’s performance, are in fact … just “feedback”!

Reflection

Based on my experience, wheI don’t have this completely figured out. However, one rule that I hold to be true, is to provide my observations about any of my reports’ performance as soon as a relevant event happens.

When I share such immediate feedback, I typically feel uncomfortable for the first three seconds.

This initial discomfort is no different from the (occasional) times when I force myself to do a cold plunge (yes, I am one of those middle-aged people!). The worst part is mental – just stepping in. Once I break through the initial three seconds of resistance, 95% of the pain is already over.

Why is immediate feedback so important?

• It IS immediate. We are all having to move so fast – corporate objectives, market dynamics, or innovation are all moving fast – that ‘fast feedback’ is necessary to keep up with the fast-moving reality of our professional lives.

-Feedback done annually on something that happened seven months ago is irrelevant and by then nobody even remembers what happened.

• It IS feedback. We don’t learn from our experiences, but from reflecting on them. More often than not, those reflections come when something has gone wrong. Feedback makes us reflect – and learn faster.

When someone is helping me work through a situation where I underperformed, and when we quickly discuss what happened, why it happened, and what the lesson is for the future – as the person receiving that feedback, that is also my immediate opportunity to grow faster.

References

Gallup investigated fast feedback in a 2022 study named “How Effective Feedback Fuels Performance”. Two quotes stand out for me:

“80% of employees who say they have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged, and that’s four times more engaged than other workers.”

“Employees are 3.6 times more likely to strongly agree that they are motivated to do outstanding work when their manager provides daily (vs. annual) feedback.”

Gallup talks about the concept of “fast meaningful feedback”. According to Gallup, such effective feedback is:

• Frequent
• Focused
• Future-oriented

Does the feedback have to be immediate? Yes, Gallup explicitly discusses the benefits of “fast” feedback.

Meanwhile, Harvard Business Review proposes “instant” feedback because the speed of business demands it:

“As Susan Peters, GE’s head of human resources, has pointed out, businesses no longer have clear annual cycles. Projects are short-term and tend to change along the way, so employees’ goals and tasks can’t be plotted out a year in advance with much accuracy.”

“Annual goals have been replaced with shorter-term “priorities.”

If you’d like to discuss your career journey with me one-to-one, please feel free to email me at Greg@moveupfaster.me or message me on LinkedIn.

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