Ready for the feedback journey?

Last week we hosted the second meeting of the Rypple Learning Collaborative. Spearheaded by John Foster, IDEO’s Head of Talent and Organization, we spent an exciting afternoon at Pixar’s headquarters together with nearly 40 innovators and thought leaders from top organizations and academic institutions, including Mozilla, Facebook, and Stanford University.

From left to right: Jesse Goldman, Daniel Debow, Sully, David Stein, David Priemer, Mike, Jay Goldman

One topic that resonated with me was the idea that feedback is a journey, not a specific event. The feedback we ask for, and get, will evolve as we develop and as our priorities change.

My insight: people are more effective in reaching their objectives when they get ongoing feedback based on their work and goals.

Why? Because when feedback is part of our day-to-day lives, we get used to receiving it. This puts us in a better position to act on the feedback because we become less distracted by its implications.

Most of us are constantly on the look-out for indicators to let us know how we’re doing at work. If we’re not used to regularly getting feedback from our peers, bosses, etc., we’re more likely to think to deeply about the meaning of each piece of feedback we get. We end up spending more time interpreting the input, discussing with our friends, etc., than we do actually acting on it and using it to get better and help drive results.

Infrequent feedback is a big distraction. Consider the annual performance review, for example. Why is it so stressful for so many of us? Because annual appraisals force us to squeeze as much information as we can remember into a single event each year. Due to its infrequency, the appraisal event becomes the indicator of our value to the company. That’s challenging to take in all at once, and particularly unpleasant if we disagree with the assessment. We’ve got to break this habit – we’ll all be better, and happier, if we do.

Fostering a journey of continuous feedback requires an understanding that each piece of feedback received is not in itself the sole reflection of how good or bad you are. That’s a big step for most (myself included), but we need to do our best to keep this rule in mind: creating a habit of regular feedback will make us more receptive to feedback. This is how to start a journey that will be more fruitful for you, your team, and your organization.