Continuous Feedback

Feedback is critical to our personal and professional growth – it is literally a 🦸‍♀️ professional superpower 🦸‍♂️

Instead of relying on annual performance reviews for growth, the key is to establish feedback as part of a broader culture of continuous professional growth and trust.

The people who have taught me the most in my career are the ones who pointed out what I didn’t see.

– Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook

We can collectively reach our greatest potential and increase the long-term value we bring to the company by openly sharing our thoughts on performance. The key to unlocking the superpower is creating a supportive culture around sharing feedback with each other continuously, kindly, and effectively.

​Our vision for a 10/10 feedback culture

We aim to create a growth culture, because our Grow, Sustainably value prioritizes long-term growth over short-term results.

Receiver

• Say thank you (positive or negative feedback!)

• Assume positive intent. Think about sports teams – if a teammate asks you to pass more often, it is because everyone wants the collective win, it is not because they are trying to put you down.

• Ask at every opportunity. Remember that giving feedback is scary, so the door for continuous feedback starts with you. Never leave a 1:1 conversation without authentically asking for feedback.

• Own your feedback. All feedback is useful, but not all feedback is true. You do not need to agree with the feedback, but you can still use it as useful information for growth to see how others perceived your work.

• Take 24 hours. Remember, a negative response to feedback is normal. Feedback can trigger our natural fight-or-flight reflexes, so take 24 hours to digest feedback before reacting to it.

Master the principles of receiving feedback before moving on. Being a good feedback receiver is much more important and difficult than giving feedback.

Set the stage with everyone you interact with so that they are comfortable giving you feedback.

Giver

1. Setup

• Save constructive feedback for a 1:1 setting, not in public. We can talk about negative problems in public, but not individual feedback. This is an exception to the general rule of defaulting to public channels.

• Ensure that your relationship is in a good place and that there is trust, so the receiver knows that the feedback is well-intentioned. Aim for the receiver to leave with a feeling of motivation and a clear path to improvement.

• Realize that team members react to a negative incident five times more strongly than they do to a positive one. Therefore, give positive feedback 5x more often, authentically, and publicly.

2. Give

1. Ask

   1. Starting with asking for permission and preference gives the receiver agency in the process and primes their mental state to receive feedback.

      1. eg. “Are you open to getting feedback? Is there a specific way you would like to get feedback?”

2. Observation

   1. Share exactly what happened, no judgment, objectively, and specifically. Always make it about the work itself. Make sure to provide at least one clear and recent example. Ensure that they know this is not a judgment of the person, rather your observation of the work they have done and how you see an opportunity for growth.

      1. eg. “The audience was disengaged halfway through the presentation.”

3. Effect

   1. What are the consequences of the observation? Focus on the business impact and not the person.

      1. eg. “We possibly did not get the buy-in we wanted from senior leaders to continue developing the new product”

4. Recommendation

   1. How do you think they can grow?

      1. eg. “In future presentations, I recommend X, Y, Z.”

3. Document and follow-up

• Write it down afterwards and share it with them through Slack. This way, the receiver does not need to take notes while listening.

• The next opportunity that you have to act on the feedback, follow up with the giver to see if they have additional comments. Note: this is on the receiver, not the giver! If you want to grow, own your feedback.