SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How often does feedback become unconstructive?
- Sometimes. People don’t always provide actionable feedback: 71%
- Often. Too much feedback becomes distracting and confusing: 14%
- Never. All feedback is great to give and receive: 12%
- All of the time. Enough with the feedback already. Let’s do some work: 3%
Our feedback needs work. Many of you expressed frustration, it seems, not only about the quantity of feedback but also whether it is actionable. Unless feedback has a “request for change” with it, sometimes it’s hard for the recipient to do anything with it. That leaves people frustrated. When you provide feedback, make sure you give the person actionable behavior to change. Or, if the person has done something well, make it known specifically what action should be replicated. If you’re the recipient and the feedback isn’t actionable, ask the giver to suggest what you should do differently. If you do this consistently, the quality of feedback should improve.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of ThoughtLeaders and author of “One Piece of Paper.”
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I think this is one reason why 360s can fail. Giving good feedback (and listening to it) is really a skill that needs to be learned and practiced.
I found it interesting that the DiSC 363 for Leaders 360 product is set up so reviewers have to select from a list of possible comments on a particular trait. It makes it easier to give the feedback because you're not worried that your word choice will make it obvious that you made the comment. It also makes it impossible for someone to give off-topic or meaningless feedback.
The easiest way to provide actionable feedback is to offer them the actions they want the recipients to do. Would they want a technical support to visit or call them? Do they want to see more products and services? Do they have gripes over how the website is laid out? Then a comment box can be used to expound on the choice.