Seek and Provide Feedback

Seek and provide frequent, if not constant, feedback.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

My recent client activity has been focused on strategy deployment, and so my initial thoughts regarding this feedback loop are aligned with the sponsor level. One specific situation involves a regional president and a COO making the request for initiating a more frequent feedback loop. Until we seek and provide frequent, if not constant, feedback, we may be frustrated with the level of attention the organization gives our most important initiatives.

One CEO I work with has a manta that he uses to illustrate this idea. He is known to say frequently, “What interests my manager, fascinates me.” Attention is the key. How does the team know what is interesting to you if there is no conversation about that topic? This feedback loop offers a conversation to share what should be the focus for everyone.

The dictionary tells us that feedback is the evaluative information derived from a response or reaction to a particular process or activity. The psychological perspective also adds an element of influencing or modifying future performance. I want to consider this definition for a couple of reasons. There is clearly a particular process or activity of focus, and there is an opportunity to adjust the way in which we operate involved in feedback.

Seek and Provide Feedback

SMPL OpEx rears its head again. The sponsor has established what is important and sites a process or activity that is responsible for creating it. The feedback, bi-directional, I might add, allows for the transfer of information necessary for the adjustment of performance and outcomes. Sounds like the process owner, the process team, and the sponsor are creating alignment regarding the choice of method, the efficiency of the work, and the effectiveness of achieving the outcomes.

The strategy, management, and performance systems are enmeshed in this feedback loop. The right information is moving back and forth between the three parties, strengthening alignment, not creating confusion and conflict, but creating clarity and cohesion. How often are these feedback conversations missing and is this causing conflict and misunderstanding? What is the impact on discretionary effort?

The accountability cycles are a formal feedback loop. The collisions in the hallway are informal feedback loops. How you put these conversations in your routine, they are necessary processes that build strong leadership presence. If they do not reside in your leader standard work, you are missing a great deal of value and losing significant discretionary effort. There is a powerful reason we seek and provide frequent, if not constant, feedback.