Feedback Culture: a long-term strategic choice

Choosing to adopt the feedback strategy means sacrificing the speed of implementation, and investing rather, in the stability of performance and the establishment of an incentive group culture (corporate, work, family, etc). It’s a counter-intuitive strategy, easy to say, but little to do.

Feedback times are certainly slower than other strategies based on tangible rewards, coercive approaches or direct rewards.
Direct reward, for example, may appear to be a more immediate strategy, the effects of which can be measured with greater speed and precision, but it is a less long-lasting tactic and, above all, less sustainable over time (I act for the reward, not because I choose to improve following objective feedback, which shows me the rationally best path).

Here are 5 aspects that if not interpreted well risk leading astray, and make the risk of quickly abandoning people’s growth and development path through feedback more concrete:

1. Unilateralism

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that feedback is a one-way channel. Instead, both parties must become a source of continuous feedback for each other. The authority of the source, in fact, stems from the ability to put oneself on the same level to learn something together.

I am more willing to learn from those who are also willing to grow with me.
Seeking reciprocity is a way to learn together more quickly.

2. Corrective imbalance

Perceiving feedback solely as a corrective strategy and acting solely with this intent. The mentor leader must be a relevant source, and to achieve this, mentoring should not always be associated solely with punishment and correction. Otherwise, it will be annoying, and learning from him won’t be easy.

Paradoxically, it’s better to be biased towards positive feedback, so that when corrective feedback is needed, it will be accepted willingly and more likely to lead to behavioral change.

3. Latency

We can’t assume that feedback will work just because we’ve committed to giving it. For example, delayed response is less likely to have an impact. An important rule is that the more timely we are, the more effective we are.
“Perfection is the enemy of progress” is a valid maxim, especially in feedback-driven learning processes where seconds make all the difference.

It’s better to talk to the collaborator WHILE they are working, rather than waiting to speak to them later, even if it’s just a few minutes or hours.
Waiting to do better is counterproductive in this context of employee growth.

4. Confusion with rewards and punishments

Gratification and/or punishment are not the same as feedback.
Feedback is more like a neutral account we give to the collaborator, making their actions clear to them first. It highlights, as objectively as possible, what is happening. It highlights the elements of merit and helps you understand which behaviors to repeat to enhance and improve performance.

It should not be confused with sterile do-goodism (repeated trivial compliments) or with “screaming.”

The feedback routine can function independently of compliments and punishments, and if it is reduced solely to these, it becomes flawed.

5. Presumption of instantaneous effect

Know that when you use feedback and do not immediately see the change you want to achieve in the other, you must not believe that you are lacking in effectiveness. Maybe you are still working well, but you need to leave the possibility and time to those in front of you to choose to change.
In the event of changes that are not immediate, giving up immediately is a big mistake that makes us deny an effect in progress. The effects are not immediate, and it is necessary to wait.

Choosing to change will be a longer, but more lasting process than being forced to change (in this second context, the effects are more immediate but less long-lasting and vanish as soon as the coercion ceases).