Barrier
Barrier: Gift of Feedback as Innovative Growth Gauge
by Ellen Weber - Director at MITA International Brain Center
October 15, 2010 at 1:33amContribution Summary
Summary
When feedback meets criteria that aligns with brain operations, (such as optimizing the brain's chemical and electrical circuitry), people grow from others' wisdom. The opposite is also true. In many cases workers feel condemned by feedbacks that show little of what can be improved to create quality outputs, or when feedbacks shroud grades in secrecy. While openness works - it also takes skill and tweaking to create feedbacks that double as growth prompts!
Innovation requires that feedbacks be precise and objective as well as aligned with clear criteria - so that people can use these to leap forward and risk vulnerability. In traditional organizations, where an old guard clings to bureaucracy, feedbacks are often used to serve and sustain that system. Some might see a call for tone skills that build goodwill with those who disagree, as watering down reviews, or asking all to agree. The opposite is true. Tone skills fuel intelligence-fair feedbacks from many opposing views, in ways that drive the best ideas forward. Many participants can make offerings and help shape others' contributions, so top talents get facilitated and sometimes integrated across traditional silos, into top inventions and approaches . It's a bit like using feedback to project ideas forward, for mutual benefits.
In order to collaborate well, we must learn skills to rate well. True collaborate will require honesty, integrity and sheer skill to rate all components according to an accurate and objective measuring rod that prospers recipients, and extends innovation opportunities.
Innovation requires that feedbacks be precise and objective as well as aligned with clear criteria - so that people can use these to leap forward and risk vulnerability. In traditional organizations, where an old guard clings to bureaucracy, feedbacks are often used to serve and sustain that system. Some might see a call for tone skills that build goodwill with those who disagree, as watering down reviews, or asking all to agree. The opposite is true. Tone skills fuel intelligence-fair feedbacks from many opposing views, in ways that drive the best ideas forward. Many participants can make offerings and help shape others' contributions, so top talents get facilitated and sometimes integrated across traditional silos, into top inventions and approaches . It's a bit like using feedback to project ideas forward, for mutual benefits.
In order to collaborate well, we must learn skills to rate well. True collaborate will require honesty, integrity and sheer skill to rate all components according to an accurate and objective measuring rod that prospers recipients, and extends innovation opportunities.
Moonshot(s)
Description
Feedback should be a positive and central compnent of innovative approaches. It should not be a process to be dreaded by the innovator.
Intelligence-fair feedbacks leave an entire community moving forward! The assessor gains wisdom through understanding the innovations illustrated, and the recipient gains from support and further suggestions. Where that fails to happen, the problem is likely that feedbacks grew unfair and disconnected to intelligent outputs. Have you seen it happen where you work?
Intelligence-fair feedbacks leave an entire community moving forward! The assessor gains wisdom through understanding the innovations illustrated, and the recipient gains from support and further suggestions. Where that fails to happen, the problem is likely that feedbacks grew unfair and disconnected to intelligent outputs. Have you seen it happen where you work?
Illustration
In organizations where feedback is intelligence fair -- such as Wegmans food store, employees run to higher peaks with their suggestions and challenges to improve.
Evaluations can create a winning endpoint when people feel their work was valued in a fair, open, and transparent way - so they can use mistakes as stepping stones forward.
The organization wins also, as in Wegmans' case where they are voted in as highest place to work - with Forbes - year after year.
Evaluations can create a winning endpoint when people feel their work was valued in a fair, open, and transparent way - so they can use mistakes as stepping stones forward.
The organization wins also, as in Wegmans' case where they are voted in as highest place to work - with Forbes - year after year.
As I think more about assessment, and years of reflection has gone into this topic (with a book published on intelligence fair evaluations in 1999) I think the innovation metaphor is the device and approach used in the Chilean mine collapse. It means a great deal to me as I worked extensively with amazing leaders in several parts of Chile, including their top university in Santiago.
That said, I see feedbacks for innovation in similar ways to the recent miner rescue:
1). People at the center!
2). Shared talent for technology to make it happen
3). Networking and a crowd that cheers on mutual dividends
4). Results bear integrity for the greater good, and motivation for success
5). Shared credit for bravery, care, purpose, and passion
6. Honesty is stories about what will work best, why, and how it can be achieved.
7). No interest evident in diminishing some to help others
8). All actions steered toward one shared innovative outcome
9). A sense of urgency for a broken system that stoked adequate investments
10). Transparency in how the innovation was created and then used
How could our innovations bear the care and curiosity building of the instruments created by a talented group to bring good from a terrible disaster that could have meant death to 33 valuable men?
We have talented leaders, potential investments, motivation for success, and a caring community – concerned about the desperate need for a rejuvenated management approach. How could we make it happen together like the Chilean people recently modeled?
Root Causes
Intelligence- fair assessments are carefully designed, for far more than bottom line numbers, and are known for their fair approaches, unlike assessments that lack integrity and clarity. Where traditional feedbacks and review processes leave room for fuzzy conclusions, intelligence-fair assessment point to specific action plans for the next step forward.
People who support unfair feedbacks, in spite of objections, sometimes argue that to alter unfair assessments may result in getting soft. However feedbacks built on shared criteria, and completed with ethical guidelines literally offer more opportunities for growth and productivity.
The reason we have poor feedbacks may be because we have yet to collaborate as innovators on how feedbacks can be crafted in intelligence-fair ways. Approaches, that rate accurately, with people as capital and agreed-upon quality as a target. Assessments should be tools for growth, and offer prompts for higher motivation as well as achievemnt.
These shared criteria should guide the feedbacks and approaches in all instances. Until that happens, intelligent fair assessments are not possible, and innovative development will be stunted. .
People who support unfair feedbacks, in spite of objections, sometimes argue that to alter unfair assessments may result in getting soft. However feedbacks built on shared criteria, and completed with ethical guidelines literally offer more opportunities for growth and productivity.
The reason we have poor feedbacks may be because we have yet to collaborate as innovators on how feedbacks can be crafted in intelligence-fair ways. Approaches, that rate accurately, with people as capital and agreed-upon quality as a target. Assessments should be tools for growth, and offer prompts for higher motivation as well as achievemnt.
These shared criteria should guide the feedbacks and approaches in all instances. Until that happens, intelligent fair assessments are not possible, and innovative development will be stunted. .
Solution
Questions that make feedback or evaluation more intelligence-fair, based on how brainpower works to improve performance:
1). Did feedback show areas that were strong, and suggest insights to stoke weaker areas?
2). Is feedback unbiased – so that it was offered based on the ideas rather than hidden agendas?
3). Was there opportunity for person being graded to respond and exchange ideas?
4. Was feedback transparent so that recipient and donor could agree on outcomes?
5. Did all feedback equal evidence to show why feedback was high or low related to a person's talents?
6. Were conflicts of interest removed so that low grade to one did not equal high grade to another?
7. Were criteria amplified to show clearly what was being evaluated, and then how it was graded?
8. Did feedback illustrate a supportive leadership to help promote the ideas at the end?
9. Did specific prompts encourage affirmations of ideas, as well as show improvement areas?
10. Would folks who vulnerably posted their innovations, know how others rated them?
Credits
Book published by Dr. Ellen Weber on the topic of intelligence-fair assessments that advance implementation of knowledge and skills at secondary and university. Title is, Student Assessment that Works, A Practical Approach, published by Pearson Publishers, 1999.
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Comments
Nayantara Prasad
October 20, 2010 at 2:57amHello Ellen,
I thought the MIX competition had ended. Nice seeing a new post of yours. You had kindly visited my post on 'Separating the Knowledge from the owner' during the competition.
It would be great if Feedback were a matter of responsibility and people behaved responsibly. I find even here in MIX people are least interested in learning or even reciprocating. Dan and you are exceptions. Can a System be based on exceptions or on hope?
I had developed my barrier based on the philosophy implemented by Rajkumar with the harnessing of IT. Feedback emerged as a by-product of the free flow of Knowledge achieved. After reading your interest in Feedback here I looked for your comment on a hack Rajkumar has written devoted to the Feedback aspect of his work: 'Achieving the ends of Knowledge with Feedback' at http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/assuring-results-empowerment-and-... . Perhaps you have missed it. His approach appears to meaningfully solve the valid 'horse to the water problem' raised by Kate Low and overcome the lack of interest observed by me. I shall value your expert comments.
Regards,
Nayantara
Ellen Weber
October 15, 2010 at 5:25pmKate, thanks for stopping by and for your reflective questions. Just arrived home after speaking all day at a brain conference, and feel my own brain needs to wind down before I write the response it deserves:-).
On quick survey though, it seems to me that the new generation can only survive if it builds community with all, and if we democratize talents so that we step to the water together and drink in ways that refresh the entire group.
How would you respond to these questions, in ways that build ?
kate low
October 15, 2010 at 9:46am1) Nicola Macchiavelli "Knowledge hath doth learning retained, unfruitful otherwise"
2) David Ogilvy "If each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants"
If most successful people advocate feedback and learning and knowledge and innovation as key, then it should be basic principles that everyone should know. but rarely anyone acts upon these success factors, or are as open to feedback.
Thus, how do we generate that type of openness, and is this the case where "the wise gets wiser", and we leave the poor behind?
We can bring the horse to the water, but not force it to drink. How do we make the horse see the value of water?
Dan Oestreich
October 15, 2010 at 11:33amYour last question is a fabulous one, Kate. My career has been devoted to trying to answer it, and I'm still learning and trying very hard to get underneath it. The barrier to me is related to fundamental trust and safety on one hand, and the very rigidity of self-concept on the other. It's like asking, as I often do these days, why would anyone knowingly choose a non-defensive response to overt criticism from another person? And yet, sometimes we do choose this non-defensive route. Some would argue this is the result of either self-esteem or necessity, but I'd like to think there's another energy in us, sometimes largely untapped. I see this energy in my work as a coach and facilitator, every time someone walks into a situation where that criticism is on the table and instead of defending gets curious. I think of it as an aspect of that person's innate leadership. When that person displays their curiosity, especially if it public, there's often a rally of energy, and an increase of respect and appreciation. In that moment, we often see the leader as (finally) leading. Because this is a moment of choice, the 64 thousand dollar question is how to encourage it and foster it more frequently. And there, I believe, we still have the mystery. My (always) provisional answer would be this, that we go there for meaning and self-knowledge, and because its the right thing to do. We do it whether anyone else is doing it, and perhaps precisely because it is not the norm. We don't get other people to do it. We go there first and learn to do it ourselves, and that, perhaps, will gradually open the door for others. Ah, so much work to do! Thank you, Kate, for being here and bringing these powerful inquiries to bear!
Best to you
Dan
Ellen Weber
October 15, 2010 at 1:26amAs I think more about assessment, and years of reflection has gone into this topic (with a book published on intelligence fair evaluations in 1999) I think the innovation metaphor is the device and approach used in the Chilean mine collapse. It means a great deal to me as I worked extensively with amazing leaders in several parts of Chile, including their top university in Santiago.
That said, I see feedbacks for innovation in similar ways to the recent miner rescue:
1). People at the center!
2). Shared talent for technology to make it happen
3). Networking and a crowd that cheers on mutual dividends
4). Results bear integrity for the greater good, and motivation for success
5). Shared credit for bravery, care, purpose, and passion
6. Honesty is stories about what will work best, why, and how it can be achieved.
7). No interest evident in diminishing some to help others
8). All actions steered toward one shared innovative outcome
9). A sense of urgency for a broken system that stoked adequate investments
10). Transparency in how the innovation was created and then used
How could our innovations bear the care and curiosity building of the instruments created by a talented group to bring good from a terrible disaster that could have meant death to 33 valuable men?
We have talented leaders, potential investments, motivation for success, and a caring community – concerned about the desperate need for a rejuvenated management approach. How could we make it happen together like the Chilean people recently modeled?
Ellen Weber
October 14, 2010 at 3:23pmDan, I cannot believe you are in Seattle and I was there for one week! My loss. Yes, all that you state here catches my interest, and like you - I share the desire to learn more, and to collaborate resolutions forward!
Tomorrow I am facilitating a huge brain based leadership conference in NY and it is a very heavy day at my end. Having said that I will be addressing several of these issues with leaders who use MITA leadership approaches, and your thoughtful exchange leaves me far richer.
Yes, I will be excited to download and study your materials with an interest to further innovations, after the conference. Thanks Dan!
Dan Oestreich
October 14, 2010 at 3:31pmI'll keep thinking about this, Ellen, but yes, let's think about how to expand and explore this area here and elsewhere.
Ellen Weber
October 14, 2010 at 2:00pmDan, thanks for your kind words about my questions, which might simply be a start for our collective thoughts:-). I will look forward to your further ideas and really appreciate your two directions suggested:
1) Love your notion that suggests “we pay attention to the qualities of the relationship.” Yes, Yes Yes Dan!!!! Also agree with you that it isn't just being public, either. It's that a relationship is present and the ability to talk safely about the rating. This is a book, Dan, and I’d be first in line to buy if you write it!
2) You laid out amazing reason in brain based facts to see feedbacks as flawed – since it can add cortisol to the human brain. That shuts down learning, can shrink the human brain, and often sees intelligent people run for cover.
Interestingly, there will be no sustainable innovation, without the kind of innovative (and ethical) feedback that innovators crave. This is an amazing topic for development at this site, and one organizations would sail to high seas if they could develop. Count me in Dan! You are onto something many would value!
If there is to be innovative leadership for a finer future - there will of necessity also be innovative feedback that promotes and supports the finest talents forward! Thanks for your thoughtful reflections!
Dan Oestreich
October 14, 2010 at 3:07pmAh, shucks, you're welcome, Ellen. I'd love to think about this area collaboratively with you and others. It's an essential area to call out, and really a kind of sister topic to the hack on creating a trusting online community of innovators. If you are interested in learning more about my views on defensiveness and ways to address it, you can download an exploratory paper I wrote here.
And thank you so much, seriously, for the kind remarks, and for every contribution you've added to this site, Ellen. It's going to take me a while to carefully read through everything you've produced! I am absolutely amazed when I look at the array of stories, hacks, and barriers. My only regret is that I missed you when you were in Seattle, since I live nearby.
Many best wishes
Dan
Dan Oestreich
October 14, 2010 at 1:33pmHi Ellen
Wow, some great questions in your list. I may come back and share more ideas after I've had a chance to think about it, but in general my thinking goes in two directions:
1) What's the container in which feedback is provided? Ed Lawler, many years ago, discussing pay and performance concluded that the most useful kinds of evaluation were not necessarily the most accurate, but the ones where trust was inherent between the sender and receiver. There, even if the feedback was not perfect, it tended to be more actionable for the receiver and was regarded more positively. So if a trusting relationship is an important (or at least helpful) component to feedback being actionable, it suggests that we pay attention to the qualities of the relationship. That's why, at least from my standpoint, anonymity, insofar, as it gets rid of the relationship, is actually a problem. But it isn't just being public, either. It's that a relationship is present and the ability to talk safely about the rating.
2) there is an assumption that feedback naturally results in change and if it is not provided correctly, it is solely the messenger's problem. This is a common, culturally embedded view of feedback, particularly feedback up the system in a hierarchy, and one of the reasons messengers tend to "get shot." But we could look at this from the other side and ask, how do we help receivers reduce their defensiveness? At this point, we then move not to a study of how to offer feedback but of how to receive it. I big-time believe that there's ground to gain here through self-knowledge, reflection, and understanding of the unique patterns by which you or I are hijacked and destabilized. One piece that I've found very interesting over time is that often, in my experience, the hijack happens not when a weakness is perceived to be under attack, but when a strength is. So if I see myself as smart, and my self-regard and sense of identity are attached to it, if I sense someone else is calling me dumb, I will REALLY take offense. This is different than if someone points out a flaw I am familiar with and have accepted.
The implications of these two points is that innovators are at risk for having the very things they believe in most placed under a microscope. Because the feedback may be about areas where people are in fact gifted they may feel the feedback more deeply. In offering feedback, it's a good idea to remember we are talking about people's dreams and creations -- our strengths, and on the other side, we can all learn as good receivers to detach a little from these strengths and talents, reminding ourselves they are not all that we are.
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Ellen Weber
October 20, 2010 at 6:23amGreetings Nayantara,
You are correct - MIX competition has ended. I joined the MIX to collaborate with and learn from other innovative leaders and had no idea the competition was even coming, which is why posts appeared after the contest closed:-).
Nayantara, feedback can be based on exceptions and on hope, in the flux we all see from an older style to feedback to what we all crave in transparent communications. I’ve found that tone is required to allow for top talents to rise to the top, and people must be viewed as capital.
Thanks Nayantara, for proposing your suggestion, and I had read it with interest. In fact I will enjoy following it – and hoped you will continue to post articles based on how it is used and what people who use it experience from their results. From my 2-bit experience - the MIX is a terrific place to share insights based on others’ similar and different experiences and then to get feedback that will help build new parts on a variety of offerings, that come with good tone.
I have already tweaked ideas for MITA’s brain based because thoughtful comments here, yet I see a need for diverse input since the model is used in many cultures. Good tone is the common denominator, yet I lived in China, High Arctic, Mexico, Europe, Canada, US and Caribbean as a way to cultivate diverse ideas into the brain based model and to ensure it gets higher motivation, and achievement. Very recently we became less international and more US based, since I hoped to travel less now that my darling grandson is here , and my senior VP also has grandsons. He’s 5 months and the apple of my eye Hopefully he will be an innovative leader, who facilitates good tone across differences, and brings the kind of thoughtful insights folks like you bring.
All the best, Nayantara