The challenge of giving effective feedback
As a team builder, we are responsible for evaluating, providing feedback, and motivating our teams to achieve the results that we set ourselves each year in the organization. But, doubt always invades us; what is the best way to do it?
Currently, I am the UX team leader, which had an accelerated growth; we went from being 1 to 40 UXers in just 18 months.
At the beginning of the year, we carried out the first evaluation of UX maturity in the organization, which motivated us, gave visibility to our areas of opportunity, and began to expand the team's capabilities.
Nine months ago, we faced many challenges, lack of effective communication, the intensity of touch with the client, lack of consistency in applying the methodology, etc.; at that time, we made a total pause at the pace of work during 1 sprint of two weeks, and we took time to reflect, this catharsis at the beginning of the year helped us to try to improve through many drivers, some successful and some unsuccessful. However, the effort to try to conform to our team was beginning to be too overwhelming, and it was hopeless that some problems detected at the beginning of the year continued to exist.
Even though we achieved business results, there was an issue that ran through my head every day. I could not connect with my team, even making all the efforts, and the worst thing was that I did not understand why …
I decided not to give up and to try one more time. I began to use different practices that management 3.0 provides in our day.
Halfway through the year, I have to communicate the results of the 360º evaluation to the team; however, I had a challenge; not everyone had participated in this evaluation, so my challenge had an initial difficulty; it was unfair that I only gave feedback to those who had had 360º evaluation.
And the biggest challenge was how to motivate the team and make visible the behaviors to avoid, encourage the desired behaviors, and align everyone based on feedback trying to understand their context of each one.
So I chose to implement the feedback wrap within the feedback sessions that I give to the team. Feedback wrap is related to the challenge of giving actionable, efficient feedback that positively encourages the team, making clear the areas of opportunity, improving, and avoiding discontent within the team.
In my search for effective feedback, I discovered that 37% of managers are uncomfortable giving direct feedback to employees (Agility in HR Workshop de Management 3.0 e ICAgile, by Guillermo Lechuga, September 2020). Only 26% of employees fully agree that the feedback they receive helps them do a better job (Feedback Is Not Enough, by Ben Wigert and Nate Dvorak, May 16, 2019).
https://management30.com/practice/feedback-wraps/
What motivated me to apply the feedback wrap on this occasion was to be able to delve into the context in which they operate day by day in their scrum teams, what observations they have of their own situation, how they feel, what motivates them, and interests and finally from this conversation, to be able to reach an agreement from both parties.
I invite you to learn more about the practice on the Management 3.0 site https://management30.com/practice/feedback-wraps/.
For me, it was a great challenge to give effective feedback that guides us on how we are doing and motivates us to continue giving the best of each one and having a tangible form of agreement by both parties, from a pleasant and effective conversation.
Encouraging the appropriate behavior in each of us, such as aligning ourselves to stand out in the behavior of passion for the customer and continuous improvement, has as a transversal objective that we live a customer-centric culture, and even though each one lives a particular context in their scrum teams.
Throughout 4 weeks, I scheduled 30–40 minutes with each of them, although we had to be flexible with the schedule on more than one occasion, both in terms of time and day.
A couple of days before each feedback, I analyzed each team member. The feedback wrap form was initially filled out with my observations from the results I had from the 360 evaluation and the UX evaluation results and my perception of their performance over the two quarters.
The feedback canvas provided you north in six simple steps:
1. Describe the context of the event that you need to give you feedback
2. Enlist your observations, without any punish
3. Express your emotions
4. Express the importance of the event for you or your team
5. Share a suggestion
Most of it was in remote format through zoom, I opened a conversation with each one trying so that we could both understand their context, the observations of both parties, they as part of the teams that build digital products, and me as the leader of the guild and the team, as well as the feelings related to both the results of the feedback and the situations that live within the union, and we built together with the agreements of the actions that we should follow; first I started from a suggestion, and we complemented with their impressions.
As a team leader, you had to make sure everyone knows your evaluation. We have a suggested format in the organization; when analyzing both formats, I saw a coincidence in many points; however, delving into the context, observations and feelings add important layers of information that help understand and empathize with the collaborator. Instead of pointing out the error, we managed to understand what ailments the team has in a transversal way.
Link the practice with the behaviors that are promoted in the company, being a passion for the client on which we focus on reaching agreements to excel in said behavior in the short term. And the suggestions for improvement actions were about the behavior with the lowest score they had had in the evaluation.
Doing it this way helped me become aware of the team and develop specific actions to enhance our capabilities as a team.
It was precious to be able to understand the context of each one. There were challenges that I did not know that they were facing within their teams, and in several cases, they coincided; when talking about them, I realized that there are external factors that can affect individual performance.
Based on the agreements that we managed to reach in this session, we can begin to reflect on what factors allow progress or what factors affect the agreed progress.
In the first week, I noticed that most of them carried out the agreements that we had established. I also noticed a change in behavior before approaching my team when I detected problems (sometimes it was too late), and I tried to understand why this situation was happening.
The team that felt distant 9 months ago, little by little, they have allowed me to reconnect.
In the next practices with my team, I´ll try to connect the last feedback results to try to improve the results.
Now they are the ones who open the spaces to talk and clarify where there are disagreements; we manage to overcome the barriers and open the space for open and participatory communication.
I believe that the feedback in both directions was clear and guiding (from them to me and from me to them), we also managed to touch modular points, and it allowed me to identify the problems they continue to face, as well as the challenges they have within their teams.
And the most important thing is that we have a tool where we can return to consult, what were the motivators of this situation, what agreements we had, and to be able to measure the advance or setback on what we agreed.
I advise you to take the time to give honest feedback, previously analyzing the situation of each case, preparing the ideal space for conversation, entering into rapport before starting, being open to having active listening, guiding the session through the questions key of the canvas, and write each one of the emails with the agreements, since it is something that adds value to the team.
Doing the feedback wrap allows you to reconnect with your team; it allows you to understand their needs, barriers, and challenges they face and overcome them individually or as a team.
I discovered that aligning ourselves and having the same purpose from implementing this practice made it easier than I imagined 9 months ago to reconnect with my team.
