feedback, APPRECIATION AND ERROR CULTURE
“We don't chat, we have conversations.“ That was addressed to me. In addition to my day job as a team leader at an international research centre, I worked in a nursing home as part of my training as a psychological counsellor. I had used the word ‘chat’ in my report about my encounters with clients. My supervisor's reaction hit me hard.
According to Götz and Reinhardt in Leadership: Feedback at Eye Level [1], good feedback is more like ‘presenting a gift than delivering a parcel’. But what makes the difference? Not all feedback is positive, but it is much easier to give and receive when the attitude is right.
“We don't chat, we have conversations“ has become my personal motto, even when it comes to feedback. It helps me to take a meta-perspective: What system are my conversation partners and I in? In what positions? What impact do my statements have? And above all: Am I willing to listen?
This sentence helps me to adopt an appreciative attitude. It also means perceiving my conversation partners both in their roles and as human beings. While the roles of myself and/or my conversation partners may be perceived as hierarchically different, on a human level we always interact as equals.
The sentence encourages me to formulate my messages clearly. It's not about vague or trivial things, it's about specific, authentic content.
After all, I want my feedback to achieve something with my counterpart: at the very least, I don't want to jeopardise the relationship, but ideally I want to strengthen it. I want to highlight an achievement, reinforce a behaviour. I want to draw attention to a shortcoming without causing personal offence. I want to contribute to a culture that allows mistakes to be made visible without anyone feeling threatened.
Feedback can also do this: create a culture of error that helps people in an organisation, and thus the organisation itself, to learn and develop.
As an HR manager, I see every day how valuable open feedback is for all of us. For the company, it is a compass that shows us where we stand and where we can improve. For employees, it is an opportunity to be heard, to help shape the company and to develop further. For managers, it is a tool for understanding, providing guidance and offering targeted support. Feedback is effective when we all embrace it: giving it honestly, accepting it openly and implementing it consistently. This creates transparency, trust and a culture in which we not only work alongside each other but grow together.
