When an organization’s culture is all about heaping praises upon others, it stands a chance of disintegrating at the gravest challenges. Praises that are not balanced with feedback create an environment where problems are not tackled head on.
Instead, conveniently overlooking fellow team members’ faults only allows the problems to fester and grow to destroy any ‘feel-good’ vibe left in the team.
The point is, for a company to grow, you’ll need to cultivate a feedback-friendly culture. Team members must be encouraged to share feedback amongst each other with ease. They also ought to be able to voice their opinions of their superiors without fear of repercussion.
Anything lesser than that, and you’re putting your foot down on the company’s growth.
Yet, setting up a culture-driven organization isn’t easy. It’s hard to pinpoint others’ shortcomings, and it’s even harder to learn that you’re not as accomplished as you thought you were.
You’ll want to take it one step at a time, and these steps will help you out.
Put regular feedback meetings in the schedule
There’s a tendency to push back an agenda that’s perceived as not important. If you’re serious about developing a feedback culture, you’ll need to highlight its importance. Take action and make feedback meetings part of a routine schedule.
Putting it out in the open dispels negative perceptions about the whole feedback-driven agenda. In fact, it lets team members adapt to it and understand that providing feedback is crucial to growth.
You’ll want to decide how frequently you’ll want to be gathering the feedback. It can happen weekly in small groups or monthly over a casual meet-up. The point is, plan it out in advance and ensure the team members are clear about how the feedback mechanism works.
It also helps if the practice involves from the top level. Key management should lead by example. If you’re a team leader, founder, or in the top managerial level, be proactive and seek feedback from your team.
Proactively seek out more feedback channels
Employees are humans who may feel uncomfortable voicing their thoughts, even if it’s now a company culture. It is your responsibility to provide various avenues that allow them to feel safe when providing feedback.
No, feedback doesn’t always have to happen in a cold, formal environment. If anything, an overly-formal setup may discourage employees from saying what they truly feel.
You’ll need to get creative with how the feedback session should transpire. It could happen over a bi-weekly Friday lunch, where team members are split into small groups of 3. They are then encouraged to provide feedback to their peers.
Some employees may not be comfortable providing feedback directly in public. In such a case, you’ll want to consider setting up a 1-to-1 discussion, where anonymity and privacy are guaranteed.
Conventional mediums like a feedback form are still effective if verbal feedback seems a challenge initially.
You’ll have to find out what works best for your organization, and guess what? Securing feedback is the best way to do so.
Empower your team to give feedback directly
Everyone on your team needs to be on the same page when it comes to giving feedback. You’ll need to show them that feedback, be it positive or negative, is used in driving the company’s growth.
Therefore, employees shouldn’t stop at only providing feedback. They are encouraged to jot down the changes that they’ve made and how it positively affects them.
When your team member reacts to the feedback, so will the results of the company. The team could be more responsive to customers or has managed to cut down expenses. Make it a point to share the transformation with the team members.
Letting the employees know that their feedback has such a profound impact on the company’s growth can be rewarding. It encourages them to continue to provide honest, constructive feedback.
Your team members wouldn’t hesitate to embrace the feedback culture when they realized they have positively impacted the company.
Summary
It takes a collective effort to make feedback giving culture a reality in an organization. It may or may not be easy as it depends on the current mindset of your employees. Regardless, the transformational power of feedback is undeniable, and it must be implemented if you’re striving for growth.
As a leader, you should lead by example and start normalizing the act of giving feedback to your team. Put the tips as mentioned earlier into action, and you’ll soon witness reluctance giving away to streams of genuine feedback in your team.