Prolific American author and management expert Kenneth Blanchard once said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions”. The value of feedback is undeniable. Feedback can nourish leaders and give them the energy they need to build new muscles and competencies.
But all great champions know the value and power of the collective. The most effective leaders aren’t hoarders. They share their breakfast. The same is true of feedback. Feedback is most effective when it’s shared broadly. Here are 3 steps to a nourishing self-sustaining feedback breakfast.
1. Share results
Once you’ve collected employee feedback in whatever form, you must share it. Executives and leaders should prepare an overview of results and present them to employees via town halls or other meetings. Managers should also share team-level results with their direct reports via team meetings and solicit feedback during one-on-one meetings with employees. According to recent research by Quantum Workplace, employees whose managers follow-up with them in the aftermath of a survey are 12 times more likely to be engaged.
2. Act on feedback
Most importantly, feedback must be acted on. Executives should conduct post-mortem analyses and decide on action plans based on survey results. As Tim Fargo cautions, “Mistakes should be examined, learned from, and discarded; not dwelled upon and stored.” Involving employees and other stakeholders in the action plans is most important. I’ve had clients who then left any action plans to the employees alone. This doesn’t work. It’s the partnership and the journey together that yields the best results, and is often the most creative and fun.
3. Conduct post-mortems
Post mortems have become ubiquitous among project management teams. Post mortems are typically carried out at the end of a project to determine which parts of the project were successful or unsuccessful. This type of retrospective is especially game changing in the context of feedback. Conducting post-mortems will allow you to constantly build your feedback muscle. Which ingredients need to be added to make your breakfast more nourishing? Which ingredients need to be removed? Should you consider changing the cooking process? Look back on what worked and what didn’t and refine your approach for the future.
Ongoing feedback in the form of workplace surveys can transform your business. According to research by executives at Facebook and acclaimed management professor Adam Grant, simply asking Facebook employees how long they intend to stay at the company is more than twice as accurate at predicting future turnover rates as compared to machine learning-based forecasts conducted by a predictive analytics industry leader.
I care deeply about helping leaders and advancing the human resources profession. I have authored two books, The Art of Executive Coaching and Stress-less Leadership, and maintain a regular blog. I am also a leading contributor for The Society For Human Resources Management, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Association of Talent Development.
As an active animal advocate, I donate 100% of all book proceeds to animal welfare.
The opinions in this article are my own, and do not reflect those of my publishers or employers.
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