Delegate

How the IT industry's best workplace uses feedback to make their values concrete

How do you prevent your company's values from ending up as mere words on a website - and instead becoming a meaningful guideline for your work?

Sara Tugcu Pedersen has a good idea.

She is a Senior Consultant and Team Leader at Delegate. It is an IT consultancy of 200+ employees working with Microsoft products. Incidentally, they were voted the IT Industry's Best Workplace (and the IT Industry's Best Workplace for Women) in 2022.

"In Delegate we have 3 values: presence, reciprocity and recognition. In working with these values, the feedback techniques we have learned from Feedwork have been invaluable," says Sara.

"Feedback has always been important to me, but complex. I needed a framework for it. After getting to know some of the Feedworks tools, it has become more manageable and easier to implement. I love that you can take a tiny thing, test it out pretty simply and then scale up from there."

Sara uses feedback in two places in particular to support Delegate's values. This happens in the relationship with customers and in the relationship with employees.

So let's get down to business and show you how a skilled team leader has implemented some relatively simple techniques in everyday life:

1) How feedback can strengthen the relationship with customers

When Sara has completed a project with a client, she always books the project manager for a feedback meeting of about 1 hour. Along with the meeting invitation, she sends 2-3 questions for the project manager to prepare for.

"I deliberately ask no more than 2-3 questions so as not to overwhelm people and book the meeting well in advance so they have time to reflect," Sara says. "But often these questions act as a can opener for a lot of other things that the client thinks about. Some of it I can use straight away, and the rest goes into an idea bank."

For example, Sara uses the 'What is the one thing' technique like this:

What is one thing I did really well in x on the project?

What is one thing I did less well compared to y on the project?

So what does Sara get out of these feedback sessions?

"First, it's a really good way to end a project because it gives the client an opportunity to reflect and be honest about how the collaboration went. I become stronger on what I'm good at and what works. It can be really hard to figure out for yourself what value you're creating. That way I get input on what I do that works well - and what my development points might be in the future."

As well as using feedback as a good end to a client assignment, Sara also uses the tools to inspire her staff and colleagues in how they can use feedback in their own development:

2) How Sara empowers her employees with feedback

"I always encourage my staff and colleagues to seek feedback along the way. I spar with them about how to convene a feedback meeting and what might be good questions for such a meeting. And then we talk together about how it went and what they can use the feedback for."

Sara elaborates:

"I talk openly with my staff and colleagues about the shared responsibility to seek learning. We also talk about how it's OK to say no - you can say 'no, this is a bad time' when someone wants to give feedback.

And then they've figured out how exactly to do it and what's the best way to phrase it so that it doesn't just go sandwich model (the model consists of giving 1) positive feedback 2) constructive criticism 3) positive feedback again, ed.) in there.

"In this way, my employees feel that they are given a mandate to take their development into their own hands. The way they can be empowered by taking a tiny feedback tool and implementing it is exciting and really cool to experience."

Does Sara think others could benefit from learning feedback tools?

"I'd rather ask: Who could not benefit from it? Having the tools to master a feedback situation is a foundation we should all have, just as I think we should have 'how to do your taxes' on the school curriculum. It's about how you conduct yourself as a human being. So in my opinion it's relevant for all employees in all organisations."