Are you a manager, HR professional/leader or employee/specialist?
You've probably landed on this page because you've expressed which role suits you best.
But have you thought about how feedback and feedback culture is perceived by others? Feedback and feedback culture are often talked about as if we agree on what it is and what it means to us. In reality, it really depends on who you ask.
Just look at the image above.
What is a pig? That depends on whether you're a butcher, wolf, doctor or something else.
Below we have briefly described how we at Feedwork experience that different roles in an organization view feedback and feedback culture. Use this article to broaden your understanding of perspectives other than your own. We zoom in on what feedback and feedback culture is for the manager, for someone in HR and for the employee.
To define feedback and feedback culture first, check out our in-depth review of feedback and feedback culture.
How is feedback culture relevant for managers?
As a leader, it's your responsibility to succeed through others. We find that leaders have two desires when working with us:
- That they become better at giving feedback themselves (without taking too long) because it's expected of them.
- Employees become better at seeking and receiving feedback, as well as giving feedback to each other.
On the other hand, one of the most powerful things managers can do when they want to work with feedback in their team is to seek out feedback themselves. By doing so, they role model the behavior they want others to have, and they gain valuable experience with the feedback dialogues on the receiving end. For example, managers can seek feedback on their 1:1 conversations and ask: "What is one thing about the way I lead the team that you think helps us do our jobs better?"
You can read more great questions for managers to ask in our guide with 40 great questions.
How is feedback culture relevant for HR leaders and HR partners?
In HR, the focus is on the feedback culture. Therefore, when we meet with HR at the beginning of a process, we start from an organizational perspective. How do you build capacity to use feedback in your organization? What organizational learning is necessary for you to succeed? Our goal in working with HR is to make HR a partner who understands the organization so that together we can answer the question: "Where do we start working with feedback in this organization or department?" Specifically, we work to identify the key situations where feedback helps the organization achieve its strategy, so that working with feedback becomes an embedded part of the organization.
If you are more curious about this, we occasionally host webinars with this perspective (See e.g. "How to lead a feedback culture").
When we work specifically with HR partners, we also take a "train the trainer" perspective along with the organizational perspective, because the HR partner better understands how feedback culture can be strengthened and supported, and how they can best support the managers they are HR partners for. As an HR partner, you need help on how to support the manager in facilitating feedback in their team rather than giving feedback to the manager.
The HR partner often succeeds by being the manager's "commitment buddy" because the manager has many other areas of focus, so working on feedback culture becomes something that can be postponed. If you're an HR partner, consider whether you're doing enough to help your managers be role models for their teams.
Read this article in Børsen Ledelse on how managers can be a role model for the feedback culture.
How is feedback culture relevant to the employee/specialist?
"Is this another thing we're going to spend time on?"
"It's a great idea, but I doubt it will work here."
"Great initiative, I'm looking forward to it!"
"We really need more focus on that."
These are some of the things we hear from employees when a large or small program starts up. As an employee, it's not always a focus of your own choosing.
For the employee, it's about making feedback simple and useful in everyday life so that it doesn't take unnecessary time away from the core task, but instead supports it and makes the employee (and manager) better during the days, weeks and months that pass while we're doing our jobs. Our employee empowerment workshops and the related webinars on empowering feedback are very popular with employees. Take a look at our previous webinar on this topic to see more.
Take a look here if you would like to learn more about feedback and possibly transformational leadership
Take differences into account
Regardless of your role, we all come with baggage and experiences about working with feedback, learning and development. If you work with colleagues (managers, HR partners or employees) who have a different perspective on feedback culture than you, curiosity will get you a long way. Ask what they believe feedback can help with and what their past experiences are. This can often help us understand each other.
When we discuss the strategic direction of the company in Feedwork, we try to go back to our individual starting points when disagreements arise by asking: "What is it that we believe in, focus on and individually want in relation to this topic?"
This often creates more understanding and therefore a better starting point for a respectful, healthy and honest debate.
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