First a feedback culture, then an agile organization!

Feedback culture requires well-trained moderators in your organization

Well-trained moderators in your organization are important for the successful development of a value-adding feedback culture. This is because feedback constellations will multiply as you and your organization move towards agile forms of work and self-organization approaches. Typical examples include:

• In agile organizations, annual employee appraisals no longer only take place once a year, but often also during the year.
• In some organizations, it is no longer managers who conduct appraisal interviews, but colleagues in the team or value creation partners.
• Feedback discussions at the critical interfaces of value creation enable a systemic top-down view of the value creation processes.
• Project reviews during the project phases are typical of agile approaches and do not only take place once at the end of a (failed) project.

In order for these discussions to be productive, training the workforce in "giving and receiving feedback" is a prerequisite. It is also helpful to use well-trained moderators in challenging discussion contexts. These can be scrum masters or agile coaches. It is crucial that they are professionally trained in the topics of discussion management and are very familiar with the working methods you are aiming for. If these requirements are met, internal moderators act as catalysts for the learning processes in your organization.
 

Building a toolbox with good feedback tools

If you have instilled the skills of a constructive feedback culture in managers and employees, you also need good structures and processes to develop these skills.

Ideally, employees and managers will autonomously access different feedback formats as required. Interface or performance appraisal meetings (with managers, colleagues or value creation partners) are examples of this. The design of the formats includes corresponding guidelines that can be used as a guide for feedback givers and receivers.

Digital feedback processes: as much as necessary, as little as possible

The market offers a wide range of online feedback apps. These include not only cyclical online feedback, such as structured 360° feedback (new link: /publikationen/praxiswissen/mitarbeiterbefragungen-360-grad-feedback), but also ad hoc feedback requests via smartphone after a meeting. The digital addition to feedback processes can be very helpful, but it requires an effective sense of proportion. So be aware:

• Permanent, anonymous online feedback is no substitute for trusting, constructive and creative discussions in the value creation process.
• Performance appraisal systems and feedback activities must not hinder performance itself. If an organization is only concerned with collecting feedback and evaluating sophisticated feedback systems, the external customer is likely to notice this quickly - through overpriced prices, poorer quality and an impoverished offering that is then rebranded as "lean" and "agile".

This is where the gold standard of a balanced middle ground applies: as much feedback as necessary, as little as possible.
 

Top management MUST live the error and feedback culture constructively

Many change projects fail because the upper management levels demand change from the workforce without going down this path themselves. How much willingness to change is actually anchored in top management? Without a genuine willingness to change from the very top, a constructive error and feedback culture will not succeed. There are several reasons for this.

1. Managers are ideally role models, but always examples - even of bad behavior. If managers do not exemplify change, they arouse disinterest or defiance among employees. Along the lines of: "If they don't do it, I don't need to do it either."
2. But the problem is even more serious. It is simply impossible to develop a culture of shared learning if those involved have to constantly protect themselves from blame. They cannot give and receive feedback across teams in a spirit of trust if management demands hedging strategies against colleagues. It is not possible to base the way you work within your organization on the principle of self-responsibility as long as management preaches and demands error intolerance. After all, the best error-avoidance strategy is to avoid responsibility.

This is why setting a good example from top management is not a question of moral fairness towards the workforce. Rather, it is the basic prerequisite for the success of the desired change. This also requires training and a lot of practice. And the willingness of top managers to invest time in nothing more and nothing less than their own development - as a prerequisite for the success of the company. Top management coaching can be an effective tool here.

Experts in error and feedback culture
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