Giving and Receiving Feedback: A Tool for Continuous Improvement

At Gobe, we have a solid govtech methodology, perfected with clients in Spain and Latin America and, developed, in part, during the previous experience of part of the team at the IE PublicTech Lab. We are proud of it and value it as a differential asset, but how do we keep it alive and up to date with the needs of the sector? How does a system nourish new knowledge and viewpoints?

As a starting point, we identified two opportunities: first, that we have the natural talent to collect and share a lot of external content: articles, books, frameworks. Second chance, because we are a new studio opening the market, and that makes us especially attentive to how we are received in each interaction with our customers and the ecosystem, allowing us to receive a lot of information, almost daily.

From these two opportunities, two new processes are born that we incorporate into the study and that we hope will be useful to us to nourish our methodology on an ongoing basis: 1. Receive and give receive feedback and 2. Collection and processing of external knowledge.

Today I'm going to talk to you about the art of giving and receiving feedback. Although it's something we do every day, getting the most out of it isn't always that obvious.

Feedback

Feedback can be understood as the process by which a system collects information about the effects of its actions in a given context. The concept was key in the formulation of systems theory and cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and it became popular as an added element to the well-known mathematical model of communication by Shannon and Weaver. Nowadays, it is a concept that has transcended the scope of science and has become established in our daily work and even personal lives.

Feedback has been implemented in companies and organizations such as the mechanism by which we obtain information about how an idea, proposal or intention is received in an interaction with other people on the team, customers or Stakeholders. It is a time to collect information about how our products are received and the effect they have: that is, a valuable moment of what, really, is what we are doing and the effects it produces. This information, which can be more or less deep and complete, more or less situated and contextualized, is of tremendous value for a business process: it allows us to detect frictions, barriers, opportunities for improvement in the interaction with our brand, product or service. And every problem is an opportunity for improvement in itself, an opportunity to improve, innovate or develop new products and services.

Therefore, one of the first efforts of the methodology team has been to standardize and formalize the collection of feedback within Gobe. The purpose is turn every interaction into an opportunity to pick it up and each person on the team into a transmitting and receiving antenna of information, in addition to providing a place and a space in our online work tools where we can store it in an orderly and easy to process way.

The Nourishing Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback

It may sound simple, but it's not always simple. Receiving feedback involves a double exposure: on the one hand, of our work, of our efforts and the best version of ourselves and ourselves, which can be compromised or exposed and, therefore, vulnerable to receiving “criticism” towards it. On the contrary, whoever gives it can be torn between “sincerity” and self-censorship, between giving all their opinion and measuring words excessively to the point of not providing any content that could help. So how do you do it?

To begin with, changing the framework: feedback is not a moment of criticism in the worst sense (pointing out, blaming), but rather of sharing and collaborative improvement. The word feedback itself, translated into Spanish, means feedback: well managed, it is a way of nourishing ourselves with information and points of view. Continuing with the food metaphor, if we understand feedback as an opportunity to enrich our knowledge and work, the result will be better and tastier recipes.

To follow, putting it in context and within a process: feedback is useful if we have a culture of continuous improvement (of product, of service), rather than one of One Shot or cascade product. That's why it fits especially well into agile ways of working (Agile, Scrum) and with dynamic capabilities. If instead of sharing our work as a finished product that must solve all possible problems and cases (which burdens us with responsibility and fear of failure for both parties, for those who give and for those who receive feedback) we understand the project as something in constant iteration, we can focus on improving and providing value, presenting and collecting visions in this regard.

To finish, We are in control of the moment to give and receive feedback. Spontaneous feedback will always exist and is useful, but knowing how to generate space for optimal content and to identify and standardize the opportunities we have in our processes is essential.

Get feedback: some tips

• Listen more, talk less. Receiving feedback is a time of receiving, not of continuing to give. It's okay to clear up misunderstandings but, perhaps, the misunderstanding is already a feedback in itself;)
• Without defending himself. Either you look for the truth behind what they want to communicate to you, or you defend yourself. Both at the same time are not possible.
• Why, why... Always looking for the truth behind a statement will allow you to value or discard it when the time comes and, possibly, understand the intention behind it. Behind a comment that may seem to reject an idea, there may be a shared diagnosis of the problem and, simply, a different idea of how to solve it.
• Choose the right time, person and context. Running to a meeting, with a bad connection, in an uncomfortable place, is perhaps not the best scenario to receive that succulent information you are looking for.
• Make it easy, ask for concrete feedback: specify why you are asking for feedback, the moment, on what specific aspect you would like to receive points of view: a “what do you think” is not the same as “I would like to know if this idea seems effective to you in solving this particular problem in this particular context”.

Give feedback

As general principles, I would highlight assertiveness and empathy, basic principles in all personal interaction. And as concrete tips, we propose:

• Praise better in public than in private.
• When we are going to express a point of view that we believe may be received as difficult to digest by the person receiving the feedback, it is best to do it in private and in person.
• Speak from the self. Sure it's very good and useful, but it's still just a point of view: your own. “According to my point of view”, “my feeling has been”, “My opinion on this point...” can be options that help reinforce this aspect.
• If you can, propose and explore alternatives or concrete solutions. It will be more nutritious for those who listen to you.
• It helps to digest: Order, specify and write down the evidence the ones you rely on. “I don't like it”, “I don't understand it”, don't help much to improve the next version of what you're seeing.

Objective: psychological safety environment

Tim Brown, founder of IDEO, in his book Change by Design, points out the importance of creating climates of trust to encourage innovation and new ideas to thrive. It involves creating an organization that is psychologically secure enough for anyone to expose their problems and for anyone to have an opinion on them. Without that trust, each area, each project, can become hermetic spaces in which those opportunities for improvement and competitive advantage that are the problems are not discovered.

Ok, I already have a lot of feedback. Now, where do we pick it up?

To systematize the collection of feedback, at Gobe we have provided a table in Notion, the documentation tool we use, where each person can enter the content they receive, at what time and context it occurred, who recorded it, external materials (the URL of a tweet, or an audio if it is the result of a recorded meeting, a screen if it is an email...) and reference to the product or moment of the feedback it affects.

In addition, we link each reference to another table, which we have called Parking for ideas. Thus, we try to link each idea of improvement that we generate with a detected opportunity, and on the contrary.

Next steps

As a way to finish implementing feedback, it remains to define and detail each point of contact with Gobe where we can extract feedback and provide some basic tools to do so. Sometimes it'll just be writing it down in Notion, sometimes it'll be a form, sometimes a... chatbot? We will keep you up to date with the latest news.

And while we're here, we'd love to hear your feedback on Gobe Insights. Leave us a comment on the article or write to us at hello@gobe.studio.

Some of the ideas contained in this article are the result of the Design Critique class given by Deivid Saenz in the Nave Nurse

To learn more about safe environments, to give and receive feedback, it may be useful to consult Radical Candor, by Kim Scott.