Feedback: are you being fobbed off?!

Do you know the clichés about feedback? Google knows them in any case. In Dutch Google even makes a distinction between the traditional and the alternative spelling (cadeautje or kadootje), so that you really can no longer escape the fact that… feedback is a gift


Another well-known saying about feedback: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions”, a phrase from author Ken Blanchard, who wrote more than 60 management books. But there is a reason that clichés become a cliché: they are true.

 

Fobbing someone off

We actually do not want to hear it. Not the clichés and also perhaps not the feedback itself. Because in addition to being nice, interesting and motivating, feedback is sometimes also confrontational or scary. Sometimes you cannot recognize yourself in it, feedback is not concrete or we do not know how to deal with it. Sometimes feedback is not even true or fair and then you are actually being fobbed off. Nevertheless, feedback, and especially the lack of it, affects the success of the collaboration.

Feedback and criticism

For some people, feedback is the same as criticism. Then you are automatically already less open to receive feedback and you only give feedback when you have something to "complain" about. That situation does not stimulate anyone and hinders a successful collaboration.
In some cases, no feedback at all is given anymore. But, if we do not address matters with each other, we do not learn from each other. And when we do not learn from each other, a collaboration is nothing more than the sum of its parts. Issues remain unspoken. Instead of entering into a discussion, contact is avoided and people work around each other (and beat around the bush, as the saying goes).

Giving and receiving feedback is a skill

But things can also go wrong when we do give each other feedback. When the giver is not careful in his/her choice of words or does not have sincere intentions, the message is doomed to be ineffective and can even cause harm. There can also be problems on the recipient's side. A peevish recipient who does not understand that feedback is about behavior and not about the person will, in general, not adjust his/her behavior.

Ultimately, we all determine ourselves what we do with that gift of feedback: do we put it away and never think about it again or will we do something with it?