Giving and getting feedback in the workplace — Part 2

Last week’s lesson looked at giving performance feedback. Today, we explore getting meaningful feedback.

By meaningful feedback, I mean asking employees, volunteers, customers for input, assessment or suggestions. Last week, I declared that we are generally unresponsive in getting meaningful feedback.

Unresponsive feedback

I deliberately choose “unresponsive” because of how it is used in medical terms. When we talk of a person being medically unresponsive, it means they’re “at least unconscious, and possibly dead or dying” (Vocabulary.com). Yup, that’s what I mean.

I see three ways we are unresponsive eliciting feedback: The ways we ask for feedback are constraining; we ignore the feedback we get — we don’t use it; and, we use the feedback we get, but we use it disingenuously.

Our methods for getting feedback about service are limiting. Look at timing — either we ask for feedback too soon, when we haven’t had time to process the experience — or we wait too long — we already forgot what we would say that is helpful. Another limitation is that with AI (artificial intelligence), we force responses to a rating scale, when we should allow open-ended comments. Or, we focus on service, when the focus should be on the service representative, or vice versa. This frustrates those who you ask for feedback.

Second is not using the feedback we get, or if we do, not letting our employees, volunteers or customers know we did. And, whether or not we intended to use it is irrelevant. The real detriment is when we don’t actually care or want feedback — we’re just doing this because it looks good or management requires it. In this case, it would be better not to ask at all.

Third is using the feedback disingenuously, with no real desire to hear honest, candid feedback. I call it, “give me all 5’s!”

This is when the individual or organization tells you up front that they are expecting your rating of their service to be a 5 (the highest rating).

I had an experience with this in the extreme. A company that is contracted by a box store to install their product was at my home installing flooring. The contractors did a great job, but their English language skills were rough. I can speak Spanish well enough to communicate but it was still challenging for both of us. At the end