Fearless Feedback - A practical guide on how to give peer-to-peer feedback!

At PepTalk we are focused on how we can be a high-performing team, and a big part of that is our continuous growth and development on both a personal and team level. As a team, we have recognised that there is great potential for us to learn by our peers sharing feedback and focusing on our strengths, what we like to call, fearless feedback.

The following is an outline of our team session, aimed at exploring peer feedback do's and don'ts, looking at the why and how-to, and practising receiving and giving peer feedback.

Indeed it is a concise structure which you could use to explore peer-to-peer feedback with your team!

Why its so Important to Give Peer Feedback :

[Taken form a study from 2015 years ago Gallup found]

• 14.9% lower turnover rates in companies that implement regular employee feedback.
• 4 out of 10 workers are actively disengaged when they get little or no feedback.
• 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week compared to only 18% of employees with low engagement.
• 65% of employees said they wanted more feedback

 Interestingly employees say that :

72% of employees think their performance would improve with more feedback

So let's dive into reflecting on how each of us feel about feedback.  

Ask yourself the following questions ...

1. How do you feel about GIVING & RECEIVING peer feedback?
2. What makes giving and/or receiving peer feedback challenging or difficult for you?
3. It is critical to remember that our relationship to feedback is key in how we receive/give it.

According to the awesome Mike Robbins :

Feedback is one of few free levers to improve performance, but many of us miss the opportunity. It should be an ongoing conversation and it’s an essential ingredient to skill and career growth.

When feedback is viewed as a learning & leading opportunity and teams are fearless about it, people perform at their best. Both positive and negative feedback have an important role in helping people and teams perform at their best

There are 5 core elements to be considered in giving effective peer feedback :

1. Be authentic
2. Do it with positive intentions/motives
3. Make it clear and concise
4. Give tangible/personal examples
5. Offer specific suggestions

And five keys to receiving feedback :

1. Be open to it, try it on for size
2. Take it as a 'gift' and look for the 'gold
3. Remember it’s not the 'truth' rather its one perspective or perception
4. Get clarification and seek support, as necessary
5. Take action and make changes

A foundation of appreciation is key for giving and receiving feedback fearlessly:

Quarterly Feedback Prompts :

Finally, alongside our ambition for continuous feedback loops, at PepTalk we have Introduced quarterly feedback prompts to ensure we push feedback outside of its natural or immediate boundaries.  As a team we have agreed we would like to ask 3 different people for feedback each quarter - one whom we work with directly, one who we don't work with frequently, and someone more senior in terms of role:

• STOP or DO LESS OF : What is not working so well right now, what observations do you have about how this person and how they operate that does not serve them or others well or what skill or strength does this person have that could be overplayed
• START : What would be great if this person could get after, what would you like to see your colleague displaying or doing moving forward, what would serve this person/outcome or the team better if they started to do X or Y
• CONTINUE : What works well, is a signature strength, is particularly helpful or supports others and we should keep doing it

Closing Reflection

Finally we ended the session with a reflection for each of us, essentially posing the question 'what will you do differently to make sure you give & receive peer feedback as effectively as possible'.

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