The Fetishisation of Feedback
And remembering that while it might be the "breakfast of champions", it's not our only option...
Typing “feedback” into Google, I’m bombarded with articles full of advice about how I can give more and better feedback: “The importance of feedback”, “Why feedback is SO important”, “How to give effective employee feedback”, “Tips for giving constructive feedback.” We’re encouraged to constantly give and seek feedback, aiming for 360 degree coverage at all times and striving for “radical candour” in all interactions.
Feedback itself has become a buzzword at work and in education, but I have to wonder whether it’s worthy of the degree of attention we give it.
This is not to say that feedback doesn’t matter. It can illuminate blind spots, giving us insights into our work or performance that we can’t see ourselves, and those might help us understand how to do better. A couple of key examples:
If we ask students to do a large piece of work, which we judge with a summative grade, it’s important we explain why we arrived at that grade. It’s particularly important that this feedback arrives in plenty of time for students to act on it for their next piece of work (assuming that next piece builds on the last in a coherent way, but that’s another story…)
If at work we’re behaving in a way which is inappropriate, damaging or causing harm that we haven’t realised, then receiving actionable feedback matters.
From an education perspective, we know feedback is valuable, but it’s also more problematic than we sometimes acknowledge. The Education Endowment Foundation gives us the delightfully vague summary that:
“Feedback studies tend to show high effects on learning. However, there are a wide range of effects and some studies show that feedback can have negative effects and make things worse.”
When feedback isn’t a gift
It’s clear that feedback is powerful, but I’d argue that it’s powerful in the way that a high pressure water jet is powerful - when badly handled, misdirected or simply overdone, it can cause damage instead of good.
There seems to be an implicit assumption that when it comes to feedback, it’s “the more the merrier”. As any teacher snowed under with marking will tell you, that’s not a great philosophy to live by - giving all that feedback creates a lot of work. And it can be counterproductive for the recipient of the feedback too. We can only manage a certain amount of input at any one time, so increasing the volume of feedback increases the noise, making it harder to distinguish the useful advice from the dross.
I particularly worry when some managers and leaders behave as if page one of the Managers’ Handbook states, “Start giving everyone lots of feedback.” Some of the worst behaviour I’ve seen from those in positions of power has been when they’ve given unsolicited, sometimes terrible feedback - the deputy headteacher at a primary school who stopped a trainee teacher in the corridor after a lesson observation because she “had to say” that she was really disappointed. The lecturer who returned a student’s essay with the word “UGH” scrawled across the page in red pen. The CEO who sidled up to a junior colleague to inform them that when they put their hand to their mouth as they spoke, it looked as if they were biting their nails, and it was “disgusting”. Feedback done like this says I’m the authority figure here, and you’re down there. It’s a power trip, serving only to feed the ego of the person delivering it. And these examples might sound extreme but how many of us haven’t had at least one experience of receiving feedback that felt like a kick in the stomach?
Part of this is about how the feedback is given, and there is considerable skill involved in offering feedback which is genuinely developmental, actionable and kind. But it’s easy (too easy!) to get it wrong, even with the best intentions. One of the challenges of feedback is that because it’s directed at us, it can cause us to become defensive. And constantly trying to act on other people’s feedback can actually mean you have less space to reflect on what your own instinct, intuition and experience is telling you.
Increasingly, I believe that when we over-focus on giving feedback we miss other, potentially more effective ways to help someone improve.
Instead of feedback, how about modelling?
A big one for me is modelling what good looks like in that domain, whether that’s writing, presentational skills or leadership. A theme that emerged from my interviews with undergraduate students was that many were crying out for exemplars and model essay responses. They didn’t know what a university-level essay looked like, which is understandable because they hadn’t written one before. When I asked whether they had asked their lecturers for model answers, it seemed some believed that you shouldn’t show students how it’s done because it might mean they try to copy rather than creating their own original work - it might quash their creativity. But even copying can be a step towards doing something yourself. And we don’t usually worry that taking children to visit art galleries will hinder their chances of becoming great artists themselves one day…
If I think about the times when I’ve experienced step changes in my competence or skills, either academically or in the world of work, it’s rarely been related to feedback. Far more often, it’s when I’ve seen a different way of doing something - where someone has shown me that it’s possible to do better - and I’ve had a chance to reflect on what this might look like for me.
When I was at secondary school, I remember being shown an exemplar piece of descriptive writing. It was a description of all the debris, mouldy food and fluff under the fridge when it was pulled out for fixing. Written by another 14 year old, my teacher brought it into the lesson to show us an example of a well-written descriptive piece and it’s the first time I can remember being shown a model answer. I thought of myself as quite a good writer, but the quality of this writing - its creativity, originality and humour - and the fact that it was written by someone like me, blew my mind. I pored over it, determined to learn everything I could, and I loved the challenge - I saw it was possible to write better and I decided to try.
Another example was a brilliant line manager I had during my first role outside teaching. I was having trouble with a colleague and told my manager what had happened. She could have given me feedback on my approach, but instead we talked about our values, one of which was “assume the best” of people. With a very genuine thoughtfulness, she walked me step by step through what my actions moving forwards with this colleague could look like, if I lived by that principle of assuming the best. Seeing a different approach modelled made a huge difference to how I handled the situation. It also left me feeling far more empowered than being given a critique of what I’d done so far. In fact, I’ve used her exact approach countless times since in different situations. It was powerful enough to make me completely rethink the way I work with people.
Modelling also gives people the space to explore different approaches and choose what works for them. When I was teaching, there was a class I was struggling with. They weren’t a bad class, but they struggled to focus long enough to write anything substantial. Writing is a pretty essential part of GCSE English, so we’d reached an impasse. But the students told me they engaged better in Maths. Their Maths teacher kindly agreed that I could observe a lesson, and I joined the class. I quickly realised that as much as I liked this teacher’s style, I was never going to be able to emulate it - he was cooler than me (hard to believe, I know) and had a matey way of talking to the class that I knew I couldn’t pull off. But seeing him teach made me realise how tense I was getting, and the more relaxed atmosphere made me see the students in a different light too. So although his “model” of teaching didn’t work for me, it did change my approach. The next lesson with the class, I deliberately chose to relax more and show the class (in my own way) that I liked them and that I was happy to be there. It wasn’t a magic fix, but it did help.
Turning the lens back on ourselves
In areas like writing, teamwork and teaching, we often assume that feedback is the key to helping others improve. Yet, sometimes what's more effective isn't a critique but showing a different way to do things, then allowing them a chance to reflect, assimilate what works for them, and disregard what doesn't. So instead of defaulting to yet another feedback conversation, we might do better to reflect on our own actions first. Perhaps the question we should be asking isn't "What feedback can I give?" but "What example am I setting?"