- Providing feedback will improve learning among employees
- Negotiation is a conversation with the exclusive goal of reaching a mutual agreement
- Digital communication lacks the ‘human touch’ and can often be a barrier
- People generally fear conflict and dislike giving criticism
The importance of providing feedback should not be overstated, and we believe that today everyone understands that it is an indispensable and everyday part of life and work. We often place feedback only in the context of better work efficiency, task execution, and employee guidance…
For some, giving feedback is innate, while others may face certain challenges regarding it.
However, what actually happens when we give someone feedback?
When giving feedback, intense ‘processes’ occur in the other person’s brain. In such situations, there is increased activity in the brain’s reward centers, such as the ventral striatum (which we have mentioned several times in our blogs).
Activation of the ventral striatum is associated with positive feelings of reward and motivation.
From this, we can clearly conclude that providing feedback will be a strong motivator for any individual or employee because it will contribute to strengthening positive behavior, thereby increasing engagement in various tasks and activities.
Along with the ventral striatum, feedback will activate brain regions involved in attention (focus) and working memory, such as the prefrontal cortex. From this, we can conclude that feedback will improve cognitive processing and memory of data or information. Therefore, providing feedback will also improve learning among employees (which is particularly important for younger individuals or those who have recently been employed).
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Why do things go wrong?
When teaching feedback, things can go wrong on multiple levels. We can conclude that it has gone in the wrong direction from the fact that people constantly need to be taught how to give feedback.
The first problem we have is giving negative feedback.
Furthermore, a mutual problem (for both the giver and receiver of feedback) can be the lack of sufficient development of active listening skills.
The next problem can be a significant difference in specific knowledge or experience.
Business-experienced individuals (and it is assumed that leaders are more experienced) often have a richer vocabulary and more complex ideas they wish to convey, which can be challenging for communication with individuals who have fewer words or understand complex concepts less. Additionally, we often tend to assume that others understand what we think, which will regularly lead to misunderstandings or miscommunication.
In such situations, it is necessary to develop skills such as clarity, simplicity, and empathy in communication to better connect with others. When connecting with others, it is also important to highlight negotiation skills.
Negotiation skills
Negotiation is a human skill (soft skill) that involves the ability to communicate effectively, actively listen, and find common ground with others to achieve a mutually acceptable agreement or solution to a problem. We can describe negotiation as a conversation with the exclusive goal of first achieving understanding and then a ‘mutual agreement’. A mutual agreement will often involve many compromises.
Effective negotiation requires a range of skills, including active listening, communication, problem-solving, and empathy. In ‘negotiation’, we must be able to understand the needs and goals of both ourselves and the other party. For negotiation to be successful, we must be able to communicate our needs and goals clearly and convincingly while also being able to listen to and understand the needs and goals of the other party.
The importance of negotiation skills (just like giving feedback) does not need much elaboration. Negotiation is essential in all areas of life, including business, politics, and personal relationships. The ability to negotiate effectively can lead to more successful outcomes and stronger relationships with others. Negotiation is a key leadership skill.
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Feedback vs communication vs emotional intelligence
When (teaching) feedback, we rarely think about emotional intelligence and the general communication skills of both the giver and receiver.
While communication refers to the exchange of information between two or more parties, providing feedback is a specific type that involves giving information about someone’s performance or general behavior and actions (not necessarily related to work), and both methods of communication involve different methods, such as speech, writing, or nonverbal cues. Although feedback can be delivered in various forms such as written or verbal comments, written reports, or evaluations, communication is ‘only’ a broader framework of feedback.
In principle, feedback can be considered a ‘consequence’ of communication. However, it is important to note that feedback is only one aspect of communication and that effective communication can involve a wide range of other factors such as active listening, nonverbal communication, and the use of appropriate language and tone.
Communication as a problem?
The overall digitalization has undoubtedly brought (and) some good changes. Speed and availability, a large number of communication channels, better global connectivity, easier access to information, however, raises the question of increased communication volume and challenges in interpretation.
Regarding the amount of information, compare your grandparents who had (for most of their lives) one or two television programs, a few radio programs, and one or two daily newspapers that they read more or less carefully. The question arises as to how much we have evolved given the increased amount of information.
However, along with all the good things, digitalization may also bring more serious problems. It changes us on a psychosocial level.
In digital communication, there is a lack of ‘human touch’ and an absence of indirect forms of communication, such as facial expressions, tone, and body language, which can create a sense of disconnection and lack of authenticity.
Another almost certain problem is in interpretation, where misunderstandings can arise because message interpretations are subjective and can vary from person to person. This can create problems in understanding the message and cause confusion.
In digital communication, there is often a lack of context in which the message is expressed, which can lead to misinterpretation of the message.
Considering the trends of remote work, it would be overly optimistic (and dangerous?) to speak of isolation where excessive use of digital tools can lead to isolation, as instead of connecting personally, people, relying on digital tools, become increasingly alienated from colleagues, teams, and families.
All of this will consequently lead to a reduction in live communication skills, as skills can be learned, but if we do not practice them, we can easily ‘lose’ them.
Taking all of this into account, it is hard not to think about everything mentioned at the moment of giving feedback, which should certainly be done in person. Especially if it is about negative feedback.
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People have an innate fear of conflict
Although we often view providing feedback in terms of improving performance, it is also very important from the perspective of building trust.
Additionally, providing feedback is a two-way process and requires individuals to be open and willing to receive feedback as well as give it. By teaching people how to provide feedback effectively, individuals can foster a ‘culture of openness and communication’ where we are willing to give and receive feedback to become ‘better versions’ of ourselves.
In principle, people are created to have a fear of conflict; they generally feel uncomfortable giving criticism and fear loss and/or lack of trust. And all of these are reasons why giving feedback is a ‘stressful job’, and precisely because of all this, teaching people communication, developing emotional intelligence, and ‘social’ skills, and ultimately feedback leads the company towards building trust, fostering a culture of continuous learning and development, and improving performance.
And all of this is the corporate culture we want. Giving (teaching) feedback is not at all a simple task for anyone, and it is often viewed only in the context of efficiency.
