The most effective feedback is subjective and descriptive feedback.
So far, we have used coaches as a tool to deal with the problems existing in planning, solving difficulties, checking and skill training, and we have analyzed the motivation problem. In this chapter, I will show how to use coaches for feedback, self-evaluation and team development.
feedback
We can identify the commonly used five levels of feedback, as shown below, from A (the worst feedback) to E (the best feedback and the only feedback that can promote learning and performance in the five levels). At best, the other four grades will bring slight short-term improvement or further decline in performance and self-esteem.
A. The manager's crying: "You are really useless."
This is a kind of personalized criticism, which will destroy self-esteem and self-confidence, and will inevitably lead to a decline in future performance, without any beneficial elements.
B. The manager intervened: "This report is useless."
This critical comment on reports rather than people will also destroy the performers' self-esteem, although to a lesser extent, because it does not give reporters any information on how to correct it.
C. Manager's intervention: "Your report is clear and concise, but its layout and presentation are too rough for the target readers."
This avoids criticism and provides information for implementers on how to improve, but it is still too general, not specific and does not reflect any autonomy.
D. The manager intervened: "What do you think of this report?"
The executor now has autonomy, but may only give meaningless responses, such as "average" or make a value judgment, such as "great" or "poor", rather than a more useful description.
E. manager intervention: "what is the main purpose of your report?" "To what extent do you think this draft has achieved this goal?" "Do you think there are other aspects that need to be emphasized?" "Who is your target audience?" , and so on.
When answering these questions, the executor/learner will describe the report and the thinking behind it in detail and uncritically.
Then, why does E-level feedback greatly accelerate learning and improve grades? Because only E meets all the best coaching standards. In order to answer the questions raised by the manager, the executors/learners must use their brains and actively participate. Before responding, he must recall and form some opinions, which is consciousness. This will help him evaluate his work and become more self-reliant.
In this way, the performer/learner "owns" his own performance and evaluates it, which is the responsibility. Once these two factors are optimized, learning will happen. On the contrary, if managers only express their opinions, the actual participation of the executive brain may be minimal; The manager can't know how many opinions the other party has absorbed.
Replacing critical words with descriptive words, just like executives in E or managers in C, can avoid arousing the defensive psychology of executives. We must pay attention to this point, because once defensive psychology appears, the truth/fact will be lost in inaccurate excuses and excuses, and even executives and managers may believe it, which is not conducive to the improvement of performance. In C, A and B, managers retain the ownership of evaluation and correction, which greatly reduces the learning effect in the future. We can see that the intervention of A~D is not perfect; But it is widely used in enterprises.
feedback
Feedback from ourselves and others is very important for learning and performance improvement. Feedback needs to consider the result of behavior and the process of behavior itself. For example, the impact of a golf ball is the result, then the swing is the process. The result is easy to judge in sports field, but sometimes it is not so easy to measure in enterprises. Even in the field of sports, defensive negligence often occurs because of the judgment of behavior results. What we need to do is just the opposite, that is, describe the results accurately and concretely. It is more beneficial to say "the ball is out of bounds" than to say "you ruined the ball" Of course, it is better to say "the ball is out of bounds 15cm". We learn as much from behaviors that produce bad results as from behaviors that produce good results. This feedback can be provided by the coach or the trainee, preferably the latter.
Now let's look at process feedback. A tennis coach made a critical or more appropriate descriptive comment based on his observation after watching a student's forehand stroke. The feedback he gives is based on the difference between his observation and the way he thinks is right or his own way.
This visible forehand stroke is only a symptom or external manifestation of a series of complex physiological and psychological factors. The change of forehand stroke required by the coach will first be reflected in the external symptoms, and the truly continuous change must reach the degree of induction, and it is best to start from there. The coach can't see the level of motivation because it exists in the students' minds. What we need most is high-quality feedback from students. Students themselves can evaluate this level by improving their physical and psychological self-awareness. The coaching problem for them to do this job will only be effective if they follow the feedback principle, which is the same as the principle of "keeping an eye on the ball".
feedforward
Feedback is related to the past: the recent past, such as real-time coaching in sports; Or in the long run, it generally appears in enterprises. However, the anticipation of the problem makes you realize that it is this immediate awareness that brings physiological efficiency. For example, I can say to a student, "I will ask you which action makes you feel most uncomfortable in the next stroke." In this way, he will pay special attention to his body when he is about to do an action, so there may not be inefficiency at this time. Here, I equate comfort with biomechanical efficiency. The more obvious fact is that any biomechanical inefficiency in this field will be manifested as uncomfortable feeling.
This brings us very close to feedforward or planning, and the feedback principle mentioned before is still valid. If you adopt the method of coaching, and I have to describe my next move to you or even myself in detail, these principles can be maintained; If you tell me what to do and even ask me if I know what to do next, these principles will be hard to maintain. The quality of the problem determines the quality of feedforward or planning.
"Who will undertake the work?" "How confident are you that you can finish the work on time?" "What factors are you not sure about?" "What may be the factors that hinder the realization of the goal?" All these problems will bring responsibility and autonomy, and will enhance the understanding of other factors.
So why do we still insist on using the most inefficient feedback method? Because we look at the problem from our own perspective, not from the perspective of the executor; Because we just say what we want casually, and we don't realize the effect of what we say. Whether it comes from habits, bad role models, hierarchical arrogance or simply not seeing the essence through the surface of things, different managers have different situations. What is important is that if we really want to bring people (including ourselves, our employees and even our children) into full play, we must rethink and adjust at the essential level. Our basic goal must be to know what the executor/learner needs to do a good job and help him meet this need by asking, discussing or doing everything necessary. If we want it to behave well, we should let our desire for control and our sense of superiority show, or just give up our old habits and change and take a back seat. It is difficult to break the inherent behavior pattern, but we must.
Let's go back to the simplest example-staring at the ball. On the one hand, it is very important for tennis players to observe the movement of the ball. There is nothing wrong with this, but telling him to do so won't really make him take action. On the other hand, it is also a contradiction. Although the number of round trips is not important at all, if you ask him to count the number of round trips, he will watch the ball for it. Counting the number of round trips is just one of many questions to choose from, and the choice of the question depends on the effect you seek.
Look at another example. A tennis player hits the ball and touches the net from time to time. She only looks at her efforts with good or bad, success or failure. She is very critical of herself, her self-esteem and self-confidence have been hit, her performance has declined, and so has the quality of her feedback. She even left in frustration after finding that she had wasted another chance. She tried to correct her mistakes, but this led to struggle, stress and a tendency to overcompensate. What greeted her was another failure.
The difficulty of change
Most coaches will "correct" this problem through technology, but they actually miss the point. They deal with symptoms, not causes. So far, the most common reason for unstable play is poor feedback, whether it is catching the ball or hitting the ball. Assuming the latter situation, the clever coach will ask, "How high is the ball off the net?" The coach can ask the players to report the joint score of the ball from the top of the net every time. In this way, accurate feedback from the results of their actions will bring about automatic self-correction effortlessly. Abandoning forced correction (the focus now is on the accuracy of observation) will make correction happen effortlessly and subconsciously. It also maintains the player's complete autonomy for correction. Of course, the specific common score of the ball crossing the net is not important, but it is very important for players to focus on their own behavior and record the results of their behavior.
Producing high-quality relevant feedback from the heart rather than experts is a necessary condition for continuous improvement of work, sports and life.
worship
Praise is another form of feedback. In the workplace, offering is stingy, but it is needed because criticism is common there. In this case, any increase in positive feedback or decrease in negative feedback is pleasant.
It is impolite to doubt the value of something because it is lacking, but caution is necessary. Praising a person insincerely or without reason is too empty, which will not pay off, because deception and manipulation are often easier to be seen through than the deceived person thinks, which will further vilify the deceived person and damage interpersonal relationship and trust. Even true praise can cause difficulties. The praised person gives up the ability and willingness of self-evaluation and turns to the giver of praise, thus increasing the dependence on other people's opinions. What we need to do is just the opposite, that is, to establish the autonomy and self-reliance of employees.
Praise must be generous, sincere and wise at the same time
merits and demerits
In corporate lectures, we often hear many opinions about how to identify people, processes and products. We can list the advantages and disadvantages of each category, even our own. We can also list other aspects, such as the quality requirements of employees, the team quality we want to cultivate or the quality we want to have. We can list the functions of our own organizations, departments or individuals; We can list the craft skills, interpersonal skills or manual skills they need. Doing things so carefully is a level of consciousness improvement.
We can list these advantages, disadvantages, requirements, functions or skills according to our commonly used 1~ 10 to further improve our understanding, and we can classify them according to the standards we want or our views on their current situation.
evaluate
The evaluation system is often popular, unpopular, easily abused and limited, but it is necessary. In a culture of learning and blame-free, they are very beneficial to all concerned. However, if they only classify past performance without paying attention to future potential, or if they only criticize rather than describe, then no one will benefit. Due to the diversity of environment, company goals and history, I can't put forward any general evaluation system. However, if a system is consistent with the above feedback principle and the subsequent self-evaluation principle, then it will not make big mistakes.
self-assessment
Enterprises often attach importance to the evaluation of others, colleagues, subordinates and even bosses, but I think self-evaluation is the most effective evaluation method. On the one hand, it is best to regard others' evaluation of themselves or skills and qualities given by others as a kind of feedback, which is a valuable thing on which our choices and behaviors are based, rather than as judgments or facts, which will have a negative impact on us. On the other hand, although a video reflects what really happened at that time, it should be used to provide information instead of criticizing others. Self-evaluation avoids the negative influence of criticism and maintains the sense of responsibility needed for effective behavior and self-improvement. Look at the following example.
quality
I can list the qualities and skills that are most needed to do a good job. They are arranged as follows, in no particular order. In the first column, I can write down my score, and in the second column, I can write down my reasonable score.
This has improved my self-awareness, but from the teaching process, I have done more.
The first column represents reality, and the second column is realistic, concrete, measurable, positive and challenging goals. All I need to do is choose the project I want to improve and set a deadline. I will complete the first two stages of the simple self-study process.
I need to take the time to list the options for the skills or qualities I want to develop. If I choose a quality, I may list all behaviors related to people with this quality. The reason for this is that it is easy to adopt new behavior patterns in action steps, and it takes longer to cultivate new qualities. In this way, the success of the new behavior will make me have a higher evaluation of myself in terms of related qualities.
Finally, I will ask myself some questions about the future and make an action plan for myself.
Team evaluation
This exercise variation can be used by individuals or teams. It's interesting to ask team members to list the team qualities they want, and then grade their teams for each item. Inconsistency of data can give us an opportunity to discuss people's different judgment standards and different experiences of the same team members.
For example, a team with five members was asked to list the four most important team qualities. Their list is as follows:
Therefore, a merged list can be formed. Cooperation and cohesion belong to the same category, as do adaptability and flexibility. Each team member is asked to rate every quality of his team. They finish the work independently, and then fill all the data into the flip chart, so that each member will not be affected by the data of other members. The results are as follows:
In this case, team members are not required to add a high personal score to the above rating, that is, their personal contribution rating to each quality of the team. They were not asked to evaluate each other's contribution to the total score of each quality of the team. This rating may cause widespread discussion, controversy, gossip or piles of questions, but if I am in a team fighting for a gold medal or my survival, I hope I will do it or do more!
The above data shows that trust is a cultivation aspect, and the humor mentioned by Joe is not recognized, especially for women. Susan only feels it occasionally, but David thinks he is not cooperative enough. There are many personal counseling spaces where colleagues or external helpers can have a group discussion on quality selection and negotiate what actions will be taken to improve certain quality levels.
remedy a defect
Cultivating team and individual qualities through coaches is a positive way to make up for defects, which is more creative and easier to succeed than trying to get rid of defects. This further strengthens the desire of "setting goals first and then setting reality" in the coaching sequence. From this basic model, infinite coaching practice forms and cases applicable to various occasions can be derived. Now it's up to you!
Coaches cultivate personal control. One of the main causes of workplace stress is the lack of personal control.
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