Many people associate feedback with angry criticism and therefore often omit it. We are afraid that others will misinterpret it and giving and receiving feedback does not ultimately lead to improvement. The annoyances pile up and it only gets worse. Why is it so important to get feedback anyway? And is it actually proven to contribute to the growth and development of employees? We asked Prof. Dr. Wim Gijselaers, professor of education at Maastricht University.
Learning on the job
"We humans are not aware that we actually receive constant feedback on our actions. For example, while driving a car. The feedback is embedded in the reaction of the car or traffic to your action. During work, it is no different. Only there the problem is often that the feedback is implicit or missing itself," Wim says. "Most of learning in the workplace takes place during work, not during training. People learn while they are working and that is only possible if you can reflect on the work."
Feedback to develop
We asked Prof. Dr. Gijselaers if it is actually proven that getting feedback contributes to the growth/development of employees, teams and/or organizations. "That has certainly been proven. One of the best-known studies in that area is that of John Hattie. He showed a decade ago that feedback (in school settings) is the most powerful learning intervention. Recently, Therese Grohnert, Roger Meuwissen and I showed that professionals engage in learning behaviors when they can reflect on their experiences after they have had a critical experience. Research by Janine van der Rijt, Margje van de Wiel, Piet van den Bossche and me showed that professionals in finance get their feedback from their professional network. The stronger that network was developed, the better the feedback, the better the performance of those professionals." So, in short, it has been proven multiple times that feedback does contribute to development.
Assessing with feedback
Increasingly, we read that organizations are replacing the appraisal interview with feedback. A striking trend, but is feedback really becoming the new business model? Prof. Dr. Gijselaers is not yet sure: "I don't know yet what will replace the appraisal interview, but we do know from research that if feedback is given exclusively in the appraisal interview, the feedback comes too late and it is then not experienced as feedback. The art of feedback is precisely to give it as soon as possible. Another point is that recent Harvard research shows that if the feedback received is not in line with the expected feedback, it is counterproductive. Employees then actually avoid that person's feedback and even try to avoid it in their professional network."
Conditions for feedback
"Several studies show that 'trust' and 'safety' are essential to soliciting feedback and giving valuable feedback . 'Trust' is confidence in the other person's competencies and by 'safety' I mean the shared perception that you are allowed to take risks and that mistakes are not held against you personally. If trust and safety are missing, any form of feedback is ineffective. That is, of course, a very simple conclusion, but in practice it appears that this is extremely difficult to achieve."
Receiving feedback
In practice, we often find that not only giving feedback is very difficult, but that people often struggle with receiving/receiving feedback. "Another issue is that feedback is usually given by people higher up in the hierarchy which means that feedback is not part of the collaboration, but something from 'above,' which of course is ultimately not the idea," Gijselaers concludes.
Feedback, A hot topic. Whether it's digital or physical, give or get, more and more companies are adopting it. In fact, nowadays it is often seen as the way to improve teamwork and allow individuals to grow and develop optimally. Do you want to get started with feedback? In this magazine we give you inspiration, tools and tips & tricks to make you a feedback pro too.