hen asking for feedback, make sure than the feedback giver feels listened too. Make sure that you make a good faith attempt to address their concerns. If you cannot then humbly and regretfully explain why you cannot comply.
Some people will be tempted to dismiss this as too touchy feely. Don't. If you get this wrong, things can get bad. Really bad.
One example of an attempt to gain feedback gone horribly wrong stands out in my memory.
A previous company I worked in had an open plan office, full of cubicles with my team and team Marmalade sharing the same area. Marmalade was an endless source of vicarious learning. I have learned more from them than any other team. They may have appeared once or twice in other blog posts.
Most managers when talking to their team about important and sensitive information, book one of the boardrooms to hold a meeting. They are quiet, private and usually free of interruptions. Team Marmalade's manager for reasons known only to him decided to hold an important meeting in the work area in the middle of the cubicles. I heard everything. The entire office heard everything and most unfortunately his team heard everything. The team hearing their manager is usually desired, however by the end of this particular meeting, the manager would end up wishing that everyone would forget that the meeting ever happened.
The manager started off by explaining that the teams process was not working. They were not achieving their goals. He said he understood that they had to change. He asked them for ideas on how the team could improve. So his team told him. They told him exactly what was wrong with how they did things. How they could fix things and how they could dramatically increase their productivity. They talked at length and in great detail and as each team member talked the manager became more and more uncomfortable. Finally he interrupted them. "I can't tell upper management any of this!" he said, "We are just going to have to stick with what we were doing."
Morale plummeted. Productivity plummeted.
Then a few weeks later morale bounced back, thanks to the efforts of the team leader and no thanks to the manager. However some of the methods Marmalade's team leader used to restore morale were a little bit dubious. He might have gotten away with that if the team had been more productive. However while productivity had increased it was not back to pre-"feedback incident" levels and pre-"feedback incident" productivity levels were low to begin with. That was why the manager was talking about change in the first place.
I felt conflicted. On one hand I was really impressed with how the Team Lead had turned around the team, on the other hand team Marmalade seamed to have reduced their commitment to their project. They seamed to have given up and there was an undercurrent of anger, frustration, and resentment simmering under the surface. Nothing had been forgiven or forgotten.
One day while the manager was offsite and the team leader got particularly inventive with his morale building activities, upper management stepped in to stop the fun. They loudly and very publicly told off team Marmalade for being unprofessional. Had all the managers in this company forgotten that we had meeting rooms?
Morale plummeted again. Productivity plummeted again.
This time it took a long time for team Marmalade to recover.
This is not the only time I have seen soliciting feedback backfire but it was definitely the worst.
If you are not respectful of the feedback you are given, the feedback givers can become cynical, resentful and apathetic. By the time you get serious about making changes your community may no longer be interested in listening to what you have to say.
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