Feedback - A Gift?

DEDx - Feedback - A Gift?

Introduction
Is feedback a gift or a burden? Employees often don’t get enough, dislike it, or don’t know how to use it.

What Is Feedback?
Evaluation of performance to reveal blind spots. But it’s tricky—bias, emotions, and context play a role.

Personal Experiences

• Negative feedback lingers, but it’s just one perspective.
• Effective feedback is direct, caring, and constructive.
• Cultural norms shape how we give/receive feedback.

What Makes Feedback Work?

• Timely & Regular – Avoid delayed or annual reviews.
• Constructive & Clear – Actionable, not just criticism.
• Two-Way – A dialogue, not a monologue.
• Emotionally Aware – Delivery and reception matter.
• Not Advice in Disguise – Share perspectives, not commands.

Why We Struggle with Feedback

• Lack of training.
• Bias distorts judgment.
• Often reinforces norms, not growth.

A Better Approach

• Seek input from multiple sources.
• Ask for specific feedback: "How could I have improved that meeting?"
• View feedback as info, not judgment.

Should We Bin Feedback?

• Ditch outdated models (annual reviews, unsolicited critique).
• Replace with retrospectives & coaching-based cultures.
• Focus on learning, not evaluation.

Final Verdict

• John: Scrap traditional feedback—prioritize learning.
• Anna: Keep feedback but shift to coaching & mutual understanding.

What do you think—keep feedback or bin it?

If you have any Dedx suggestions email us at team@samsas.one with the subject line Dedx Idea.

We would love to hear them!

John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadm/

Anna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-wesson-54989929/

Music credit: by Yevhen Onoychenko from Pixabay

Disclaimer: The ideas discussed in this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as serious business advice. Listeners are encouraged to do their own research and seek professional advice before implementing any of the ideas discussed.

Transcript

 Hi, welcome to DEDx. Today's topic is feedback.  Should we be keeping it? It's a gift. Or should we be binning it off as a DEDx?  Anna, welcome.  

Hi, John, nice to see you. Nice to speak today. And yeah, exciting topic, feedback the ubiquitous idea of feedback. Show me an organization where they haven't got some version, some variation on feedback as part of the daily experience.

So yeah, excited to be talking about this today.  

It comes up all the time when we're coaching, doesn't it? It comes up as one of the kind of top beefs of some employees. I never get enough feedback. It's hard to get feedback,  or I don't really like the feedback that I get, which we'll come on to.

Yeah, the poison sword of, I really wanted feedback and then it wasn't what I wanted to hear. 

 Maybe could you give us a little brief on how do you encapsulate feedback? What are we, talking about when we say feedback here from an organizational standpoint? 

Yeah, and usually it's this opportunity for people to make an evaluation of somebody else and share it with them. And I think  at its core is this idea of, I can see something that that person is doing that they are not doing as they should be, that they could change.

They could make changes. different or better, and it would impact them and perhaps the team in the organization. So I think it's this idea of evaluation by somebody else that then is shared. That would be my kind of summary of what we're talking about here. 

So about allowing someone to get some access to something that maybe they don't know about themselves, maybe in the way they present themselves or in the way their work.

Shows up, something that they are  not aware of, and it would be useful for them to  be aware of.  

Sure. And, and that's that kind of johari's window idea. Anyone who's ever worked in an organization will have come across this idea of Johari's window and the blind spots, the bits that people don't know about themselves, that it would be valuable, helpful for them to understand. 

I think that's what we're talking about in, its most utopian.  But the challenge is that this stuff gets muddy really fast. And the more it gets muddy, the more the challenges come into play, the biases come into play, the Emotion, the psychological impact. So there's loads of that that I think it's valuable to unpack in order that we can perhaps try to understand today, why does some of it land and why does most of it not land and what could we do different that might make feedback either an idea to keep and refine or to bin off. 

How about I like that. How about our experiences.  So you shared earlier how much you love feedback when we were prepping for this.  

Yeah.  

I 

Can you remember a time when you've had good feedback, or had feedback that was valuable?  I can't really.  

A 

little bit more,  

little bit more about how it makes you feel. 

Well, yeah, of course. I mean, the times that I've asked for feedback or been given feedback, I've automatically thought on receiving it. Oh, God, that wasn't what I expected. Oh, I don't like that feedback where it's been bad, or Wow, that's brilliant. That totally reflects exactly who I am when it's been good.

And actually the stuff that's negative has stuck with me and I've thought about it and ruminated on it and really, you know, it's been really impactful. And yet, I haven't always recognized it as accurate. 

Yeah, it's just someone's opinion, right? Because it's , just one person's view on what they observed, I guess.

But as a receiver of that, it's really easy to think that it's true and that it's accurate. And that I think is something that's valuable to challenge.  

Yeah. Totally agree.  

So if we're thinking about feedback itself and thinking about what's worked, can you think of times when you've either,  well, actually, let's think about it in terms of times that you've given feedback.

Can you think of anything that's worked really well or times when you've thought, Oh, actually, I got that right?  

Yeah, I mean, I think  there's  One example that stands out for me, where I was the deliverer of feedback that  made a significant difference to the performance and trajectory of that individual.

 In this case, it's something that's obvious that really needs to be said. That person is just, off course. And it's more of a course correction type thing. So in that situation, they really needed some  straight talking, rad candor, very blunt.

Do you realize? You know, if you keep doing this, this is the impact that the rest of the organization sees  and how that's going to reflect on what happens with your career prospects in the next  six months. Everyone recognizes your potential, how smart you are. But  this kind of behavior  is.  Going to be detrimental to you.

So I don't know if that's feedback or,  but That's exactly 

feedback, isn't it? 

Okay.  

Well, that idea that Kim Scott radical candor idea of actually, if you care about somebody, if you are saying it from a place of, you know, I want you to succeed.  Perhaps that's the experience of why that feedback was successful, because you weren't challenging them and telling them that it was all going to go wrong.

You were saying, we believe in you, we want you to change. This information will help you to do that.  

Yeah, and this person is French too, so I think there is quite a cultural dimension to feedback and some cultures feedback is much more taken as the norm and expected by individuals and, that's true in French culture, French business culture for sure less true in other cultures.

So I think that probably played into this feedback being successful. 

 Let's  take a kind of slight detour then and let's talk about what makes for successful feedback.  

What do you think?  

Let's start with successful. Why not? Let's go with the positives. 

Okay. Okay.  I, I've got a laundry list of how to get feedback right, but I think there are two perspectives that it's worth bearing in mind here. There's what makes feedback work if you are the giver of that feedback and what about if you're the receiver?

Because I think it's really important that we don't think about the people who receive feedback as being passive in this process. They are absolutely not. What they do to make this effective is as important as what the person who's giving feedback does as well. So  I'm going to go through my list.

Yeah, exactly. So the feedback needs to be in line with what happened. You know, some big client meeting went brilliantly. Tell the person that day, don't wait for three weeks time and it needs to be regular.  So it can't be once a year at the annual appraisal. 



If it's all stored up and delivered at once, it just does not land.  

Right, and let's talk about how the human brain works. We remember things that have happened first, so primacy, and we remember recency, what happened most recently. And then there's a huge gap in the middle, so annual appraisals will remember,  you know, what happened immediately first thing last year, and again, so that, that's not valuable. 

I think feedback is not advice. This is, this is the one that comes through really, really strongly for me is that, you know, feedback is this is how I experienced you when you did this. You know, this is what I saw in that meeting when you were with a client. Does that resonate for you? It's not, Oh, if I'd have been in that meeting, I wouldn't have done that.

I'd have done it like this  because automatically there's a whole bunch of like weird stuff comes into play around bias around,  you know, perspective taking around, you know, And it's also massively patronizing. Let's be honest here. Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, those are some starters for ten. I would add in there, you know, feedback needs to be constructive.

It's not a takedown. It's not a kneecapping of that person so that they feel crummy and go off and feel miserable.  And you've got to bear in mind the emotional component. So the person who's giving it and the person who's receiving it are human beings who will have,  you know, their psychology will be at play in here.

 Yeah, it's super easy to trigger kind of fight or flight in these conversations, right? Especially when there's a lot of where there's a status differential   that's at play. And as soon as you do that, the person on the receiving end is not hearing anything else 

that you 



So I think  checking for understanding making it a conversation getting people to feedback what they heard. Those are all good ways to try and make sure that it's landed, that it's a conversation, that it's a discussion, that it's not an instruction, that it's not an order.

I think  those are pieces that make for decent feedback, although has to be said, I kind of hate that we've titled the episode feedback, maybe we'll come up with another one later.  

Let's certainly aim for that, but the one thing that I would like to add is this idea of if you are giving the feedback, planning it, not winging it is really valuable.

Yeah. There's so many times somebody will make an offhand remark and kind of put it under that umbrella of feedback and, and that can be hugely detrimental to people's confidence to people's way of making sense of it. And that's actually not fair. So how do you do it with a bit of structure, do it with a bit of thought and a bit of care. 

And I think being open to  what the individual has to say about it. It's like, here's what I saw. Here's what I felt. What do you think?  What was the experience like for you if you reflect on that, I'd like to hear  where that sits with you.

And John, you're sounding dangerously coachy there,  you know,  I think, you know, there is something really important in there about this being a two way conversation, not a, let me tell you about yourself.  

Yeah, because we know that it doesn't work, right? And it demotivates people.

 

Yeah.  Okay. So,  why are people rubbish at feedback? You know,  why are we so bad at, at actually landing?  You know, if we take as, as read the fact that this is valuable for people to understand. Why are we so bad at getting this right?  

I don't know.  That's a good question.

No one teaches us how to do it. We're taught the technical skills, but we're not necessarily taught how to have this conversation as we become a manager.  

Yeah.  Add to that, that we are actually not very good at evaluating other people. 

You know, we have a whole ton of biases. This is how I do it. This is the way it's always been done.  You know, all of this evaluation reflects the values, of the person who's giving the feedback. Much less so the truth or the actual situation that, has taken place.

So that kind of impossibility of being objective shows up really, really strongly 

and people are trying to fit a mold quite often too. So that can be, you know, this is the way we do it here, or this is the, this is our approach as an organization, or these are, you know, this is our way of doing things and they want people. 

to fit in to that, right? To be, to be recognized as  delivering it in that way. So, yeah, I can see that as a,  as a big piece.  

Okay, so, let's imagine that feedback isn't perfect and that there might be ways to evolve it, change it, what might it look like if we took a different approach? 

Yeah, I think the first first angle to think about there is  As opposed to feedback, it's about the responsibility of the individual for their own development, right?  So, to  not be waiting for feedback,  but to actively  be seeking out some feedback on how you're showing up, how you're performing and having some of those conversations.

That doesn't always have to come from someone who's more senior than you.  I think feedback can come from your peers. Feedback can come from people that are more junior than you. Feedback can come from clients. 

There's lots of places  if you're willing to ask.  

And for the avoidance of doubt, it's not that I don't think all of that feedback is really valuable. I absolutely do. But I think there's always an angle, you know, if you're talking about getting feedback from your manager at work, the angle is there's a power dynamic, there's politics in the organization, if it's your peers, there might well be an angle that is slightly different, but it's still really important to, you know, what's the lens here, 

what's going on.

And I think there is always one and just acknowledging that and knowing what that is. Allows you to make sense of the feedback, you know, how credible is it? How universal is it or is this just this one person's perspective and what, what's their lens? I think that's the important bit that I would draw attention to.

I think the second bit has been really specific about what you want.  

Right. So, 

as opposed to saying, you know, could you give me some feedback on that client meeting?  It's a different question of,  what could I have done to be more impactful in that meeting?  So I think getting specific  on what you want feedback on is, is key.

It also makes it much easier for the person to,  to be you know, to be on target that they actually, okay. So you,  I know what you want now,  as opposed to  you want some feedback. Well, that's pretty general, you know, you were late. You weren't on time. There's some feedback. , this is all feedback that that person probably doesn't want or care about. But because they haven't asked the question  in a specific way, they're gonna get all this stuff that is just noise.  

Mm.  

So I think there's a lot of responsibility on the person who's seeking the feedback to  think what it is they want feedback on.

Mm. And the other.  The point that I would add to that is that if you're being required to ask for feedback, perhaps your organization has mandated you to go and ask for feedback, is to remember that it's not true. It's not a fact  what the person is telling you.  And that actually, you know, hold it lightly, because it might well be.

Instructive, but equally you can reject it. And I think just having that perspective can be really healthy. When you get feedback not allowing it to crush your confidence, if indeed it's not what you expected or wanted to hear.  

And I think that's a key point. Don't, it's, it's just information, right?

Don't yeah, don't, don't take it personal. Don't, don't ruminate on it. Don't carry it with you for days.  But the more you do it, the more you get a little bit of that information. I think the,  the more you get used to taking the bits that make sense for you, okay, wow, I can do something with this and I can do something with that and I'm going to throw the rest away.

I think if you can get there,  it can be quite useful.  

Which I think starts to bring us to the conclusion point.  John, feedback. Is it an idea that you have in mind to bin? Is there a better way? Where do you get to in the DEDx stakes? 

In the DEDx stakes? I think a lot of the classical feedback that we see is binnable.

You know, the annual appraisal, the stuff that is not really clear or that was unsolicited is binnable. Or is clearly motivated by something other than making that person better at their job   is benable. I think there are better ways to do it. So I think this You know, most of the work we do  today is done quite often collectively, so it's done in teams, small teams.

So I think the team environment is an environment where  you can really learn from each other. I don't think it's about feedback. I think it's, you know, we call it retrospective. We call it let's look back. Let's see what worked, what didn't work, and what we could do differently next time. 

Let's look at that in the context of the tasks that we've done. And then let's look at that on how we did that as a group. And that provides a lot of feedback to the individuals around the table, how they're going to do it better next time. So I'd like to look at it that way.  

Yeah. And that feeds really nicely into this idea that the unit of measurement in organizations is.

Rarely the individual any longer. I mean, sure there are organizations where that's the case, but so often it's about the team. You know, what can this team deliver collectively? And therefore it makes loads of sense to do a retrospective about, we did this project and it went well.

X, Y, Z and what can we learn from how we did that? How did we work together well, or, what would we do differently as a collective or as a subset of that team that can inform us about how to be more effective next time.  

Yeah. So I think that's the place that I would focus around on.

 I think where I get to is that feedback culture is probably not the right terminology.  Or the way of doing this effectively and to having these conversations effectively. I think I would  focus on coaching culture, this way of talking about people in conversation.

This is how I experienced you. How did you make sense of that yourself? So that it is a dialogue or,  an opportunity to say. Where somebody has a right of response, it's not a giving of something. It's an exchange. So maybe it's not about giving feedback. It's about exchanging perspectives.

And to me, that's what I would describe as a coaching culture. Because it's much more 

likely to hold it at that point, right? They're much more likely to be committed or they're much more likely to see that blind spot.  as a blind spot. 

Yes, and they've got self efficacy. So they can, believe that they can change it

why? Because they feel like they've got skin in the game. They feel like they have some power and influence over whatever it is that this kind of coaching conversation has been about. And I think that's really important,  which therefore says, you know, John, are you  binning  or keeping?

Where do you land?  

I would dead X feedback conversations as a feedback conversation. So I think I would dead X feedback as a word and I would replace it with, you know, whatever you want to call it, improvement,  figuring out how we get better, learning lots of different ways to think about how we  grow as individuals.

But feedback as a, as a standalone concept for me is.  In the bin. 

 Yeah, I don't, I don't entirely concur. I think, you know, this has got a lot of meaning. There's a lot of value to the fact that this is a well recognized phenomena. You know, people know what they're talking about. I think that for me, there's something about training people to understand what does this look like when it's slick, when it's good, when it's a dialogue.

And I think if you can get to that, then feedback has some real value to it.  I think we're saying 

the same thing. We just change feedback to coaching conversations, but you know, we need to do some work with leaders and lots of organizations so that they're capable of and feel good about having those conversations.

And I don't think we're there today, but we can help with that. 

All right. Thanks Anna.  

Thanks John. Nice to speak to you.