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By
Russ Bredholt, Jr.
The church has placed a strong emphasis on communication
from its beginning. How else could the "Good News"
be shared? Over the years, communities of faith
and religious organizations have been blessed
with skillful communicators. These include preachers,
teachers, writers as well as those who work with
small groups.
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Talent such as this is quite
important since the church, in one sense, is really
in the "communications business."
Unfortunately, a critical component of communication
has been neglected: Delivering good feedback in
a timely manner. Like clean oil in the engine
of a car, good feedback can significantly improve
how things run. It also plays a key role in building
strong relationships.
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Yet, despite this acknowledged value,
feedback, something readily at our disposal, is
a neglected and often abused form of communication.
People issues are critical to the life of an organization.
There is not much else about ministry that really
matters. The question of how to use feedback with
associates and others goes unanswered in too many
situations.
Why do we neglect something so essential? Who can
say for sure? We may have assumed that feedback
is another form of conversation, something we do
all the time. If we talk a lot, we must be good
at it. This logic does not hold up very well.
We lack training in giving feedback. You have to
look hard to find interpersonal communication emphasized
in colleges, seminaries and other kinds of educational
providers.
Few have been exposed to good practitioners. Therefore
we do not know what healthy feedback looks or sounds
like.
Feedback is often seen as a negative process. And
we work at avoiding uncomfortable situations, especially
within the context of ministry. Who wants to run
the risk of offending volunteers, for example?
So what is feedback, really? How should we view
this process? And how can we improve this very important
facet of our work?
In his highly practical book,
Getting It Done (Harper), author Roger Fisher offers
clarity on a concept largely undefined. Feedback,
says Fisher, has three key parts:
Appreciation
To encourage and improve morale. This is an expression
of gratitude or approval of another's effort. It's
an expression of emotion, designed to meet an emotional
need.
Advice
To help individuals improve their skills. Advice
consists of suggestions about particular behavior
that should be repeated or changed. It focuses on
the performance, rather than on judging the person.
Evaluation
This relates to making wise decisions about personnel
and their assignments. An effective way to do this
is by ranking the subject's performance in relation
to that of others or against an explicit or implicit
set of standards.
It's possible to go the dictionary and look up "appreciation,"
"advice" and "evaluation." This would give us a
basic understanding of these words. However, the
genius in Fisher's analyses lies in these observations
of feedback gone awry:
- We fail to understand there are different
types of feedback
- We co-mingle the types (doing two things
at one time--sending mixed signals)
- We use one type (appreciation) when we should
have used another (evaluation).
Think for a moment about the last time you gave
or received feedback. Was it clear? Appropriate
for the circumstance? Or did you get (or give)
appreciation when you should have received (or
given) advice?
Just knowing there are different kinds of feedback has the potential to improve the quality of our leadership. But there is only virtue in doing, someone once said. So we have to find a way to act on this knowledge.
There is a need to consistently incorporate the insights Fisher identifies. We are, after all, giving feedback on a continual basis. How much better it would be to try get it right the first time. Properly used, feedback is a powerful process.
"Practice" was the counsel given to the person
who asked how to get to Carnegie Hall. To realize
the potential of all three types of feedback --appreciation,
advice and evaluation -- the same advice applies.
Mr. Bredholt is a management consultant and member of the Editor's Board at Leadership Network. rbredholt@aol.com
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