Is this Personal?
The Diary of Mad Learning & Developing Specialist: Volume 3, Issue 3
This was suppose to be the easy time of the year. I was sitting at home reading over the feedback regarding our performance process the previous year. It was morning around 8:30ish, the coffee was hitting just right, that feel focus increase.
Thinking “let go review all the feedback this year and start making plans for next year” had good intentions.
I was ready jump and make improvements.
So instead I spiraled, and felt the blood start rushing for other reasons. When reading through the comments, there were multiple not so favorable comments about the process.
It Felt Like a Personal Attack
It felt personal like people were speaking the words “useless” and “waste of time” directly to me.
None of these comments were truly inappropriate. In any case I started to defend, deflect and deny to create a shield, guarding the process like I was in a fight and my opponent was going straight for the face.
This reaction to shield was grounded in one thing. I knew the process needed improvement the day we launched it and expected comments geared toward improvements (it was our first year doing it) but somehow the negative comments still surprised me.
As I could feel the blood rushing to my face and insert a few eye rolls, I was also annoyed. I stopped and paused and looked at the number of responses.
That was the amount of people that responded to this feedback form, out of the 600+ people that actually completed the process. On top of that only a few of them were actually negative.
Realizing that my emotional response was not grounded in reality, I was reminded human input (feedback for example) is essential to the process, but we must keep ourselves grounded in a business reality based mindset.
BUT SEAN! Aren’t we suppose to put the people first!
People Come First, But We Must Stay Grounded
Putting the human first, making sure that impact to people is part of our decision making should always be part of our decision making, especially in L&D. There is a balance here. L&D plays the role of liaison, we are the go between of the business needs and the voice of the people that we are going to affect.
If we bend to just the business we leave the people behind, but if the business fails it affects the people.
Its not an easy spot. I encourage you to embrace the challenge without carrying the burden of both home with you.
Cause at the end of the day its just work.
Look For Themes And Use The Data
To take on this challenge, particularly when dealing with feedback, a structured approach keeps emotion based reactions at bay while having ways to keep people first.
Whats the bulk of the feedback saying? Look for overall themes, not individual comments.
What were your expectations based on the status of the process? Was it a pilot, a new system, or a brand new process? That context matters.
How much feedback did you get compared to how many people went through it? If it’s a small sample, acknowledge it but change may not be needed.
Use analytics features in AI to pull themes and summarize raw data. Most survey platforms like Microsoft Forms already have this built in. You can also have it review open-ended comments and extract patterns.
Feedback is part of keeping human first but still attempting to serve the business. In the book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” it goes in depth on an individual level how feedback helps reach where you want your career.
For our business and lives to reach where we want them to go we must keep the human first, give people affected by our actions and decisions a chance to give input. How we process that information will make or break us.
This is something I’m still working on and have a feeling it will be a lifelong journey.
How do you view feedback from other in making decisions to change?