Recently here in the UK we have had the launch of a national safety campaign with the simple message of “See it, Say it, Sorted” it’s a security campaign for National Rail and when I first heard it in the build up to Christmas I thought that it made complete sense.
The idea is that people seeing something unusual are being encouraged to report it to the authorities.
This got me thinking about that tricky topic of FEEDBACK which so many people need support with to help them build and broaden on their ability to interact with their colleagues and for leaders with their teams.
“See it, Say it, Sorted”
This slogan could be a Common Sense approach to giving feedback, lets face it, we all need feedback around how we are showing up and around the impact we are having on others, without it, we will wonder around completely oblivious, happily thinking all is fine and dandy!
Historically, feedback has been linked to poor performance and is seen as an opportunity to give someone “feedback” about inappropriate behaviours etc, the challenge with formal reviews is that they tend to be at best every 6 months or at worst, once a year! So it’s no surprise that people, myself included wouldn’t look forward to these sessions, because we had become conditioned that it was going to be a truck load of smelly stuff, leaving you feeling dreadful about yourself and questioning whether you’re any good at your job.
Peer to Peer Accountability
There are lots of people who are getting away with inappropriate comments and actions in the business world and these individuals need the feedback so that they get used to people telling them that it’s not going to be tolerated any more. This requires the courage of everyone within a team to call those poor behaviours out, it’s not just the boss who needs to do this, what I’m talking about here is “Peer to Peer Accountability”
The big challenge here of course is whether there is enough TRUST within the team for this to happen without people thinking that you’ve been laying in wait with your snipper riffle waiting to get them back for something they did or didn’t do to you some time ago! Trust is at the foundation of the Five Behaviours model from Patrick Lencioni that we use when building world class performance habits with the teams we work with. Without trust you will struggle to move forward as a team and certainly won’t be able to have the open conversations around feedback that are being offered here.
Finally, I’ve deliberately left this as my last point around feedback, it’s critical that feedback is given in the moment or as close to the event as possible so the opportunity isn’t missed completely and that feedback is not just about poor behaviours! It is vital that your main focus should be looking to catch your team or colleagues to be doing something really well, and that they are given feedback around how they performed and the positive impact that it had on yourself and others.
