Feedback Culture in Design Teams

Keegan Luiters, Sarah Stokes at UXDX APAC. Video: https://youtu.be/F3qMsLGFLls

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introduction and who we are

[00:00:00] Keegan: Hello and welcome, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for making the time. My name is Keegan Luiters, and I'm really excited to be presenting this session along with my friend and colleague Sarah Stokes. We're going to be talking about feedback culture in product and design teams. A lot of what we're going to be doing is stuff that we presented at a previous conference, but mainly it's what we've actually done at Sarah's company, Domain Property Group, and sharing our experience of how feedback can be utilized in product and design teams.

[00:00:29] Sarah: Now, the good thing about feedback is that it fosters a culture of innovation. And hello, by the way. It fosters a growth mindset and opens communication channels. But the problem with feedback is that it's got a brand problem. It's a bit tricky and can be perceived negatively. What we're looking to do today is turn that round and make it a fuel for your organization to do better.

[00:01:00] Keegan: The things that we'll be talking about are defining what feedback is, what's important, and how we might be able to support a culture of feedback. And here's who we are, and how we go back. We go back a few years. We did our Master of Business Coaching together. It's me in the middle, and that's Sarah off to the right of screen. One of the things that we learned through our Master of Business Coaching is not only the theory, but the experience of what feedback can do, how to create a feedback culture, and the value of it. They had us start to utilize that. The other thing that's probably important to note is that we've really taken a coaching lens. Feedback's a huge part of coaching, and a coaching lens is brought to this presentation and to how we have explored feedback in product and design teams.

[00:01:50] Sarah: Part of what we learned when we were on our coaching course together was how to give and receive feedback when we were critiquing each other's coaching style. One person would be coaching, one person would be listening, and one person would be coached. That was a great way to flex our giving and receiving feedback muscles, and we learned a lot on the job, which is what we'll bring to today.

[00:02:15] When we think about feedback in the context of design, we think about critique. If you Google feedback in design, critique is mainly what comes up. But critique is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other opportunities to give and receive feedback, such as when you're running research: is the research brief correct? How are you reporting out the findings? How are you managing your stakeholders? How are you communicating, working in triads and so on? Feedback is everywhere. It's not just in critique; it's part of the culture.

The case study at Domain

[00:02:51] Keegan: On the back of that thinking, that feedback was broader than just the critique for design teams, we thought: how might we support a feedback culture in an organization? As I mentioned, we went to Domain Property Group and got some ready and willing volunteers. We had a small group of eight design and delivery leaders, and we ran three interactive sessions of 90 minutes each, all delivered over Zoom, about a fortnight apart. We asked people to explore it and then go and apply some of these principles and come and report back. We had a series of three workshops where there was a lot of interaction between the participants, and a lot of them going away and applying it and putting it into practice.

[00:03:35] Sarah: We wanted to understand what people were wanting to get out of the program, and where they were at with feedback in general. We asked them the question that you can see on the screen, and as you can see, there's a variety of responses. People want more than tools. They want best practice. They want to understand how to give and receive in different situations, not just with direct reports. They want to make feedback less weird, and they want to make it more of a relationship. That was what we sought to do in the case study.

[00:04:04] Keegan: I think that's a really interesting thing to pick up on. So many feedback training programs think so much about the technical skills, and specifically how to deliver feedback, but it's bigger than that. Without prompting, this is what the participants asked for. It was more than just how they give feedback. It was how do I create that whole environment that they're in? How do I ask for feedback, and how do I make it a little bit more normal in their teams? As you're thinking about how you shift the culture, really be aware of thinking that it's just the skills. The skills are important, but it needs to be a lot more than that as well.

Defining feedback

[00:04:41] The first thing that we did with our participants, after we asked them what they wanted to get out of it, was ask them: how do you define feedback? It seems like a really weird and academic thing to do, but one of the reasons is that how you define feedback will influence the way that you use it, how you feel about it, and the culture that it falls within in your team and across your organization.

[00:05:06] If we pull out a couple of these examples, start maybe at the bottom left, which says feedback is critical, positive, negative and opinions. That is a very different way of responding to what feedback is, compared to someone at the top in the middle talking about collaboration. We'll talk a little bit more about how we have defined feedback, but this is a really useful conversation to have in your teams. If someone thinks that feedback is a reaction, as opposed to a two-way relationship, there's going to be a different way that each of those parties engages with feedback, how they seek it, how they respond to it. Even this as a conversation is a really useful thing for you to do in your teams.

[00:05:49] Sarah: Building on what Keegan has said, how you define feedback really does set the tone for what happens next, and how well it's going to work. Feedback is on a bit of a continuum, certainly between me and Keegan. I'm on the "that which does not kill us serves to make us stronger" side. I'm a bit terrified of the word feedback. Whereas Keegan says, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." It's probably worth reflecting on where you sit on this continuum, and that might give you an idea as to how it impacts how you go around and talk about it. Have a think about that as we go into the next slide.

Feedback has a brand problem

[00:06:31] Keegan: One of the things that I'm fond of saying to people when I'm working with them on how to develop a feedback culture in a team is that feedback has a brand problem. When I think about that, there's one particular story that jumps to mind from my own experience. I was staying at a hotel in Melbourne a few years ago for work, and I said to the person behind the desk, "You look like you're in charge. Can I give you some feedback?" At that point she came from behind the desk and assumed this kind of position. You know how martial artists are trained to take punches, to take a hit to the guts? She assumed this position. She put her hands behind her back, and I could almost feel her tensing up.

[00:07:13] I said, "Oh, look, when I arrived here in my taxi late on the first evening, by the time I had paid for the cab, someone had got my luggage out of the boot. And by the time I got to reception, someone already had my keys ready. You had just anticipated all my needs." And I rattled off a whole bunch of other things that I was really impressed by throughout my stay. You could almost see this relief from her, because in her mind feedback was what you tell someone when they've done something wrong, about how bad a job they have done.

[00:07:41] It taught me a lesson as well, because I sit on this continuum where feedback's great and I welcome it and I'm open to it, and I can assume that other people have that. It's quite often not the case. I've used little tricks, like instead of using the word feedback, saying, "Hey, can I share some of the things that I think you did really well? Can I tell you what I've noticed? Do you mind if I share what I saw here? I think this might help." It's all the same thing in my mind, but it changes the way it's received.

[00:08:12] This brand problem is something that's prevalent. A lot of people do experience this. When we say, "Can I give you some feedback?" people jump into a defensive position in their mind, and defensiveness kills the effectiveness of feedback. It just doesn't end up making a difference, because people are trying to figure out or justify why the behaviors happened, rather than being open to thinking about how they might be able to improve as a result of the feedback.

[00:08:44] Sarah: In order for us today to have a shared understanding of what we mean when we say feedback, we thought we'd propose a definition, which is this: feedback is information that helps improve performance.

[00:08:59] Keegan: That may or may not be similar to your definition, but if this is the definition that you're using, what we've noticed is that it shifts both the way that you give and receive feedback. When I'm giving feedback and I'm thinking it needs to be information that helps improve the other person's performance, I need to deliver it in a way that's not just about me being right, but also about it being useful for the other person, acknowledging that it's possible to be technically correct and useless.

[00:09:28] It also impacts the way that I receive feedback. I can get feedback from a lot of different information, a lot of different sources, not just formal critique processes, not just formal reviews. I can get it from lots of people, lots of the time, and my job when I'm receiving it is to try and identify the information that is going to help me improve my performance.

Real play, and ask, do and be

[00:09:50] From our experience of delivering this case study to the participants at Domain, probably the one big thing we noticed was the value of real play, not role play: giving people the opportunity to really explore their own experiences and go and try a few things out in the real world, as opposed to playing purely theoretically and in hypothetical scenarios. We really valued, and the participants really valued, the real play as opposed to role play.

[00:10:20] The themes that emerged were ask, do and be. You'll notice that as we go through the presentation, and we'll remind you again of that at the end. It was about asking for feedback: how you can better seek feedback, and the importance of that. The doing was actually going away and putting this stuff into practice, getting used to it, getting into what we call the feedback gym and doing some reps. And being is a reflection of the fact that the skills are important, but how you turn up in each of these conversations is so important to how you turn up for feedback. The relationship that you have with other team members makes a huge difference to how effective, and the quality of, the feedback culture that you have.

[00:11:01] Along the lines of how you turn up in conversations, we were really strongly influenced by, and we shared, this quote from Brené Brown. Many of you will be familiar with Brené Brown's work. This particular one is talking about how, if you demonstrate that you are willing to receive feedback, that you're still learning, and you're still trying to get better at things yourself, it actually means that people are more willing to receive feedback from you as well. How you receive and how you seek feedback is a really important factor.

[00:11:34] Probably another thread of Brené Brown's work is the idea that links courage and vulnerability. Feedback is not about being right. So often it's about sharing your concerns, sharing what you're not good at, sharing some of the struggles that you've had, and being able to deliver that with empathy, and the relationship that is built up. That does take courage. It's not often what we are taught to do. We're taught to be right, and we're taught to be strong when we're delivering these things. But can we be courageous by showing some vulnerability when we're delivering feedback? The importance of that in the relationship is something that we touched on, and something that came up throughout the sessions that we had.

[00:12:20] Sarah: We really noticed this as the case study proceeded through the three sessions. When the groups returned to share, there was vulnerability within that sharing as well. It's actually quite powerful when you tap into it.

[00:12:32] Keegan: Most feedback training focuses on how to deliver feedback. Based on this idea that the relationship is so important to how feedback is delivered, and that if you're seeking feedback yourself [?], it's more likely that your feedback will be received well, we flipped the script a little bit. This is how we recommend that you develop a feedback culture. First, seek: go and ask for feedback, and work on that. Receive feedback without becoming defensive, noticing what comes up when you receive feedback that you may not like, and what that's like. That allows you to deliver feedback from a much more empathetic position, in a way that is more likely to be received and useful and applied.

[00:13:26] Sarah: And we thought it best to take an approach that helps people match their personal styles to giving feedback. Call it a smorgasbord approach, or a buffet. I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce it, but I think it might be smorgasbord. It's important to find out what your personal style is when you're delivering feedback. Otherwise, you're just following a tool that doesn't feel natural. We'll share these with you now.

Radical Candor

[00:13:52] Keegan: The first framework that we shared with the participants was Radical Candor, from the book of the same name by Kim Scott. As you can see, it talks about two dimensions: firstly, that you care personally about the people that you're sharing information with, and that you challenge directly. When you have that, you have a culture of Radical Candor, where people are able to give and receive information and you can help them improve rapidly. If either of those things is absent, then you get ruinous empathy, where you care but you don't challenge directly, or you're challenging directly but don't care personally, and you end up with obnoxious aggression. I certainly hope there's no manipulative insincerity around, but I guess it's always good to know.

[00:14:47] The participants really liked this framework, I think for the candid nature of its language. It's very accessible language, and it's an easy one to get your head around. One of the bits of conversation that did come up was this idea that feedback always has to be challenging, that challenging directly is the important part. We had a discussion about maybe changing that to sharing directly, or speaking directly, as opposed to challenging directly. But again, it's the process and the conversation of exploring what this means that mattered. That was one of the frameworks that really resonated with people.

A coaching approach: starting with a question

[00:15:27] Sarah: And of course, Keegan and I would use a framework that shows a coaching approach, given our backgrounds. The reason I liked this is that starting with a question, instead of giving the feedback that you're thinking, can be quite powerful. I can give an example. Once I was on leave for about five weeks. I came back to work, and the project that I thought would be signed, sealed and delivered was floundering. Maybe because I was relaxed after being on holiday, I took a breath, sat down with the team, and asked them how they were all feeling about where they were at. We ended up having a constructive conversation about what wasn't working, and from there we were able to figure out a path to change and get the thing delivered. It was a bit late, but in a lot better shape.

[00:16:23] Simply starting with a question and listening can be a very powerful thing. This model is about asking questions and listening properly, not fake listening, and not offering advice. But what kind of question can we start with? It's a good idea not to start with why, because why puts people on the defensive. You might try something like, "What's the main challenge you're facing at the moment?" or "What are you finding difficult today?" Asking a question empowers the person. They're not receiving information that they might find negative; they're actually being given an opportunity to have a think and respond. You might even think about finishing on a question, which again allows that person to think about what they'll do next. The thing about a coaching approach is that it's very much forward-thinking, rather than looking back and fixing. It can be very powerful.

The SBI-BI model

[00:17:18] Keegan: The third framework that we shared with participants was the SBI-BI model, which comes from the Center for Creative Leadership in the US. This is very much a framework about how to deliver feedback. It follows a particular sequence, and it's about making sure that you are delivering information that is useful for other people.

[00:17:48] For example, we could talk about a meeting yesterday. "Sarah, yesterday in our team meeting, you turned up 10 minutes late and unprepared. What that meant was that we weren't able to start on time, and we didn't achieve what we hoped to in the meeting." The alternative behavior is: "Next time, can you please make sure that you're on time and you're prepared, or at least let us know that you're not going to be there, so we can move on without you, so that we are able to make the best use of the time that we have."

[00:18:22] Hopefully you were able to follow that: situation, behavior, impact, alternative behavior, alternative impact. I can just as easily use that same framework to deliver some positive feedback. "Sarah, yesterday in that team meeting you turned up on time and well prepared, and we made the most of the time that we had together. I'd love it if you keep on doing that, and maybe even share the process you used with the other team members, so that we can always have much better meetings that are more productive."

[00:18:50] That's a bit of the mechanics of delivering feedback. One of the things that people like about this one is that it doesn't have to be one framework for positive and one for constructive feedback. You can always use this, as a bit of a checklist, and it helps it to be more useful information for the other person. It's the specificity: rather than saying, "Oh, that meeting yesterday was good," we're able to go into a bit more specific detail, and then people can actually do something about it.

[00:19:21] Sarah: Specific is good. This is why this model is good: it covers specifically what you were doing, whether it's positive or constructive feedback. I can remember once someone gave me a drive-by bit of feedback, which was, "Great presentation, Sarah," and then they left. And I'm like, what was good about it? Because I don't know what to repeat and what not to repeat. What if I repeat the bit of that presentation that wasn't actually that good? What specifically did I do well? It's really important to know.

Dialogue and thinking together

[00:19:49] Keegan: The final framework that we shared with people came directly from our Master of Business Coaching, around this idea of dialogue. It comes from William Isaacs' book, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. It talks about an initial choice. The first choice that we have is whether we suspend or defend the position that we entered this conversation with. Am I open to thinking about what the other person thinks, or am I really just going to present my view and hope that it becomes the winner?

[00:20:32] Even then, within defending, how hard are we likely to defend this position? If we go really hard, we enter into a debate. Classic politicians are great at this. They have a point of view, and that is what they are going to stick to. They're not really interested in what the other person has to say. They'll talk over the top of each other. They're just trying to win and get a point across.

[00:20:55] The other way, which happens a little bit more when we're defending our position or our point of view, is a skilled conversation. It's a little bit like a tennis match. This is where a lot of us, myself included, spend most of our conversations: I'll wait for you to finish talking, I'll respectfully listen to what you've said, and then when it's my turn I'll present my point of view, and we'll just exchange views. There's an exchange of views there, and I can even respect what you think. That's great, but I'm not really changing my own perspective.

[00:21:27] The third type, once we've suspended our own view, is actually trying to make sense of this and think together, and come up with something that maybe neither of us believed when we entered this conversation. We realize that when we look at this thing in a different way, we might be able to come up with a different perspective. That idea of dialogue takes a lot of effort, and there's a lot of skill involved, but you can see how it's a different way of delivering feedback: I might not even be right about this. I'm just sharing what I've noticed, and I'm open to the fact that your perspective on this situation might be different, and we might be able to emerge with something that is different and better on the other side.

[00:22:10] Sarah: I've overtly tried this approach with people before, and actually said, "I'd like for us to think together, because I don't know what the outcome is, but I know that between the two of us we'll figure this out." And it has actually been quite powerful.

[00:22:23] Keegan: One of the things that participants noticed was that this idea of dialogue and thinking together was a creative approach to feedback, where they didn't have to enter the conversation knowing that they were right and delivering the right information. They were entering in a more vulnerable way, a way where they were interested in both parties' views, so that we might be able to come up with something different and better. This whole creative way is why we have design and delivery teams: we're better together. And the idea is, as much as we can, to have those conversations that are more dialogue than debate [?], and keep that in the back of our mind as we deliver and exchange feedback.

Common themes and the quality of conversations

[00:23:02] Sarah: It might seem that we've shared a random selection of frameworks based on feedback, but there are some very strong themes coming through that we've noticed. It really does sit around having a good conversation with someone. It's about two people being present. It's not about a power struggle. It's about self-awareness, it's about empathy, and it's about good listening: all things that are really important for feedback.

[00:23:33] Keegan: That reminds me of a quote from Dr. Michael Cavanagh, who is in coaching psychology at the University of Sydney. He talks about how the quality of the conversation determines the quality of the relationships, and the quality of the relationships determines the quality of the organizational system, or for our purposes, the quality of the team. Really focusing on having high-quality conversations, where people can exchange information and get useful information that they can apply, is so, so beneficial for our teams. It goes beyond just the transaction of a particular task. When we're delivering feedback in a great way, we're being vulnerable, we're strengthening the relationships, and we're building the strength of the overall team. I think improving the quality of the conversations that we have across our teams is a really useful thing to be aiming for.

What changed for participants

[00:24:30] Sarah: After we ran the case study, we asked people what had been the most significant change for them. But before we get into that, one of the most unexpected findings was what the group got out of being together over the course of three sessions, with practical experience between the sessions. I wouldn't say it was like a therapy group, but people would talk about their experiences, share how things were going, be vulnerable, and probably share a lot more than we expected. It was almost like group coaching as part of the feedback sessions. If I had one recommendation coming out of this case study, it would be to create a space where people can group together and talk about their experiences.

[00:25:16] Keegan: Yeah. And I think the other thing was that people really appreciated the opportunity to have an explicit conversation about this. A lot of people struggle with either giving or receiving feedback, and they really valued the opportunity to have that conversation in that safe space, as Sarah mentioned: to explore this and see what it means, to go and take some things for a spin, see what worked for them, share with other people, and hear from other people what worked for them. That was some of the real feedback that we got. As you can see from some of their feedback, it was going and doing it. It was making it real and putting this into practice that made the difference for them. They really enjoyed that, and felt it was the most significant shift for them.

Key recommendations: ask, do, be

[00:26:08] Sarah: Our key recommendations, based on our experiences, come back to the ask, do, be statements that we mentioned earlier. Ask for feedback when you need it, in the moment. Don't wait for your quarterly or annual review to get your feedback, not knowing how you're traveling. Better off to say, "How did I go then? Was that presentation okay? Did it meet your needs?" Or maybe even, "What would you like to see from me in the next quarter?" Think about being specific when you're asking for feedback, and about the future as well as the past.

[00:26:52] Keegan: The second recommendation that we have is about actually doing this: giving people the opportunity to go and build their feedback muscles, put this into practice, learn for themselves and apply it in their context. By giving people a range of options, what we found is that people liked to pick and choose bits of each of them. Okay, maybe I'm going to use the SBI framework but with a dialogue approach, or I'm going to use some of these coaching questions to apply some of the Radical Candor. Those are the kinds of things that we noticed, and people felt much more like it was their own, rather than being told and ticking a box. Being able to give people that opportunity and space to go and practice was a really helpful thing that came from this process.

[00:27:37] Sarah: And being: how you are when you're giving your feedback, and the relationship you have with the person, is a good indicator of how well the feedback is going to be taken. "There's no such thing as quality feedback when you're getting it from someone you don't trust." That's a quote from Ed Batista. In short, don't be an asshole. Build positive relationships with your coworkers, so that you are in a position to give and receive feedback in an open and vulnerable way.

[00:28:11] Keegan: Yeah. I think, much like it is with being a leader or being a coach, how you turn up in these conversations and how you are being is so much more important than many of us realize. When we're thinking about this, how we turn up in order for this to be a quality conversation is probably the primary consideration, and the tools and the skills and the frameworks we apply are secondary to that. As Sarah says, clunkily delivered feedback from someone that you really trust, and who you think has your best interests at heart, is going to be far more effective than technically correct feedback from someone that you don't trust.

[00:28:53] We would love to keep this conversation going, and there are a few ways that you can do that. We will share a few resources with you, so you can dive into a little bit of this stuff yourself. You can connect with Sarah or me on LinkedIn, and on Twitter for Sarah; I'm not so social. And you can join our workshops. We are running a workshop to give you a little bit of a taste of what our case study participants went through, dive into this a little bit more, and walk away with even more practical applications and ways to improve the feedback culture in your teams.

[00:29:32] Sarah: Thanks for listening. We would love to hear your feedback, and hear how you're going with feedback too.

[00:29:40] Keegan: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to keeping in touch.