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Reality TV: A Lesson in Giving and Receiving Feedback
March 9, 2008
I never thought I’d see the day that I’d be saying this… but, I think there is something to learn from the way feedback is given and received on reality shows.
It’s one of the biggest HR and management challenges I see in businesses today. In fact, of all the training we are hired to do, performance evaluation and feedback programs are by far the most common. Yet even with all of the effort and resources devoted to improving conversations around performance, companies still wrestle with how to communicate with employees in a productive and constructive way.
So here's where I think the reality show model can help. A perception persists that direct and honest feedback will hurt rather than help productivity and morale. People see it as criticism and because of that, they avoid it. Typically, they don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings and as a result, the skills to do it are not sufficiently developed.
Well, if we were to borrow several things from the likes of Donald Trump, Heidi Klum and Simon, Paula and Randy, these would be the three best in my opinion.
- Saying it like it is: You can tell someone that he or she totally missed the point and it doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.
- Knowing where you stand: People appreciate knowing how they are doing and not having to guess.
- Getting important information: Feedback is not bad, not personal, but necessary.
By telling someone that he or she is doing something that is not working, truth and clarity enter the discussion so that both sides can further their understanding, do something about it and move on. But in order for this to work, there must also be an implicit understanding on the receiving end which depends on the kind of organization you’ve built or culture you have. Think about the participants on the show. They arrive feeling positive due merely to the fact that they’d been chosen. In some sense they’re “ready for it” because they expect to hear whether they’ve won or lost, and why. But also, people are watching, so they have to take it in with some degree of decorum, because they have no choice.
Wouldn’t it be fun to turn a day at work into a realty show and see what happens? Maybe that will be our next training class.
Posted by Donna Flagg on March 9, 2008 | Comments (0)
