Leaders and people spend surprising amount of time on giving and taking feedback. But feedback sessions can be counter productive due to the blame games and time lost. Look ahead sessions encourage people to collaborate, evaluate capabilities, question assumptions, and evaluate risks.
Leaders and people spend surprising amount of time on giving and taking feedback. Feedback sessions are arranged in companies at staff appraisal times or during important projects. Giving feedback to a subordinate is integral to the job of a boss. Information in some format is collected first. Often the employee herself is asked to fill in the details. Then the boss gives his or her remarks. There may be some discussion. In case of team meetings, there may be heated debate on what (often who) went wrong.
Pitfalls
Feedback sessions are necessary to understand current status or level of performance. They can be useful if they focus on facts. This, often is not the case. Usually the feedback is critical; therefore it is taken personally by the recipient. It almost always leads to heartburns and defensiveness. Feedback sessions can be counter productive due to the blame games and time lost. However, it is true that no leader can should avoid giving feedback just because there are such problems.
A Leader's role
Whatever is the case, the real role of a leader starts after the feedback is given. A leader's key role is to envision the future and align strategy and resources with it.
A good leader encourages people to develop forecasts in the form of alternate scenarios based on current state and actions planned. Scenario building makes people look ahead, imagine, assess risks, and question assumptions. To build scenarios, People have to understand organization's capabilities in terms of skills and processes. It also requires them to talk to their peers and outside people and collaborate. All these are very desirable things. Such regular scenario building and forecasting sessions make people better at it. The buy-in of people in the organization's strategy is another benefit of scenario building \ forecasting sessions.
In my experience, the above look ahead approach works well, particularly in organizations undergoing major transformation. The benefits are shared understanding, openness and creativity, seeking information outside one's own area, assessing risks, and keeping bigger picture in mind.
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