Ignoring this practice can limit the success of your change project

Change alters the relationship between the employees and their company. There is a tactic to strengthen the relationship and strengthen the change project.

March 2022

Many years ago I created a lit piece for a politician, describing his accomplishments and what he hoped to achieve in the coming years. I also included something concrete to demonstrate how much the candidate cared: “Please send me your feedback. I’m always eager to hear comments from the people I serve.”

His chief of staff pulled me aside after previewing it. “I need you to take off the contact information before it goes to print.”

“Should I remove the entire call for feedback?” I asked.

“No. That’s good. How can I say this? We want to give them the impression that we want to hear from them, but we don’t actually want to hear from them.”

Opportunity lost. Pretending to care is bad faith and bad business. If we need alignment with other people, we need to understand their perspectives. Feedback is a map to success.

When organizations are going through change, gathering feedback can feel like a time-wasting, nice-to-have addition. But it’s essential.

Feedback directly influences business success. Understanding multiple perspectives improves performance, and informs people on where they stand. Additionally, it prevents project risks, improves organizational culture and fosters fast change (actiTIME, 2018). Feedback is also reciprocal. Staff want feedback, but leaders need feedback as well – especially if they’re running a large-scale change project.

Additionally, it prevents project risks, improves organizational culture, and fosters fast change.

A change project, like adopting new enterprise technology, will impact individuals and departments differently. Moreover, these individuals – even within the same department – will have different feelings about the project. Successful projects get team feedback during all phases of the change project from preparation to post-change reinforcement (Bonfyre). Leaders shouldn’t assume that an organization will change in lock-step, or be of one mind.

Regularly getting feedback from a team that’s going through change will improve the project in the following ways.

1. Feedback from staff will provide previously-overlooked information that is essential to the project’s success.
2. Requesting feedback makes staff feel valued, which engages things like reciprocity and openness to other perspectives.
3. Opportunities for feedback provide a safe space for staff to blow off some steam, and decreases the likelihood of staff quietly disparaging the project where leaders can’t address issues.
4. Feedback-mechanisms prevent leaders from getting stuck in a theater of positivity where just a few managers curate information and comments that they think the leader wants to hear.
5. Acknowledging feedback respectfully prevents staff from saying, “They couldn't care less what we think about this project.”
6. Honest feedback provides a deeper understanding of how the change project is going for different areas of the organization, preventing potential problems.

To make feedback work for your project, leaders need to set some ground rules. Feedback should:

• be specific and accompanied by suggestions for solutions, or requests for solutions.
• describe a specific aspect of the project: for example, the product, the process or personnel issues.
• have word limits and language guidelines.
• have a reasonable response time. If leaders don’t respond to feedback, it’s pointless.
• not be simply rebutted. This is an opportunity for leaders to learn from an alternate perspective.

Think about staff comments as an opportunity to strengthen the change process. As a recipient of feedback, you might not love what you hear, but try to think about it as an opportunity to build trust and demonstrate your values. It becomes transformative. Our Cirrus Change Readiness protocol has tools to encourage feedback as part of our module on addressing resistance to change. Feedback is that important.

If you are interested in more blogs like this, or in Cirrus Change Readiness for your organization, go to www.starkweather.us.

Melinda Starkweather, CMP
Principal, Starkweather Association Services, LLC; founder Cirrus Change Readiness