Being Curious - Using the Feedback Model
Curiosity killed the fear of feedback
Feedback, as they say, is a gift. Yet being offered it has been likened to hearing the sound of heavy footsteps behind you on a dark night. Sometimes it fills us with dread.
This is often because we associate the word feedback with giving or receiving a message that something is wrong. Yet feedback is just a flow of information, how we assign right or wrong comes down to how we interpret and perceive it.
And the reason for this usually comes down to a lack of curiosity within the conversation. Curiosity on the part of the person giving the feedback as to the root cause of the action they are feeding back on and curiosity of the person receiving the feedback as to what they might be able to learn.
Feedback therefore risks becoming a one-way communication, the person giving it being responsible for fixing or praising the person receiving it and the person receiving the feedback feeling they need to enact it or reject it (and fear the consequences). This reduces the act of giving feedback to a parent - child conversation (see Trust Seed 2).
Why not try seeing feedback as exchanging something that you have noticed about the other person and then entering into a curious dialogue to find out what the reasons are for this? In this way, both parties’ viewpoints come into the mix and ‘unknown unknowns’ (see Trust Seed 5) can be uncovered, promoting new learning. It means that feedback is no longer a transaction but an opportunity for both parties to explore, learn and grow.
How do we do this, I hear you cry. Thankfully there is a model that can scaffold your curious feedback conversations until they become muscle memory – enjoy!
The Feedback Model
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Contracting: I’d like to give you some feedback
Context and behaviour: Describe the situation
Impact and feelings: The demonstrable impact or domino effect and how you felt
Curiosity: I wondered what the reasons are for this happening
Davies, 2018
