Worksheets:
s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/highperformancehub/LPL-VideoScripts-ActivityGuides-Oct2016.pdf
25. How to facilitate a group feedback session
Frequent high quality feedback is a core part of how a high-performance team operates. Most groups/teams do not give each other feedback that often. This video explains a very simple process for a team to give feedback to each other in a simple and safe way.
It has been tried and tested successfully thousands of times. If you are not able to use this simple process regularly, your team is not even in the Norming Stage of team development.
In this video you will learn how to facilitate a group feedback session with your team.
Running a group feedback session with your team is one of the most powerful ways that you can improve performance and build a high-performing team. Yes, you can do anonymous 360 degree type surveys, but they do not compare with the immediate benefits of running a session where each member of the team gives feedback to all the other members, and in turn receives feedback from them too, in a live real-time situation.
And by getting into the habit of doing this three or four times a year at regular intervals.
OK, so given that you want to facilitate a group feedback session with your team, let’s now look at how you go about doing that.
Firstly, there are some important things to remember:
As soon as people know that they about to be a part of a live feedback session in a group, it is typical that they will start to feel somewhat anxious. In our normal working lives these days, we do not often experience situations where we receive feedback directly and all together from those we work with.
That anxiety can appear in many different ways and will relate directly to how each person usually responds to feeling fear. Some people will pretend they are ok with it (when they are not). Others may think of reasons why they cannot be there. Others may even find ingenious reasons why it’s not a good idea and share that with you.
So in order to minimise such reactions you need to judge very carefully when you will let the team members know that that is what you will be doing. At least the first time. After people have experienced it once, and seen the benefits, things get easier.
Building from that point, you need to think carefully when and where you will run the session. Ideally, at least the first time, you will be away from the normal work environment, and in terms of timing, I would suggest running this session after you have been together discussing other topics for at least half a day.
On a two day offsite with a team that I have not worked with before, I usually run this session at the end of the first day, knowing that we will be together for dinner that evening, and all day the next day.
And I have also known managers that I have worked with, who have run this session by itself, without other sessions before it and just a simple debrief afterwards. But you need to think very carefully if you were to do it this way, as it can be quite an emotionally deep experience. As a minimum, I would arrange some sort of social function afterwards like going out for drinks and dinner with the team.
After the first time, you can probably run this session by itself with just a simple introduction before you start.
You also need to think about who will be part of this feedback group. You want to have no more than ten people in the group. If you have a larger group, then carefully make up two groups of people who know each other best, all together in each group. And if it’s the first time you are doing this, I suggest you don’t run those two groups in parallel because you as the leader need to be a part of each group.
In order to maximise the chances of having a productive session, you need to use a very simple and safe format for people to give feedback to each other. Of course there are many ways of doing this, but I am going to share with you the format that I have used with hundreds of teams over the last ten years. It is proven. It works every time. It is simple, and you could use it in a one to one feedback situation as well. You will also be able to remember it easily.
Here it is…
There are just two simple sentence starters for you to remember.
The first sentence starter for you and the other team members to use is:
What I appreciate about you is…
And then you say what it is you appreciate about the person that you are giving feedback to. This may be in relation to anything that they have done or how they have been. And you should give some examples too.
The second sentence starter for you and the other team members to use is:
And, I feel you could be even more effective if…
And then you say what it is you feel they could do to be even more effective going forward. Again be specific and give examples.