Objective:
To understand the importance of developing our feedback techniques as part of a communication and working with others.
Overview:
This session is run as a stand-alone group activity in an informal environment with all participants sitting in a relaxed state in order to create lots of opportunity for group discussions and sharing experiences in order to refine their use of language and consider messages from different perspectives.
Activity
This activity takes about 30 minutes to deliver the airline pilot communication, set the scene: and explore the results with the group together the importance of giving effective constructive feedback when communicating.
Before beginning it is useful to indicate that you are doing a hypothetical task relating to air travel to ensure that you are not working too close to an individual’s phobia or concerns relating to airline travel. You may wish to exempt someone who feels that they may be uncomfortable with the task, but recognise this element is part of the task when giving feedback.
Turning a negative into a positive: The airline pilot scenario
As facilitator, read this announcement to your group, after explaining that they have been sat in an aeroplane for about 15 minutes, when the pilot speaks to you over the intercom:
"Good morning, this is your pilot speaking. We are going to have to delay our departure for about 40 minutes. There have been problems with the cargo onto the airplane and this will take some time to sort out. The plane is also at the present time being refuelled.
When we take off, we shall be flying due east and going at a height of 30.000 feet. The weather forecast in the area is not good and it looks as if we could have quite a bit of turbulences route, so please keep in your seats and I understand the weather at our destination is also bad for this time of year which is causing delays to departures and arrivals.I will let know as we have any further information"
Ask the group informally to share what they heard from this announcement. Explore the feelings of the group as well as the message.
Then provide the text, either as a handout, or on screen and set the task: Can you communicate this information in a more positive way?
All the above information is factually correct, however even before take-off the captain has put you in a poor mood for the journey.
Give the group 10 minutes to read through and come up with a more positive statement. Then go around the group for them to talk through their statements and then talk though the groups as to how and why they presented this information differently and how they might communicate the need to use different language to the pilot. Discuss how to give feedback to colleagues/team members and explore their previous experience of poor feedback.
Discuss how feedback statements are heard and how language can shape what is heard.
Use the following Feedback key points (below) to guide your discussions and agree how best to handle feedback which improves service and quality, and particularly when colleagues are unaware of any performance issues or potential increase in quality that can be achieved.
Feedback should be
- In a form that is appropriate and acceptable to the receiver
- descriptive not evaluative
- about behaviour not personality
- based on examples
When you give feedback make sure you:
- communicate how you felt
- get others to support your observations
- confirm good as well as bad
- allow the recipient to question
- are timely
- identify sources
When receiving feedback
- accept it is for your own good
- be positive
- listen carefully
- check and clarify understanding
- check with others
- expand on feedback given
- decide how to use feedback
- thank the giver
When giving feedback to individuals
- use supporting evidence
- be positive
- gain commitment
- clarify implications of feedback
- build up self confidence
- gain agreement of the way forward
- develop action plans
- communicate decisions to appropriate personnel
Skill Development:
The discussion of this task should focus on reflection; review; feedback (see points above) in order to explore the learning through group discussion. It is important that you establish the need to understand the importance of how to give feedback in a safe constructive way which continues to motivate individuals to deliver.
This communication task explores the more subtle, and powerful elements of an individual's communication skills and it can be useful to draw on experiences from part-time/previous jobs or courses to truly understand the emotional impact of feedback and establish the need to consider timing; task; emotional state; message etc when giving feedback. Individual experiences from the group, should they wish to share, can be particularly powerful in exploring group work, team work and motivating for improvement.
Review these lessons and then explore with the group what they can 'take-away' for the future, both as a giver of good and supportive feedback, and a possible receiver of well-intended, but badly executed feedback. What ground rules for feedback can they use in their group work? Can they add this to their meeting agendas? What language is appropriate? What happens when feedback is not accepted within their group?
Resources:
Pilot statement Handouts (or power point slide of text) to produce mid task.