People have a habit of becoming what you encourage them to be; not what you nag them to be.
The research is clear:
Telling others what they should improve actually 𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 learning.
Our current approaches to feedback fall into three main theories:
🐝 Theory of learning: Presumes colleagues should teach you skills
🐝 Theory of the source of truth: Presumes that others know your weaknesses better than you; and
🐝 Theory of excellence: Presumes that performance is universal and can be transferred from managers to employees
Each theory share one commonality:
The assumption that managers have the ability to fix everyone’s flaws.
But this has been disproven (Buckingham & Goodall (2019))
50% of our assessments of others are made based on the perception of their abilities, rather than the ability itself.
So how do we develop and help others to develop?
We create the environment where you can be you.
Inclusion is at the heart of learning, development and high performance.
You don’t grow fruit.
The plants do that themselves.
You create the environment where the plant can do what it does naturally.
Cultivate the environment.
*Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2019). The feedback fallacy. Harvard Business Review, 97(2), 92-101.
