Feedback doesn’t travel without a passport

A team meeting, a Tuesday morning, by video between Brussels and Abidjan. A Belgian manager, whom I will call Sophie, wants to recognise the work of an Ivorian colleague on an important report. She says so sincerely, in front of everyone: “Great work on the report, really. But the figures in part three are wrong, they need redoing before Friday.”

For Sophie, it was balanced feedback, direct and kind. For her colleague, it was public humiliation, barely softened by a compliment. He did not speak up in meetings for three weeks. Sophie noticed nothing until the team pointed it out to her.

Nobody acted badly. Each person applied the feedback rules they had learned. That is precisely the problem.

One word, two effects

The anthropologist Edward T. Hall proposed a now-classic distinction between “low-context” and “high-context” communication cultures. In the former, the message is in the words: you say what you think, and expect others to do the same. In the latter, much of the message travels through context: the relationship, the place, the moment, what is left unsaid.

No culture sits entirely on one side. But when someone used to the explicit gives feedback to someone used to the implicit, the same word does not have the same effect. “But” signals a simple nuance for one; for the other, it cancels everything that came before.

Feedback is not what you say. It is what the other person receives.

Three feedback dials

Rather than looking for the “right” way to give feedback, I suggest that teams look at three dials, which each person sets differently depending on their culture and history.

• Direct or indirect. Naming the problem plainly, or raising it through a question, a suggestion, an example.
• Public or private. Feedback given in front of the group can be a sign of transparency here, and a loss of face there.
• About the task or the relationship. Some hear feedback on a document as feedback on the document; others hear it as a message about the relationship of trust.

In Sophie’s example, all three dials were set opposite to what her colleague expected: direct, public, and perceived as a judgement on his reliability.

Four practices to help it travel

Agree on feedback rules. The most effective step comes before the first misunderstanding. A team can decide together: feedback on work is given in private, praise in public, and anyone can say “I’d rather we talk about this one to one”.

Choose the right channel. Delicate feedback does not belong in a group chat thread. A ten-minute call, or a message offering a conversation, avoids a lot of interpretation.

Situation, behaviour, impact, intention. Describe the specific situation, the observable behaviour and its impact, and say why you are giving this feedback. It is often that last part that is missing: “I’m telling you because this report will be read by the committee, and I want it to do you justice.”

Check what was received. End with an open question: “How are you taking this?” or “What are you taking away from it?”. The answer will tell you whether your message made the journey.

What I see in Brussels

Brussels is the capital of all nuances. In a single meeting you sometimes meet people trained in Amsterdam, Paris, Kinshasa, Warsaw and Douala. Each arrives with their own idea of what honest feedback is, and the conviction, often unconscious, that it is the only reasonable one.

The teams that do best are not the ones that found the perfect style. They are the ones that talk about it. They have put words to their differences and accepted that feedback is a team skill, not just an individual quality.

Sophie ended up calling her colleague. She explained what she had meant, and asked how he preferred to receive feedback. Their conversation lasted twenty minutes. It changed the rest of their collaboration, and a rule appeared in the team charter: “With us, corrections are made in private.”

Feedback doesn’t travel without a passport. But that passport is easy to get: you just have to ask.