How to Build a Feedback Culture

A feedback culture is an organizational environment where open, honest, and constructive feedback is encouraged, valued, and expected.  It's a place where employees feel safe to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns without fear of judgment or reprisal.

How do we foster feedback culture in our own workplaces? As luck would have it, recent sports news featured an example of an NBA franchise that has done just that.

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The Feedback Culture of the 76ers

ESPN recently reported that, after losing four games in a row, Philadelphia 76ers veteran guard Kyle Lowry called a team meeting. The meeting, what sources called “a much-needed heart-to-heart and a call to action and urgency,” exemplifies the feedback culture that has been established at the 76ers organization.  

Players and coaches both claimed personal responsibility for shortcomings and held each other accountable. At one point, “the players told 76ers coach Nick Nurse they want to be coached harder, and coaches in turn said they want players to practice with purpose and attention to detail.” At another point, Tyrese Maxey “called out” teammate and close friend Joel Embiid for being late to practices and team functions. 

The media frenzy in the following days framed the meeting as negative in nature, but Embiid made it clear that there is a preexisting culture of candor on the team and that he welcomes the feedback.

According to The Athletic, Embiid says the conversation was “typical of teammates holding each other accountable.” He said he and Maxey have “a level of friendship where they can criticize each other, if the need should arise.” In fact, Embiid said that Maxey shared this feedback while the friends shared a pile of chicken wings in the locker room. 

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Common Feedback Culture Pitfalls to Avoid

Maxey and Embiid have built up enough trust and psychological safety to share and receive constructive, “hard-to-hear” feedback, and we should strive to create the same dynamic on our own teams. 

After all, cultivating a feedback culture is not only important, but essential for organizational health and success. A robust meta-analysis from Katz et al. in 2021 indicates feedback cultures positively impact performance. These organizations also boast stronger manager-employee relationships, and their employees report lower levels of burnout than organizations without a feedback culture. 

But, it’s important to be intentional about the kind of feedback ecosystem we build. It is easy to fall prey to a few common missteps people often make when pursuing a feedback culture. 

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1. Don’t wait until your team is underperforming to have candid conversations. In this instance, the 76ers called a team meeting after they already had a losing record of 2-11. Organizations should host regular meetings where honest, constructive feedback is exchanged. Like good medicine, it is better to prevent a problem before it starts than treat a problem that has already taken root.

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2. Don’t use “feedback culture” as an excuse to provide negative, overly critical feedback. We’re not encouraging organizations to create environments where people are critical of one another. Rather, we’re encouraging team members to regularly provide constructive feedback that is clear and actionable. There is a way to frame feedback so it is honest and useful without being harsh or harmful. A feedback culture is full of architects of next steps, not destroyers of worlds. 

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How Coachability Creates Feedback Culture

In the interest of truth-telling, we feel we must share: you can’t build a feedback culture without coachable people. 

If you want feedback and coaching to impact performance, you need people who will do the work of putting suggestions into action. You need individuals who will seek out multiple perspectives, discern what is most useful to them, and put that advice into practice. 

Without these kinds of team members, it doesn’t matter how carefully a coach or colleague crafts their feedback– no change will come of their ideas if no one is willing to listen, adapt, and act on them. 

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Elevate Your Coachability with CCI  

For more information on how to build your feedback culture, reach out to us about our coachability solutions. We look forward to starting your coachability journey with you!

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Sources: 

ESPN: Sources: Tyrese Maxey challenged Joel Embiid in 76ers meeting

The Athletic: Joel Embiid on latest criticism, Sixers drama: ‘Feels like negativity keeps following me’

Katz, I. M., Rauvola, R. S., & Rudolph, C. W. (2021). Feedback environment: A meta‐analysis. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 29(3-4), 305-325.

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