Before go deep into my opinions, let’s take a look to these 3 situations:

Situation 1: 

•  Freddy comes to Rob and says: “whenever I come to talk to you, you don’t look at me, instead keep typing to your computer and I feel like you are not paying attention to me, somehow disrespectful and uncomfortable”
• Rob reply to Freddy: “I do acknowledge you, but I have been typing because I always take notes of what you are telling me to make sure I respond and follow your directions”

Situation 2: 

•  Juliet comes to Martin and says: “In the last 2 monthly meetings you presented results like it was everybody else fault but not your”
• Martin reply to Juliet: “I am sorry that was the message I transmitted, I will make sure I explain it better the next time since it is always the team’s results”

Situation 3: 

•  John comes to Maria and says: “I don’t know if you know but we are very proud of the work you have been doing during this year, the way you help this team is greatly appreciated”
• Maria reply to John: “oh, that’s a surprise to me, I was under the impression my work was unnoticed. Glad to know that even after a year of been here.”

Previous situations are not examples of feedback but situations that can be solved with continuous feedback culture.

What does feedback culture mean to me?

The practice of providing and receiving feedback from all stakeholders during the process and not only at the end of it (or yearly). Continuous practice with not a specific moment or fixed schedule only, done as needed, and encouraged to be frequent.

A common scenario in many workplaces:

Many companies relied solely on top to bottom annual reviews to communicate feedback to their employees regarding performance. Unfortunately, this approach does not always encourage strong workplace communication. It can even choke a business’s progress and development, by leaving valuable resources (employees) untapped.

Instead, the feedback culture propose:

• 360 degrees feedbacks:
  • Employee to employee (between devs, product owners, QA, and any other role existing in the team)
  • Employee to management
  • Management to employee
  • … others that apply like clients, consumers….
• With some periodicity but also whenever there is a need:
  • Maybe after each Sprint or Milestone
  • On-demand.

How feedback culture could help?

• Helps Employees Feel Valued and Take Ownership. We spend a big portion of the day working, so it’s important to enjoy and feel like the work we do is recognized and appreciated. Feedback Culture shows that each employee matters as a system. Rather than simply follow instructions, employees can feel the impact of their efforts. It will not only benefit employees but the company as well since this can increase productivity and quality of the work.
• Encourages Employee Growth and Retention. Feeling valuable and empowered increases retention and encourages employees to grow professionally.
• Creates a Collaborative Environment. When honest feedback is shared between members of a team, the feeling of a collaborative environment increase.
• Opens the door to new ideas. We never know what new idea is going to be key in a process, encouraging people to share feedback helps for new good ideas to contribute to the company/team’s continuous improvement.
• As more as a team practices it, alleviate the misconceptions that feedback is just to do underperforming results, instead, the team will start using it to develop themselves and excel to where they want to be.
• It helps to evacuate concerns that otherwise not been properly handle could create bigger problems. Having a way for people to deplete concerns, could help to remediate it before they become irremediable. 
• Create a more positive workplace. Workplaces that focus on negativity or blame culture will seriously impact the well-being and performance of employees. 

How to create a feedback culture?

• Exercise feedback training sessions. Train people to improve this technique so you get the max of it and avoid a nonpositive situation. Different personalities require different ways to provide better feedback (Extroverted, introverted, Sensible, Intuitive, … )
• Perform feedback sessions with co-workers regularly. People get more use to culture when it is practice regularly.
• Encourage people to come to you with feedback. Co-worker tends to provide more feedback to those that they know will be glad to receive it.
• Create more than one avenue for feedback. The same method does not feet to every person in a team, it is better to have a different way that feet to your team characteristics, for example, you could use 1&1 session, team brainstorming sessions, small group sessions (2 to 4), online feedback platforms, anonymous surveys or others that the team would like to try. 
• React on feedback. If the team understands how feedback benefits the common growth, it will encourage them to improve and continue the technique. While not every idea is applicable, it is important that each one takes into consideration or the team would not feel the benefit. Sometimes it is recommended to comment to the team why some ideas were discarded to make sure the team feels heard.
• Make sure people understand that they are under no pressure to provide feedback if they are not comfortable doing it.
• Put in practice rules like “Zero retaliation” so every member understands that they won’t face any negative repercussions as a result.

How to provide feedback?

• Find the right time to do it, never do feedback in a rush so both parts have the time to understand each other better. Consult the receiver about the best moment for a session and if would like to receive it. Ex: “Would you like to receive feedback at some point this afternoon or tomorrow”
• Provide honest and well intention feedback. Do not use this as a personal attack.
• Provide constructive criticism and positive feedback only. The feedback culture must walk a fine line between honesty and negativity. A balance between constructive criticism and positive feedback is recommended.
• Pay attention to details so your message gets better transmitted. “Is not WHAT you say is HOW you say it”, or “It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear”. A study from UCLA showed that the impact of your audience is affected on the following scale: gesture count for 55%, 38% the tone of your voice, and 7% your words, which means that the non-verbal part of your presentation accounts for the 93% of the impact.
• Provide as many details as possible, example situations can help most of the time to transmit an idea. Been specific is better than an elaborated example. 
• Exercise feedback earlier as possible to the situation that creates it, so people remember better all details.
• Do private sessions if you believe the receiver may feel vulnerable while exposing an area to improve.
• Positive feedbacks are good for public sessions so the team acknowledges it.
• Explain the impact. Understanding the consequences will help to identify the priority of an improvement.
• Suggest a solution when possible. Better to face a problem with a possible solution.

How to receive feedback?

• Be receptive, learn to listen, could be something you haven’t noticed.
• Do not take things like it is trying to hurt you, always take it as opportunities to grow. Even if the presenter didn’t use the best words (s/he could make mistakes or have difficulties to communicate it, but pretend has good intentions) always keep the positive aspect of it.
• Give the importance it deserves, if the other person is investing time in providing it to you, then you should pay full attention, it is for your benefit.

Summary:

• Feedback will highlight strengths but also the areas for development that may be holding you back, giving you a different point of view, so you can use it to target areas and develop yourself or the team.
• There is no doubt that this practice comes with some challenges but it has great value in building and sustaining strong teams/companies’ cultures.
• This practice can not be fully applied from one day to the other, but the faster we start working in that direction, the faster the benefit we will get from it.

Always remember: “Feedback is the breakfast of champions” (Ken Blanchard)

Materials that I used in addition to my opinions:

• https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/feed-feedback
• https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5678d5f60e4c118f2403a97a/t/56b4605db654f9ef0997b3b2/1454661862908/principles-of-feedback-20-mins.pdf
• https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/
• https://hbr.org/2013/12/building-a-feedback-rich-culture
• https://onpointglobal.com/articles/4-undeniable-benefits-of-creating-a-feedback-culture-within-your-company/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriandearnell/2018/07/10/its-not-what-you-say-its-how-you-say-it-why-perception-matters-when-presenting/#53d9b20930ad
• https://www.getfeedback.net/blog/Why_is_a_feedback_culture_important/https://truqu.com/en/blogs/the-importance-of-a-feedback-culture-and-how-you-can-build-it-in-the-workplace/
• https://truqu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/how-to-give-feedback-to-16-different-personality-types.pdf
• https://eunepa.com/why-a-feedback-culture-matters-and-how-to-establish-it/
• https://thriveglobal.com/stories/the-importance-of-a-feedback-culture/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Blanchard