To be an
effective team player, Facilitator, or as a trainer - It is very crucial to
know what others think about your way of working. It helps the person to inspect
the past and adapt for the better future.
Have you
ever shared all the feedback in your mind?
Would you
be able to share the feedback if some training is useless to you?
I
understand there are a lot of factors influencing the way you provide your
feedback. Was thinking for quite a lot of time about possibilities of getting
the honest feedback from my participants, team members and from my coachees. Thought-provoking questions would help explore different aspects of the context or
situation in which we are in.
We had a
new joiner in our team. After one of our team meeting, I asked him How was the
meeting? New joiner hesitantly told me that meeting was good and started
listing all so-called good things happened in the meeting and not uttered a
single word about negatives. I am sure New joiner has some suggestions for improving
our team.
It might be
because of being new, lack of psychological safety, need more time to observe
or many more human factors. I was keen to get his feedback that we can improve.
Now the question is HOW?
In our next
conversation, I asked him
Thank you
for sharing your feedback about our last team meeting.
What are the observations you don’t want to share about the meeting?
This question has surprised both of us. I am writing this blog to share the question which created fun and a different thought process in the conversation.
Purpose of
asking this question might be different from a person to person. Here is my purpose
why I asked this question.
· Setting the context that it’s not
only about what went well and to know about another side too
· Showing the readiness to accept feedback
even if it is worse
· Sharing the intention for
improvement
· To make your participants think,
explore
The question might not get you answers if you don’t have a rapport with the person
you are asking. So, spend some time building rapport before asking this
question.
Adding different
personas and context to the question.
What are the observations you would sharing with
your close friends?
What are the observations you would sharing with
your family members?
If you are the facilitator for the next meeting,
what would you change?
The above
questions will place them to think from different perspectives about the same
meeting, training, coaching or facilitation. Thank you for reading. If you have
any feedback (want to share & don’t want to share), please add it in comments or send
it to sathrambalaji@gmail.com
