Keep team feedback in people’s own words

Keep the actual phrases people use when they describe your effect on them, instead of averaging them into one score.

Warum es wirkt

Torbert (2013) describes a COO on a seven-person senior team who received contradictory comments: some said he was strong on the budget and at selling, others that he was patronizing in meetings. From a third-person view, that spread looks like unreliable raters. From a second-person view, the phrases show the actual, divergent effects of his actions on the people around him. On this page’s reading, keeping the words rather than an average keeps those differences available to act on.

So gehst du vor

  1. Ask the people who work with you for the words they would use, not for a rating.
  2. Ask them to say what happens when you do the thing, and what they would like to see instead.
  3. Collect the phrases without names attached if people will say more that way.
  4. Read the phrases together and note where they contradict one another.
  5. Pick one contradiction you are willing to explore, and ask the team about it directly.

Evidenz

The COO case is one illustrative example in Torbert (2013) of second-person research on practice. It shows the method at work and is not a sample or an outcome study. (anecdotal)

One case described by the method’s developer. Torbert notes that someone may be lying or may later reconsider, so anonymous phrases need the same checking as any other data.

Quellen

Häufiger Fehler

Dropping the feedback that contradicts the rest, or reading the contradiction as proof that people do not know what they think.

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Weitere Übungen für Torbert’s Action Inquiry: Practicing Timely Leadership

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