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.
Why it works
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.
How to do it
- Ask the people who work with you for the words they would use, not for a rating.
- Ask them to say what happens when you do the thing, and what they would like to see instead.
- Collect the phrases without names attached if people will say more that way.
- Read the phrases together and note where they contradict one another.
- Pick one contradiction you are willing to explore, and ask the team about it directly.
Evidence
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.
Sources
Common mistake
Dropping the feedback that contradicts the rest, or reading the contradiction as proof that people do not know what they think.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Torbert’s Action Inquiry: Practicing Timely Leadership
- Check which territories of experience you are holding
Pause and check how many of the four territories of your experience your awareness is holding right now.
- Notice the attention doing the noticing
Notice the attention doing the noticing, as something distinct from your thoughts, your sensations and what you are looking at.
- Test your reading of someone while you are still talking
Check your reading of another person while the conversation is still going, instead of acting on it and finding out later.
- Research your own action while you are in it
Study your present action while you are in it, and let what you notice feed back into what you do next.
- Sort your question by person and by time
Name whether your question is about you, about the people you act with, or about things at a distance, and whether it concerns the past, the present or the future.
Related concepts
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- First, Second, Third and Fourth Person Perspectives
How the number of viewpoints you can hold grows, what the research does and does not show, and how to practice it in a real disagreement
- Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
Distinguishing adaptive challenges from technical problems — and leading accordingly
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: cite or embed this practice · more practices graded Practitioner experience