One of our maxims at Barrel is All Feedback is Information. For us, feedback is an easy way to get input from co-workers about how they experience us so we can identify what's working/not working and how we can improve. Without it, we're missing an opportunity to learn and grow through real input vs. our assumptions, which may or may not paint a brighter picture than reality.
We talk about feedback with the team often and do our best to facilitate feedback conversations as needed. More recently, though, we've been thinking about other ways to normalize giving and receiving regular feedback instead of waiting on designated times of the year (such as performance reviews) or difficult situations.
Last week, we launched an experiment using Lattice. Leveraging Lattice's feedback feature, we requested feedback (anonymous for now) for our Team Leads and select team members from folks they worked closely with in the past few months. We left responses open-ended to let folks focus on what's important to them. So far, we've appreciated the team's candid and thorough responses.
After all the feedback is collected, managers will package and share the feedback. Documentation will likely happen in Lattice to keep everything centralized.
Looking ahead, we believe regular feedback will be integral to performance management at Barrel. We'll still have one or two planned performance reviews per year, but conversations can be happening all the time. Peer feedback will be based on more recent events, not generalized for months at a time.
Long term, our vision is that everyone feels comfortable discussing feedback among co-workers, and individually, every team member knows where they stand and has development areas to tackle.
Read related posts on feedback here.
This post originally appeared in Edition No. 114 of my newsletter. Subscribe here.
Monday, November 14, 2022
