Coaching and Feedback are Vital to Continuous ImprovementThere’s an old story about a man walking into a drugstore to use the pay phone: “Hello, ABC Company, sometime ago you had an opening for an operations manager.  Is the position still available?”  After a slight pause, he continued: “Oh, you have.  Six months ago, huh?  How’s he working out?” A somewhat longer pause. “I see.  Well, thank you. ‘Bye.”  The druggist, having overhead the conversation said in sympathy; “I am sorry you couldn’t go after that job.”  The man, surprised, turned and said; “Oh, I’m not looking for a job.  That was my own organization.  I was calling to see how I was doing!!”

We all want to know where we stand.  Decades of research shows that we want recognition for our skills and accomplishments, feedback that tells us when we have accomplished something that someone else values, some input to the decisions that affect our work, and the chance to grow and develop.  One of the outstanding characteristics of an effective coach is the frequency and quality of the feedback he or she provides to reinforce, support, and help others continue to improve.  Feedback is an absolutely critical issue all across the organization.  Organization improvement can’t happen without it.  Operating without feedback is like blindly shooting at targets and never seeing or being told whether you hit the bull’s eye or missed altogether.  You can’t improve when you don’t know how you’re doing.

Organizations with effective feedback loops have cultures that view continuous feedback as continuous learning opportunities.   And the cultural feedback patterns are set by management.  If most teams and their members are being well coached, they will come to view feedback as a positive and much needed step in the continuous improvement process.

Coaching traps, research, assessment, and asking for feedback are featured in tomorrow’s publication of our June blogs in the Leader Letter. And the quality of coaching along with a coaching culture determines the levels of customer service — another key topic in this issue. Finally, we look at the need to break free of learned helplessness and The Pike Syndrome. The burgeoning practice of Cognitive Psychology provides powerful evidence for just what we can change or break free from and what we can’t.

Here’s to busting self-imposed barriers and using coaching and feedback skills to liberate and develop others.