Giving and Receiving Feedback with Pushpay
Pushpay is a digital engagement platform that supports online church giving and supplies church management software. Founded in Auckland in 2011, Pushpay boasts 11k global customers and almost USD7 billion in online giving.
This bootcamp was presented by the amazing team at Pushpay:
Marcus Bristol, Engineering Manager
Jemimah Martinez, Software Developer.
In previous bootcamps, the importance of getting feedback from mentors and peers has been continuously emphasised in order to enable self-improvement. However, how do we actually process and analyse the feedback that’s given to us so we can effectively learn from it? In this bootcamp, Marcus and Jemimah delved into the importance of knowing how to give and receive feedback and offered some tips and tricks on how to do so.
How to Receive Feedback
What is feedback?
A simple example of feedback could be when you do a chore at home and your family thanks you for it, showing their appreciation. This is a positive response to the good task you’ve done and is a form of feedback. Another example is children; when we were children we all needed lots of feedback on what was good to do and what was bad to do.
Feedback is how we all learn and improve.
Receiving feedback is just as important as giving feedback.
There’s three different types of feedback:
1) Appreciation: this type of feedback is aimed to motivate and encourage someone in some way. It’s confirmation that a task completed by someone has been done very well.
2) Coaching: this feedback aims to communicate to a person how they can improve in their role. Coaching feedback helps you to increase your knowledge and skill and accelerates learning.
3) Evaluation: This feedback is one which lets you reflect on your overall performance. It’s where you can compare your work to others and check whether you’re heading toward the right end goal. This feedback also allows you to see where you stand, aligns your expectations with that of the company’s and helps inform decision making. It helps you to compare where you are to where you want to be.
Three triggers - ways to analyse the feedback
There are three things to consider when analysing feedback you receive:
Truth trigger - does the feedback resonate with what you believe? Think about the context of the person providing feedback, what do they know about the situation? Reflect on your interpretation and whether you’re interpreting the feedback correctly.
Relationship triggers - who’s giving the feedback and do you trust that person’s credibility enough for them to give you good feedback? Different people will give you different feedback. For example, your parents or friend’s feedback can be different and typically sugar coated compared to professional feedback from a boss or mentor.
Identity trigger - how are you feeling when you receive feedback and does the feedback apply to you? Sometimes, you may be charging ahead with a task and think you’re doing very well but the feedback given tells you otherwise and you may be a bit shocked by it. It’s important to set your feelings aside and look at the feedback from a plain or impartial view.
Consider your other external influences and examine why you are emotional about this feedback. Did you have a bad week? Or have faced lots of rejections in the past? We must think of ways to set our feelings aside and check whether the feedback was actually incorrect or whether it was valid but our emotions got in the way.
Analysing feedback step-by-step
Don’t just take feedback at face-value. Analyse it first by asking yourself these questions:
Decide what type of feedback it is, are they appreciating something you’ve done well?
Who’s giving the feedback?
Could their perception of why they provided the feedback be true?
Is your interpretation of the feedback accurate?
What’s your emotional state when receiving the feedback? Are you on a low or a high?
Good and bad examples of feedback in the workplace
Example of good feedback
In an example of good feedback, Jemimah explained that she had a mentor she looked up to during her internship at Pushpay. She was appreciated for taking research into her own hands so that she could further her understanding of her tasks at work. However, whenever she had questions, she would wait to tell her mentor until the next day during their fixed meeting time. After a while her mentor told her that she didn’t have to wait until the next day to ask questions. This feedback really helped Jemimah and instead of overloading her mentor each morning, she was able to keep up a steady communication which helped improve her performance and productivity overall.
Example of bad feedback
Jemimah was working on a case study problem with a group of 10 people at Auckland University. They were almost done with the project but their team leader messaged that the final solution wasn’t good enough to her group chat and it sent the group into a panic. It taught her that the way feedback is phrased should be sensitive and empathetic as it can very easily be taken the wrong way. In the end, Jemimah contacted her team leader and they were able to walk through the problem together. The team leader was under stress but the team came together and were able to properly evaluate themselves. She walked through the steps of analysing feedback which is why she was able to resolve the feedback well and help the team perform better in the end.
How to Give Feedback
Why do we give feedback?
The “feedbackee” is the person receiving feedback: we want to uplift, coach and motivate this person. This is so that the person can upskill and improve their skills and gain self-fulfilment. Also, the better that person becomes, the better the whole team becomes.
The “feedbacker” is the person giving feedback: it’s also advantageous to be the one giving feedback and to the whole team. The more you work in unity, the more you are able to work cohesively and produce better outcomes and safe workspaces.
Why do we want to self-improve?
Primarily to gain knowledge and skills that we might not have strength or experience in. It’s empowering to improve and get better at a task or skill each day.
To meet a specific need i.e. you need to achieve a specific task and you need to improve yourself before it becomes achievable.
Gain material rewards.
Earn credit toward recognition (for example: going to university).
Gain pleasure, the first time you do something it may not always be fun but after the tenth time you’re better and can actually enjoy it.
Build self-esteem.
Build self-confidence, if you don’t push yourself, you won’t really get confident.
Win acceptance and esteem from others.
How does self-esteem help?
You want to build up your own and other’s self-esteem through feedback.
Self-esteem fuels personal growth.
Feedback reinforces personal growth.
More self-esteem generates more growth.
Self-esteem is critical to giving feedback so keep that in mind when giving feedback.
How to nourish self-esteem
Be genuine and real about your feedback. Be genuine when building the self-esteem of others.
Create a climate for motivation. When people make mistakes, don’t laugh at them, allow people to make mistakes and appreciate that they are trying.
Recognise other’s strengths.
Recognise other’s improvement and give them appreciation for how far they’ve come.
Avoid judgements, judgements cross that line between feedback and just criticising someone's hard work.
Evaluation methods
The bad sandwich
This is when a really bad piece of feedback is sandwiched between two really nice points of feedback. This type of feedback isn’t very effective as the point is not clearly communicated and the person may just be listening to the first and last feedback notes.
Tell and sell
This is when you’re telling someone directly how they can improve. It’s a bit of that coaching technique where you’re informing someone what they should do and why they should do it that way.
Tell and listen
Tell the feedback, listen for their response and keep going until it's settled.
Evaluator/feedbacker roles
Motivator - Appreciating someone’s hard work and uplifting them to keep doing better.
Facilitator - This is more of a coaching role where you’re trying to figure out how to get the person into a better, more improved state.
Counsellor - You’re trying to uplift and motivate someone while still giving feedback.
Effective behaviours when being the evaluator
1) Show that you care.
2) Suit your feedback to the person.
3) Learn the person’s motivations. What does the person want to learn or achieve?
4) Listen actively to someone. It may be hard when you want to say something but listen.
5) Personalise your language. “My reaction was…” “It appeared to me..” “I felt that you…” is much better instead of saying “You should do this…”.
6) Give positive reinforcement, encourage them.
7) Build a motivational climate, allow them to make mistakes.
8) Evaluate the behaviour and not the person, instead of saying you did this wrong, say something they could’ve done better.
9) Nourish self-esteem, give nice feedback, ensure it’s uplifting the person and not doing the opposite.
10) Give clear examples on how they can improve. Back up your feedback and clearly explain what they can do to improve next time.
You have responsibilities too!
Empathise with both parties. Empathise with the evaluator if you’re receiving feedback and listen with an open mind. If you’re giving feedback, you need to empathise with the “feedbackee” and be sensitive to their emotions too.
Prepare to change. Be humble enough to take feedback when it’s given, it may help you more than you think.
Communicate. If you need to specify something given in the feedback, clarify that with the feedbackee. If you’re giving feedback, ensure that you’re communicating it clearly.
Sometimes you can give feedback to a web application or computer, but there’s still someone technically receiving it. For example Uber ratings or restaurant reviews. Remember that there’s always someone on the other side so make sure to be empathetic.
Recommended readings to know how to give and receive feedback:
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Difficult Conversations by Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone, and Sheila Heen
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Al Switzler, and Ron McMillan
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
A big thanks to Marcus and Jemimah for their generous sharing of knowledge in our Pushpay bootcamp. We really enjoyed learning about giving and receiving feedback. You can find out more about Pushpay and the work they do online.