When our oldest daughter was fifteen years old, I decided to show a modicum of courage by asking Sara how she thought I could improve as her dad. Throughout the years, Sara had been reluctant to share her insights. I think part of Sara’s approach related to how safe she felt around me. Also, I think she felt a need to take care of me. Her need to please and her silence during contentious conversations in the family taught her that the price might be too high if she disagreed with my point of view.

At some point I did want to know what I needed to do to be better at the art of fathering. I was naïve and frightened enough as a father in my thirties and early forties to assume that I was doing a good job as dad. I knew I could be funny around our daughters. I knew their friends liked to be at our house and that they enjoyed me being around. Of course, the play friends were no older than nine years of age. I played hide-and-seek with the girls, went on walks, and took care of music lessons. They came to me often, particularly when they needed comforting.

As they grew, and I aged, I continued focusing on my strengths as father, not on my developmental needs. I’m not sure what the specific incident was that inspired me to ask Sara about my style as dad. We were riding in the car on the interstate when I blurted out a query about where I needed improvement. I noticed that my heart was beating a bit faster when I asked the question. She responded immediately, without an edge, with enthusiasm. She averred, “Oh Dad, that’s easy. When my friends come over to play, could you just come introduce yourself to my friends and then leave? You hang around too long.”

The Myth of Seeking Feedback

A colleague admitted that even though he was required to receive evaluations each semester from his MBA students, he never looked at them. He stated, “Perhaps I’m too insecure. But one or two negative comments take their toll on me. It’s just not worth it.” I realized that I have an approach-avoidance reaction when I know that I can view my evaluations. The irony is that I tell others how important it is to receive honest feedback in all areas of your life. Yet, at the end of the day, I don’t know many leaders and teachers who relish the thought of reviewing student evaluations. Students often mention they want feedback on their work, but it feels like the only ones asking are those who know they are doing well. Or the student knows that he or she might be in academic trouble, so the student is panicked about his or her future at the school.

In this chapter I will not only discuss from whom we can receive feedback but also push back and suggest that there is little evidence in the world of business where developmental or evaluative data bring about behavior change. After over thirty-five years in both the academic and business world, I know of only very few cases where professionals attributed evaluation processes or developmental programs as the impetus for change. They do mention mentoring, but that is a different process from written feedback forms. I will also walk the reader through a mentoring experience initiated by me but led by Willis Emmons, the director of the Christensen Teaching and Learning Center at Harvard Business School (HBS). I will explain the process he led through videotaping and studying myriad course evaluations over a period of three years of my work.

Evaluation versus Development

Evaluation presupposes that the information collected will be used in the decision-making process as to whether an individual is exceeding, meeting, or underperforming based on certain criteria outlined by the institution or organization. The challenge in these programs is that the population being evaluated seldom trusts the system. The efficacy of these programs comes under scrutiny because those administering these programs (or the leaders responsible for them) don’t articulate how the information being collected will be used. Thus, participants may collude and ensure that no one gets poor ratings. More important, participants make sure they and their friends are on the same page in terms of how to score the items. The data collected in these processes are hardly accurate, highly skewed to the positive. Qualitative data that are collected are full of “corporate speak.”

Sarah has made progress this year. She is nearing the norms we have in our department. She is on the right path.

Samir is outstanding. Everything he touches improves. He is a giver both in processes and with people. Inspiring.

Are we really going to make promotion decisions based on this kind of information? Further, while we have lists of criteria and matrices that create boxes for promotion level and criteria for the relevant level, seldom do compensation committees and promotion committees adhere to the criteria when pressure rises in the committee rooms. “Deciders” digress to personal relationships, those we love or hate. We care less about the outcome from an organizational standpoint. Rather we care most about our relationships.

To this point, no one at HBS knows whether or not student evaluations are used in promotion discussions. We believe they are, but we are told at the departmental level that they aren’t taken into consideration when promotion discussions arise. Oh, really?

Developmental Processes

Who is responsible for the development of another faculty member? Do we have a systematic program where mentors are assigned (programs like this seldom work)? When I joined the faculty, there were senior faculty who were invested in my development. If at the end of the semester I access my student evaluations, what do I do with them next? Once I read through them, do I make specific, measurable outcomes that I will monitor from semester to semester? Not once in twenty years have I been asked by a department chair how I was using my evaluations to become a better teacher.

What I’ve learned over time is that as long as I am above a certain score (5.4 on a 1.0–7.0 scale), no one will ask me about my teaching. When I joined HBS, I had already taught for thirteen years in universities. I had road miles in the classroom. I wasn’t at the ten thousand hours of practice but was very close. But I realized that when I studied my feedback, when someone said something I felt was negative, I looked for countervailing data so that I could discount the developmental messages. No one except for my friend and colleague Willis Emmons has ever seen my evaluations to my knowledge.

How did I use the data from the evaluations? I looked for consistent themes that jumped off the page from previous years. Use of humor, confusing summaries, and disorganized discussions came up year after year. Below are examples of comments made in both the positive and negative columns.

Competing with Other Faculty

When I began teaching at HBS, I knew fairly quickly that I could hold my own in the class. While I worried excessively about the quality of my teaching, I knew the students were engaged and seemed to be invested in the educational process. Yet I would be disingenuous if I didn’t admit that I wanted to be one of the best teachers at the school. Even though my scores would consistently range between 6.5 and 6.9, I held my breath every time I heard they were going to announce the teachers of the year voted on by the students. In twenty years, I’ve never won the award. It pains me today to admit that it means so much to me. A goal unmet. My competitive nature on full display. Paul Marshall, an old friend and colleague at HBS, won the teaching award three times, once in each of three consecutive decades. I’ve watched him teach. I’ve watched videos of him teaching. He is good. But that much more effective than I am?

It’s not that I don’t value my colleagues. Don’t get me wrong. Out of one side of my mouth, I admire them. From the other side of my mouth, I’m muttering to myself, how can the students be so swept up by these other faculty? Anita, Frances, David, Das, Gunnar, Joshua, Srikant, Malcolm, Catherine, Rawi, Luis. These colleagues are all great teachers. I love these colleagues. Only over time have I begun to realize that depending on whom you ask, some faculty members would talk positively about me.

This is where feedback and development are crucial. It would be great to have a proven, effective process to help faculty members assess their skills and provide tools to strengthen areas where they’re weak. Without that, all we can do is ask the questions I ask myself: Have I changed that much over the years? Have I made significant improvement over the years in the classroom? Do I believe that a strategic, explicit plan has made the difference, or was I just born with an interest and a desire to teach? If I agree with the previous statement, I have to ask whether I really believe we can train educators to be better in the classroom or whether those colleagues mentioned above were simply born with the gift. I’ve seen younger faculty develop over time. I’ve seen them visit with Willis and with other faculty and genuinely improve. But they initiated the intervention in change. That shouldn’t discount their efforts or the subsequent outcomes.

But how much better off would we be if we had a proven process in place to help everyone learn, grow, and become more effective at their craft?

Seeking Feedback in All Directions

At the end of the day, I believe that we will live a delusional life if we don’t get out of our comfort zones and seek data that will allow us to question whether or not we are getting in our own way because of the beliefs and actions that inform our behavior. The fact that I wrestle with my evaluations and how others experience me is useful to me in that it’s valuable to acknowledge data that make me uncomfortable. Learning can mean discomfort. Learning can mean not knowing the outcome of our behavior.

I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight other places in which we might get data about our impact on others. While this chapter focuses mainly on the classroom setting, we faculty may want to entertain other ways to find mirrors that reflect back to us how we interact with the world. For example, for years my children have told me that they don’t know when I’m being serious or just teasing, being playful. They can’t tell by my affect. This message is consistent with student feedback over the thirty-five years of teaching. Why shouldn’t these behaviors not show up in other parts of my life? In the classroom, with my children, with my partner, with fellow faculty, with my bosses?

Colleagues

One of the true weaknesses in the tenure system in higher education is that there is the possibility that I might have certain colleagues forever. Forever. As a result, we’re reluctant to level with people whom we’ll be working with for the next twenty years—or those with whom we’ve been colleagues for the previous twenty years. The feedback we provide isn’t honest, or at least it doesn’t reflect what’s in our brain, heart, and soul. We don’t invest in the development of our colleagues unless we are complimenting them on some skill or content expertise. I’m not discounting the importance of that kind of feedback. It’s essential and also lacking in most departments of higher education. But in general, we allow our colleagues their weaknesses; we don’t challenge them or even suggest that they might need to learn how to hold the attention of the class better or deal more effectively with problem students. When we possess this laissez-faire attitude, our academic departments are less than they should be. A little honest interdepartment feedback could go a long way.

When we give up on someone, we smile at them in the hallway. We will ask them about their holiday plans. We will wish them a happy New Year. But the conversation doesn’t get much deeper. Wouldn’t it be a step in the right direction if we supported the development of our colleagues, providing the type of honest, just-in-time feedback that could raise their awareness of how they teach and help them improve? Of course, doing so requires courage and the ability to engage in mature, conversational intimacy. It would make all the difference.

Friends

Friendship can be a nebulous term. It’s virtually impossible to define what makes a friend, but for me, true friendship involves a covenant, an agreement that absolute trust binds the two together. When we need a friend to provide us with feedback, we don’t need five hundred of them. We just need one. I have a luxury in that I have a true friend, Paul, who also happens to be a colleague. When I check in with him when I arrive three hours after he has arrived at school, he looks at me directly in the eyes and tells me what is going on inside of me. He knows whether I’m psychologically ready to face the day or whether I need a pep talk about whether I can succeed in the immediate future. I think I can do the same for him.

He is the first one I talk to after a class goes well or has gone poorly. He is the first one I call at night when I’m stewing on a class plan. He is the first one I tell if I’m depressed about my abilities or my complicated life. He is there to listen, tease me, make sarcastic comments with love as the motivation. Paul is priceless. He doesn’t know how to cut corners. He only knows how to live “straight up.” He lives his life throwing fastballs right down the center of the baseball plate. I can’t BS him. I can’t say one thing and mean another without being confronted with support. Challenge and support. That is what a friend does. A friend will take your edges off. A friend will hold up a mirror and point out the positives and the blemishes. A friend will know which blemishes you are obsessing about.

Partner

Our spouses and significant others know us best, but we don’t often take advantage of this knowledge in a strategic, purposeful manner. Exceptions exist, of course. I’ve heard of a couple that meets once a month to have a celebration lunch or a gratitude lunch. This couple has been married well over forty years. They are affectionate in public. They hold hands. They hug each other way too much. And they have these lunches where they express appreciation to one another for how they honor each other’s dreams. If there is need for a gentle nudge in a particular behavioral direction, they offer it firmly but compassionately. They look in each other’s eyes and say what is in their hearts.

For the past five years, during the concluding session with executives who have found themselves attending executive education programs, I ask the executives when was the last time they had a gratitude session with their significant other. I ask, “How many of you have weekly or monthly or semiannual checkups with your partner? How many have structures set up that create sacred time for conversations that are not about logistics? The teaching rooms are silent. Whether there are 150 leaders in the room or 10, the responses in the room are the same. Absolute silence. I have heard from no more than a handful over the years who are strategic in sharing developmental suggestions and appreciation for the other. Not logistics meetings, but meetings of a deeper, higher purpose. Another opportunity to refine self and someone else.

Children

Let me return where we began. When it comes to feedback, the best insights often emerge from the mouths of babes. For those of you who decided at some point in your lives to raise children, you know that they speak truth. They are fearless in telling us what they see and feel. We have various ways of silencing them. In fact, suffering for children begins when we tell them we don’t want to hear their collective voices. But they are fearless in staying true to what they experience. Why wouldn’t we all want sage wisdom from these wise and naïve individuals? In research on healthy family functioning, the data are clear that family systems are better off when they have ways of giving one another feedback, whether that be through family discussions or family activities. Family members will give you the feedback with love, without edges, without motives.

Teach students that it’s acceptable and critical for them to speak up and give their views. Illustrate by example that you experience them as partners in this enterprise called family. Insist they have skin in the game. You will gain insights you never imagined.

Earlier I shared the story of my fifteen-year-old daughter, Sara, when I asked her for feedback. Let me also tell you what transpired when I made the same request of my then four-year-old. “Joanna, what’s one thing I could do to be a better dad?” Without hesitation she replied, “Dad, when you are reading stories to me in my bed, when you lie next to me, sometimes you seem so tired. When you are tired you try to skip pages in the book.”

And she was right. I would try to deflect her attention. I would skip a couple of pages before she looked back at the book. Apparently it wasn’t working. I was caught dead-to-rights. If I’m honest with myself, I know that I was skipping pages in order to get back to my “real work.” I wanted to complete the bedtime routines so I could move to my emails, my voicemails. I could get a head start on tomorrow’s list of things to accomplish.

While this feedback didn’t help me become a better teacher, it did open my eyes to how I hurry through tasks that are important in order to get to other tasks. Am I short-changing my students by doing the same thing? Am I deflecting their attention from my hurry-up mode, failing to provide sufficient attention to subjects that are important to them but that I find less than engaging? Joanna alerted me to this tendency that I might otherwise have missed.

The Relationship Factor

Feedback doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Instead, it occurs within the context of relationships. Throughout the book, I’ve emphasized that horizontal communication patterns are more effective and efficient than vertical relationships. Speaking down to another person—the way a teacher may speak to a student or a boss to an employee—brings only short-term outcomes, and even if you manage to convince someone to change, you’ll create long-term resentment (and the change may only be short-lived). The best way to present feedback is with the assumption that the other person is a full and equal partner, increasing feedback’s impact.

Research by Adam Grant suggests that feedback is the result of give and take within relationships. Thus, communicating perceptions and feelings with the assumption that the other person is valued changes the nature of the conversation to one where empathy and seeking understanding are central in the interaction. Feedback gains power when people feel valued and understood.

My mentor, Edgar Schein, told me regularly that asking questions was more effective than giving someone else your opinion about behavior. He constantly reminded me that advice conveyed as feedback would fall on deaf ears. Even worse, if the ears weren’t deaf, they hear the message and make people angry or defensive. When I give feedback, I try to be aware of what’s going on inside of me. In this way, I prevent myself from barking at a student because something about the interaction made me upset. Instead, I try to structure the feedback in a way that the student feels listened to and understood.

Marcus Buckingham and others highlight the importance of focusing on the strengths not weaknesses of others. His research highlights that when we think we are going to get negative feedback, we restrict our thinking and become cautious and worried. Our learning capacity diminishes. Jane Dutton and her colleagues at the University of Michigan emphasize their process called “The Reflected Best Self,” positing that we respond to positive more readily than to negative. By pointing out specific behaviors that are positive and useful for more learning, we slow down the process and increase the likelihood that feedback will be perceived as useful rather than as a threat.

What all this boils down to is that the ability to see and hear all the time is crucial for effective feedback. Potentially, data are presented through every instance of feedback and need not be a onetime experience—a formal, sit-down, scheduled, and labeled session with a student. In fact, it takes hundreds of conversations between two people to create the kind of bond where greater trust and empathy are in play, where feedback penetrates our defenses and sticks.

We need not shy away from important conversations or fear feedback, whether as the giver or receiver. However, we do need to remember to emphasize the positive in that feedback so that people feel like its purpose is to help them continue or change to an upward trajectory.

Keep It Coming, Even When It Hurts

Logically, the most accomplished members of our society should be the most open to feedback. After all, we’ve achieved a lot of success; shouldn’t that give us sufficient confidence to solicit and absorb critical comments?

Apparently not. You probably know people—teachers, business leaders, doctors, lawyers—who have been hugely successful but whose egos are so large that they can’t tolerate even a whiff of negativity about themselves or how they do their jobs. If these people are lucky, they have systems in place at their jobs that force them to listen to feedback, that provide them with tools and techniques to act on that feedback and become better at what they do.

Teachers often lack effective systems. As I’ve suggested, many don’t pay attention to student evaluations, and scant development processes exist to help them grow as teachers even when they do pay attention. For this reason, they need to seek out feedback from others—colleagues, friends, partners, and their children. They need to take what they hear seriously and figure out how to use the information to change their behaviors.

I write all this with great sincerity, yet I have to ask myself continuously: Do I really want feedback? It continues to pain me when I don’t measure up. However, after some reflection, I realize that I’m afraid I won’t measure up to myself, to the unrealistic expectations I’ve created for myself. Thank you to the mirrors in my life who continue to endure my humanness. Keep the feedback coming—and yes, it still hurts. But it also continues to push me in the long struggle upwards called growing.