Sean D'Souza: Feedback: When it hurts, it's helping

I was doing a three-day website strategy workshop in California when one participant gave me this feedback: "Can you avoid wearing that Darth Vader suit in future?"

All I could see was a perfectly tailored suit. Nothing Darth Vader about it.

SO WHAT WAS THE PARTICIPANT REALLY SAYING?
She was saying something about my suit made her feel uncomfortable. Was I going to just chuck the suit away because it intimidated one participant? Was it the suit? Or was she saying something else? And how is it that a client/participant can get so up close and personal when giving feedback?

FEEDBACK IS JARRING
Feedback is the screechy sound you hear when a live microphone is pointed towards a speaker. It makes you cringe. And if you're running a business, you need to cringe a bit, because it will give you the information that you sorely need to improve your product or service. Just asking for feedback is a waste of time. Feedback should be a session by itself, with all the glory of structure involved.

SO HOW DO YOU STRUCTURE A FEEDBACK SESSION?
There are three core steps:

* What did you learn (from using our product/attending the session/doing the course)?

* What did you like?

* What would you change? (Nothing is too bizarre or crazy. Or too big or too small.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF "WHAT DID YOU LEARN?"
You may think you're getting a message across, but you may be getting the wrong message across. Or no message. The session enables you to listen to what the participants have really learned.

THE IMPORTANCE OF "WHAT DID YOU LIKE?"
This is important because of the psychology of humans. If we're given the chance to praise and then critique, we feel there's a balance. First give them a chance to tell you what's right. This makes the audience feel good and relaxes them. It's also good for you to know the things people like. If they like it, you want to do more of it in future. And of course, it doesn't hurt your ego.

THEN I MOVE THEM TO THE CRITIQUE PART OF THINGS
In this part, I always encourage a "feeding frenzy". I make sure the participants know it's purely a brainstorming session. That anything and everything is valid. That no judgments will be made on the person giving the feedback and no evaluation will be made on the spot. One way of doing this is to have a whiteboard and let the participants list everything they possibly can. You'll find they have a big list. And often there will be bizarre elements on the list.

WHAT COULD BE BIZARRE?
The bizarre ranges from "can we do a wine tour?" to "can you not wear that Darth Vader suit?"

SO DID I CHANGE THE SUIT?
You bet I changed it. It wasn't the suit, you see. It was the intimidation of this deep black suit that was causing discomfort. The following year (when we had the same event) I wore a white T-shirt and jeans. A participant, who'd never been to our workshops before, said: "I'm so glad to see you in this casual outfit. I was scared. Not sure what I needed to wear." So the feedback from one event was applied to another event. No feedback is truly bizarre if you really analyse what the client is saying.

BUT HOW DO YOU MAXIMISE THE DEPTH OF THE FEEDBACK?
You make sure you cover every aspect of your event. In a live event, for instance, there's: the pre-sell running up to the event; the information that gives instructions about the event; the meet and greet section; the speaker's methodology; technology used; venue and other event-related issues; any issues they can think up.

REMEMBER ONE CRUCIAL THING
You don't and won't get feedback if you make the participants feel unsafe.

* You need to stress over and over again that they're in a safe zone.

* That the feedback is purely designed to improve the programme.

* That if they don't feel like giving feedback in the live session, they can email or call you or do whatever it takes.

I put these points everywhere, because if I don't put them in, I may forget to tell participants about them and then the quality of the feedback suffers.

FEEDBACK IS THE WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD
It feels like a jab to the face. Then another jab. Then yet another jab.

No one likes brutal feedback, yet it's the brutal feedback that helps you move ahead faster and more efficiently than ever before. You may think you know everything there is to know about your business and your customer.

You are wrong.

The customer always knows more.

Sean D'Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and an international author and trainer. He is the author of The Brain Audit - Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't).

www.psychotactics.com