I was recently asked to sum up what HORNE’s feedback movement is and why it’s important in 60 seconds. Wow! I had never thought about needing an elevator speech for our feedback movement. As a leader of our Thanks for the Feedback workshop, I live, eat, breathe and sleep this feedback stuff—but I never really thought about having to convince a feedback skeptic about the importance of feedback.
So what’s feedback? Well, feedback comes in all shapes and forms. Sometimes, feedback is formal such as our alignment conversations, a speeding ticket or the results of your tax return. However, oftentimes feedback is informal such as “likes” on social media. Feedback isn’t just what gets ranked, it’s what gets thanked, commented on, and invited back or dropped altogether. So, the short answer to the question is—feedback is any information that you get about yourself. That’s it!
Now that we know what feedback is, it’s just as important to acknowledge that we all receive feedback in many different ways. No matter how great a person is at giving feedback, the information is often useless unless we’ve learned how to receive it. Unpacking the message of the feedback and deciding what to do with it is a valuable skillset, and one we all need to work on developing. It’s part of our core belief system at HORNE that we must embrace growing and developing ourselves, all while growing and developing people around us. Our feedback movement is how we do it.
Feedback is the mortar that holds our Wise Firm building blocks together. We believe and teach that learning how to give and receive feedback well strengthens these building blocks, with an emphasis on the following four—results, empowered people, relationships and sense of belonging. We believe that getting better at both giving and receiving feedback is critical to building the Wise Firm. So, how does this exactly work?
Results
At HORNE, we reward results, not time. Feedback helps us to align expectations and outcomes. It helps us focus on the right things in order get the best results for ourselves, clients and teams.
Empowered people
At HORNE, we have a common language with our feedback movement and want team members to be empowered to ask for the feedback they need to grow in order to reach their Full Potential. Receiving feedback well is extremely empowering. No matter what we hear, when we learn that we are in control of what we do with that information, it transforms how we respond to feedback.
Relationships
By being able to give and receive feedback well, our communication skills get better thus strengthening our relationships with other team members. Learning to receive feedback well also helps us give each other the benefit of good intentions as we learn to unpack the feedback. In the process, it strengthens the entire team.
Sense of Belonging
Learning to receive feedback well means getting to know who we are, understanding how we process information about ourselves, and in that process, our self-awareness grows tremendously. Our sense of belonging is greatly impacted by our own self-awareness, so as we learn how to receive feedback, we simultaneously increase our own sense of belonging and begin to help create that sense of belonging for others.
So, having to sum up what our feedback movement is and why is it important, has made me stop and really think about HORNE’s feedback movement and its importance in helping team members grow and reach their Full Potential. Just so I’m ready next time, here’s my feedback elevator speech:
Our firm has embraced a feedback movement and we are beginning to see changes in our culture at HORNE. Learning how to give and receive feedback well helps team members get the type of feedback we need to grow—which is critical in our career growth and success. Learning to ask for feedback is one of the best ways to take control of our career and be successful. By mastering the feedback movement, we will not only be reaching our individual Full Potential but we’ll be helping so many others reach theirs, too!
About the Author
Chrissy Leggett is passionate about people development and changing the culture of public accounting. She is a member of HORNE’s personnel committee and continuous feedback task force, where she facilitates feedback training and is heavily involved in college recruiting and interviewing.