Feedback consists of information about an organization, a group and an individual which is “recycled” to provide a basis for assessment, reflection and as a basis for corrective action.Feedback is one of the building blocks that OD introduced into organizations.
This posts related to how can feedback be integrated into organizations given the many cultural constraints that the global organization faces, for example:-
- In some cultures, it is easy to talk about the future, but if the past is discussed, there is/may be a loss of face.
- In some cultures, corrective action may be more effective if positioned as adaptive change,without use of explicit lessons learned from the past.
- In some cultures, direct and authentic feedback of any kind is seen as extraordinarily rude.
- In some cultures, the essence of leadership is to “protect employees by assuming responsibility for their errors” and keeping it all hush hush.
The feedback loop must retooled for the global organization.
As we align organizational design and development to a global configuration, here are a few emphasis worth changing.
1. Develop and legitimize opaque communication tools that allude to the past in order to plan corrective action.
2. Develop and legitimize indirect and “back door” feedback so as not to cause any perceived discomfort whatsoever, yet enable change.
3.Develop a contingency feedback model that allows a legitimate trade off between the feedback and the perceived harmony of relationships.
4. Budget much longer time cycles for giving feedback so as to allow face saving.
OD consultants who want to remain relevant would be wise to stop drinking academia’s warmed over cool aid, check their western biases, step away from force feeding western values when inappropriate, and get real.
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