As our workplaces rapidly embrace international professionals and multiculturalism and become more diverse, an interesting development has come to light that I feel needs to be addressed at the earliest: the process of feedback in an intercultural context and how to tackle its many flaws.

These days there is this idea made common in several industries, particularly the tech sector, that abrasive, instant feedback is a way to stop beating about the bush and giving it straight to the recipient, sometimes even in public spaces. The idea being that the pressure created by the ‘tough love’ will motivate employees into bringing out their best, something that even Hollywood has glamorized with films like The Devil Wears Prada.

The reality is that there are issues with providing instant feedback, the most frequent one being that you fail to realize if the issue you are raising is concerning a person’s individual personality, or a cultural trait or was purely situational.

The second common issue is that feedback works differently in different cultures. Basically, your attempt at it may not even register, or come across in a negative manner. Americans, for instance, generally pepper in several positive comments before raising a negative one, while most Europeans are straightforward and critical about the whole thing. In a lot of Asian countries, feedback is discussed implicitly, and only provided in private settings and not in the public workspace. Do you see now how instant feedback could be misconstrued in an intercultural context? In fact, a lot of the latest discussions talk about ending the ‘traditional’ concept of feedback altogether, as it has shown time and again to not help improve performance. You can read about it here.

An important bit from the last paragraph was how feedback was culturally handled in Asian countries, in a one-on-one setting. It is actually now considered a preferable alternative to traditional feedback sheets. Combining that with the continuous feedback style is key to fostering a better relationship between employee and manager. It boosts the turnover rate for improvement as managers no longer have to wait for an arbitrary amount of time to discuss and motivate an employee, then wait another arbitrary amount of time before iterating on that previous session. Any undesirable behaviour or poor performance is not given time to grow as it could evolve into something worse.

One-on-one meetings further help this regular improvement along – these sessions allow for a more candid and diverse discussion that isn’t restricted to whatever rubric was set up on a feedback form. Combined, these two techniques can help managers bring out the best in their employees and build a more positive and constructive feedback cycle that is morale and productivity boosting. It is essential that this entire process be made a conversation, a two-way interaction rather than a session where a manager shares their rating of their employee’s skills. This is especially important as recent research and studies are showing what has been a constant point of discussion: that human beings are incapable of reliably rating themselves or other humans. You can read the thorough breakdown over at the Harvard Business Review, who make a strong case against the current practices of ‘feedback culture’.

Finally, I’d like to build on the concept of feedback but in a slightly tangential way: the idea behind ratings. Specifically, students rating their lecturers or teachers. Ratings have become an integral part of modern culture, we rate everything from food to places to car rides to memes. However, the entire concept is highly reductive and strips context and depth from any situation. For instance, giving an Uber driver driving dangerously a 1-star is not enough of a response, while a 1-star for a shoddy car will not fix whatever was broken in the vehicle. These rating systems are gamifying a complex thing and are fundamentally broken.

Coming back to students rating lecturers, I’m sure you can now easily spot the possibilities of exploiting the system to the detriment of the lecturer. Is a lecturer bad because he gave your essay a poor grade? Does that one poor grade negate an entire teaching period’s efforts? And is the student able to rate the knowledge areas she doesn’t even know existed?

All that nuance is lost when reduced to a rating system. Additionally, most lecturers are working in a gig-based economy, just like those Uber drivers, and they are at the mercy of these broken ratings system. So often those who entertain and let you pass easily will receive good feedback but those who challenge you and make you work harder will get negative feedback. And where do you think you learned more?

Given that we don’t know what we don’t know and our multi-facetted intercultural contexts, don’t you think feedback is overrated and an outdated concept?

Unless there’s an extenuating circumstance, don’t dignify these ratings systems by assuming they’re real feedback.

Let’s work towards reworking the ratings and feedback biases that drive so many of modern workplaces.

In our RockMeRetreat you will learn more about our bias in decision making and how we are less rational than we would like to think.

You will also learn methods that are more effective in helping yourself and others grow to your full potential.

I found myself discussing this topic with a lot of people over the last few weeks, and have decided to break it down for readers in this week’s Club Sandwich. Let’s get right to it!

I want to brief you all about Global Competency and how it is determining the growth of skills in international professionals. As I also describe in the Global Mobility Workbook, ‘Global Competency is the ability to work effectively in a global, complex environment with a high level of stress, while achieving goals sustainably and in accordance with your own resources’. It is a combination of knowledge, attitude, skills, reflected experiences and body learning.

What are these skills? There are a diverse set of abilities that can help your global competency, ranging from developing your language skills (learning a foreign language is great!) to effectively using digital media (Social Media platforms & video conferencing). 

Other skills like analytical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills also help cement your Global Competency. That last one feeds into digital media skills as well, since most modern communication happens over Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (and their corporate equivalents). In fact, I believe media competency is critical for any globally active professional in these technology-driven times. As I mentioned last time you can also practice logical thinking through tests and games. My grandma plays Scrabble against herself. She’s doing great and beats me every time with her 97 years of age.

It’s a journey of constant self-improvement that will keep your Global Competency up to scratch! 

You might think you know everything already to get by. I believe though that we all need to engage in continuous, lifelong learning if we don’t want to be replaced by “Virginia Robot” soon.

If you want to develop your skills and keep track of your learning goals you can use the Rockmeapp to do that. As a reader of the Global People Club Sandwich your 12months subscription to the Rockmeapp is free of charge. You will also get a special rate for coaching sessions with me.

I wish you all a productive week.Global Competency also requires rethinking yourself in a global arena. Here are three priorities:

1) Analyze and improve the way you build professional relationships, learn to be an active listener to gain better access to people of other cultures. 
2) Reflect on your unconscious bias. Where could it play a role? Have you potentially disadvantaged a woman or a person with a minority background through your implicit assumptions about gender roles or cultural supremacy?
3) Check and write down stereotypes and work on your attitude towards people of other cultures.

If you want to develop your skills and keep track of your learning goals you can use the Rockmeapp to do that. As a reader of the Global People Club Sandwich your 12months subscription to the Rockmeapp is free of charge. You will also get a special rate for coaching sessions with me.