Anonymous by Vincent Diamante sklathill 2255718951 EDIT
Anonymous by Vincent Diamante sklathill 2255718951 EDIT
The issue of anonymous feedback comes up consistently in my work as a coach to senior leaders. Many of my clients gather feedback from employees assessing their level of engagement or seeking input on problems, often through an anonymous survey. And I'm regularly asked to conduct 360 reviews for a CEO or a member of their executive team, typically via anonymous interviews with direct reports, peers, superiors, investors or board members
I no longer offer 360 reviews in my practice—over the past decade I’ve concluded that I add the most value as a coach by working directly with individual leaders and focusing our time on preparing to have the difficult conversations for which anonymous feedback is often a precursor (or, more problematically, a substitute.) In the course of this work I sometimes discuss with my clients anonymous feedback they’ve received via 360 reports and employee surveys, and while these tools can be useful, I’ve come to feel ambivalent about the role anonymous feedback plays in our efforts to improve leaders’ effectiveness.
Anonymity clearly has value under certain circumstances, but it also carries a cost, and it's important for leaders to understand both sides of the equation before committing to any anonymous feedback process. What is the value of anonymity? When people can voice perspectives anonymously, they presumably feel more comfortable sharing concerns or negative feedback that might otherwise expose them to risk in some way, and the data gathered is more candid and thus more useful. But note the underlying assumptions here: People are currently not being candid and can’t be trusted to speak up. Feedback generated through an anonymous process is more accurate than feedback expressed publicly. Hearing concerns or negative feedback will cause distress or anger. And anyone who shares such information is at risk because leaders will seek retribution.
In any given organization these assumptions may well be true. I’m not naïve about the power dynamics of organizational life, and I know that much goes unsaid, that speaking up can trigger a hostile response, and that people with power often abuse it. [1] But when we assume that these conditions make anonymity necessary, we often fail to factor in the cost of doing so. What are the costs of anonymity? In my work as a coach I see three sets of counterproductive factors.
The work of psychologist John Gottman is based on observations of couples in long-term relationships, but many of his conclusions have important implications for organizational life. [2] One of Gottman’s key concepts is to distinguish between critiques and criticism:
[Criticism] is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint. The latter two are about specific issues, whereas the former is an ad hominem attack: it is an attack on [the other person] at the core. In effect, you are dismantling his or her whole being when you criticize. [3]
For example, here’s a critique I commonly encounter in my practice: “Chris is getting into repeated conflicts with other members of the exec team over seemingly minor issues.” And here’s a similar sentiment in the form of criticism: “Chris is an abrasive person who lacks people skills and a domineering personality who has to win every argument.” The former focuses on specific behaviors; the latter is a broad generalization. The ability to voice critiques and complaints is essential to working through challenges in healthy relationships, but criticism is a sign of trouble in Gottman's framework because it often leaves the recipient feeling “assaulted, rejected and hurt,” and it can lead to more serious interpersonal difficulties. [4]
Much anonymous feedback from employees toward a leader can be characterized as criticism rather than critiques. It doesn’t focus on specific behaviors, let alone specific instances of those behaviors, but applies a broad brush and tends to address the whole person. In part this is simply the result of the passage of time, our notoriously poor memories, and our confirmation bias. We misremember past events more often than we’re willing to admit, so any retelling inevitably blurs the details to fit our pre-existing narrative.
But the anonymous nature of the process also serves to wipe away essential information that might prevent a critique from becoming criticism. Feedback providers are discouraged (explicitly or implicitly) from identifying themselves or from sharing specific details about the situation. What emerges is often highly generalized criticism of the leader, rather than a more nuanced set of critiques of their behavior in specific circumstances. Unsurprisingly, this is more likely to provoke defensiveness on the part of feedback recipients rather than a desire to learn and change.
The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias identified by Stanford psychologist Lee Ross which leads us to believe that causality rests primarily with individuals rather than the with the surrounding situation. [5] A consequence of this dynamic is that leaders get more credit than they deserve when things go well—and they get more blame than they deserve when things go badly. I’m reminded of this passage from Brene Brown’s 2010 TED talk:
There's no discourse anymore. There's no conversation. There's just blame. You know how blame is described in the research? A way to discharge pain and discomfort. [6]
This is an apt description of many anonymous 360 reports and employee surveys—very little discourse, and a great deal of blame directed at leaders, most of which imagines that the leader’s personal attributes are primarily responsible for the situation being described, particularly anything associated with employees’ pain or discomfort. The leader’s behavior is often assessed in isolation, without much (or any) consideration of a group dynamic or organizational culture that might have given rise to said behavior. And the providers of the feedback frequently fail to take responsibility for their own contributions to the situations being described—everything is ascribed to the leader’s influence.
The result is an unrealistic portrayal of the leader as an outsized, all-powerful authority figure and the infantilization of the other members of the organization. While this outcome is obviously undesirable, it can be dangerously seductive to both leaders and employees. We all find it gratifying to be viewed as influential and high-status, and leaders in particular generally have a strong need for power. [7] And as much as we want to be responsible adults, when we’re under stress or feeling disempowered it can be comforting to imagine that a commanding, parental figure will take care of our problems and make everything better. Thus, leaders and employees alike collude in the process of shifting responsibility from the latter to the former, when in truth leaders typically have more influence than all other individuals, but less influence than the employees as a group.
This dynamic can occur in any feedback process, but it’s compounded by anonymity, in part because of the bystander effect. The presence of others discourages us from taking action to intervene in a difficult or dangerous situation, because we feel less responsible for the outcome. [8] Many anonymous processes convey to feedback providers (again, both explicitly and implicitly) that they are merely one voice among many, and, further, that they’ve already made a meaningful contribution merely by participating in the interview or the survey. The structure of the process suggests that once the interview is concluded or the survey is submitted, their work is done, and now it’s up to the leader to take action in response. There’s little if any recognition that the problems which gave rise to the negative feedback in the first place are likely to be solved only through collective efforts which take into account the larger group dynamic and organizational culture, even when those problems stem from an individual leader’s behavior.
Finally, delivering feedback through anonymous processes can forestall other conversations and interactions, slowing or even preventing the development of necessary skills by employees and leaders alike. One of the most important skills in organizational life is navigating a difficult conversation with just the right amount of assertiveness and minimal defensiveness. [9] Providing negative feedback to an authority figure is almost always challenging, and yet our ability to conduct these conversations improves when we overcome our resistance and actually step into them. Similarly, hearing negative feedback without defensiveness is profoundly difficult, and yet our ability to manage this response grows when we find themselves facing such feedback in an actual discussion, rather than in private reflection.
This is because holding tough conversations isn’t a cognitive task that we can grasp intellectually—it’s an immersive emotional and physiological experience, and we need to practice repeatedly in order to habituate ourselves with the feelings and physical states that it evokes. We must become comfortable with discomfort. [10] This is one reason why the MBA curriculum at Stanford, where I teach, emphasizes in-person feedback in classes such as Leadership Labs, a required course for all first-year students, and Interpersonal Dynamics, our most popular elective. [11]