How to build a feedback culture in your marketing team that works

Giving and receiving feedback is essential for the success and motivation of any marketing team. As a marketer myself, I very well know how we need this. We are in constant communication with various external and internal stakeholders, across different hierarchical levels, with many different personalities and styles, let alone the mood they're in that day. 

It's so easy for things to be challenging and people to find ways to manage them, And also for people to not be at their very best in that moment and impact others negatively with a nasty comment, an unfair decision, a lack of understanding, a misunderstanding and the list goes on.

Having worked in marketing for almost 2 decades and talking to marketing leaders every week, I know that many marketing teams lack a true feedback culture - without open, regular feedback loops, marketing teams miss opportunities to recognise achievements, course-correct in a collaborative way, and heck....develop skills! Simply put: a lack of feedback culture leads to disengaged, unmotivated and ultimately stagnating teams. 

Changing our perception of what feedback is key

I often see people getting tense when hearing the word "feedback" as they straight away think of the criticism, the uncomfortable chat, the "constructive feedback".

Why is establishing a feedback culture doomed to fail?

Establishing it is half the job done. It's very easy to create a new vision, setting some guidance and talking about the bright side of the feedback loops we want to create in the team. The other half of that job - where most leaders fail - is to cultivate it and live through it. How so? At first, you'll get the team on a high, bright stars in their eyes that their opinions - whichever they are - are valued, will be heard, and taken into account. They feel seen. Heard. Part of the team. The compound effects are showing. Then, without the most important 50% of that feedback culture job, things will start to fade:

• The feedback part of the 1:1 will become a 3 min AOB at the end of it, if anything
• Eroded enthusiasm to recognise the work and achievements of their peers
• And if their own achievements isn't recognised, why would they bother highlighting their peers - unfairness rises.
• The enthusiasm around the different technique to give and receive feedbacks is fading, as the practice is not sustained. Everyone goes back to unstructured feedback giving and all full of heightened emotions.

Here are 4 steps to help you establish AND nurture that feedback culture in your team.

1. Reconnecting them with the concept of feedbacks in a positive way (fun, supportive)

 For example:

• Create a word cloud by asking all marketing team members (1) what is a feedback, (2) what they dread about giving/receiving feedback, (3) what they like about giving/receiving
• Achievement recognitions in the monthly marketing team meeting (everyone recognises their peers for what they’ve done well in the past month, all shown on the screen & read out loud during the meeting)

2. Next, create a session where they can experiment giving constructive feedbacks in a supportive way

For example:

• Everyone gets 2 types of post it notes (2 colours).
• They write down the strengths this person has, on the [green] post it notes. Can be more than 1 per person.
• They write down one thing this person can improve on to be at their best (call it “even better if”) on the [yellow] post it notes.
• Everyone must write something for all team members.
• When everyone’s done, all get up and walk towards the person to give them the post it note and say what they wrote.
• This forces them to think and give verbally a feedback (otherwise too easy to write and let the person read it themselves).

3. Use another marketing team meeting session to showcase a few templates to structure feedbacks.

For example:

• The F.E.E.D. model or DESC / IDEA / CEDAR
• The sandwich model
• The BOOST model
• The Pendleton model
• The 360 feedback model
• And any other 4 or 5 letter word model, really. 

Once again, don't just land these concepts and end the session. Create a plan for the team to practice, regularly. Just like you'd practice for a sport. Your mind muscles need regularity in the practice.

Organise another round table for them to share their experience, what worked well, what was still challenging and coach them through these. 

4. Continue what you’re doing with the feedback being a part of the 1:1 catch-ups.

As they all experienced the feedback giving in the first 2 sessions as a group, they can now move to individual meetings for feedback giving.

For example:

• Take 10 minutes at the end of each 1:1 (or beg) to share feedbacks (from you to them, from them to you).
• The more frequently you do it, the faster it will get and the easier it will be
• Use these moments to ask questions, be curious, to gather some insights about the context of their behaviours / your behaviours. It will help create stronger relationships and trust.

What are you going to do next?

The more frequently you integrate these practices, the more second nature quality feedback becomes. Involve the team in co-creating feedback guidelines, so they feel invested. And leverage tools like Teams or Slack polls and peer recognition software to simplify capturing feedback digitally.

Soon, your marketing team will be thriving in a safe, yet challenging environment where giving and receiving feedback to sharpen skills is the norm.

Team members will feel valued, heard, and able to course correct collaboratively.

And you’ll have instilled a culture of continuous feedback vital for success.

As always, I'm here if you'd like to know how I can help you with this. Simply book a free 30min call and let's chat!