Feedback Without Borders

When a Californian and a German build a partnership, a friendship, write a book together, and build a business together, it’s not just language barriers that can pose challenges. The cultural differences between Germany and the US, and California in particular, can create some interesting misunderstandings.

What is good in Germany is awesome in California. What is a good start in Germany can mean a terrible outcome in the US. What truly needs improvement in Germany can mean you’re close to being fired in the US. There can be a literal ocean between the two cultures, and an entire continent to boot.

I first noticed how big these differences are when I worked with a leadership coach who facilitated an offsite with my founders team. We were asked to rate us as a group, on dimensions like trust, communication, and collaboration. The scale was needs improvement, good, and great.

Most of us being Germans, we rated ourselves mostly on the needs improvement end of the spectrum. After all, as a culture, we tend to look at the things that aren’t working more than we look for the good things. Yes, that is a stereotype, and it doesn’t apply to everyone equally.

In our case, it was pretty clear where we fell. We tried to take an honest look at ourselves and needed to admit that things aren’t going as good, or great, as they could’ve.

Our moderator was shocked, though. He said that this is an awful result for us as a group. Which is probably true. But we didn’t have any other distinction than needs improvement, which, to a German, doesn’t mean anything bad. It means that we’re doing the best we can, but it’s far from the best we could be. Simple as that.

That anecdote stuck with me ever since. When Sara and I started working together, I was at least aware that we would have bridges to build. We evaluate things differently, we show different levels of enthusiasm, we have different approaches to how we approach a problem. Sara may lean more towards finding solutions, where I prefer spending enough time understanding the problem first. I might be pretty ambivalent on what choice we make, where Sara might have a strong preference (and vice versa).

I might say the literal sense of the words when I say “This is pretty good” or “This is garbage” where Sara might find non-direct ways to describe disapproval or read “pretty good” as “Clearly he thinks this is terrible.” The point here isn’t that any of our approaches is better or correct.

Our cultural backgrounds, including how and where we grew up, have taught us certain patterns that we take into our adult lives. Some cultures might believe that you shouldn’t say anything negative at all, so that the other person isn’t offended (or you run into legal troubles as a boss or employer). Others only focus on the negative things and consider that a service to the other person. Some cultures defer all decisions upwards to the boss, while others pull all decisions down to where the action is, with the assumption that the boss knows least of everyone involved, so why should he be involved?

The point is that there can be cultural differences that seep into our every communication, including feedback. I had to learn that working in a team of mostly US folks. I used to only focus on the things I would like to see improved. I used to say “it’s a good start” and actually meant it. I wanted to encourage the receiver to keep building on this as a solid foundation. I used to dive straight into what could be considered negative feedback. My job, as I saw it, was to ensure the person receiving the feedback did their best work. Clearly, or so I thought, pointing out everything that’s not quite there yet was the way to go.

But I learned to appreciate a different way of giving feedback. I learned to look for the things that were actually good. Not just the good start, but look for the things that stood out to me in a document or proposal, or in their work and behaviors, in the case of personal feedback. What I didn’t really understand in my earliest years as a leader was the effect of positive reinforcement. Getting appreciation from a peer or boss can be a great motivational boost. I’ve come to appreciate that even in the feedback that I’m receiving, as awkward as it is for me to hear.

In my first year as CEO I discussed this with my coach. She posed a challenge to me that was one of the most awkward things I had to do in my time as an executive. As my homework, she said I should send an email to the entire team, asking everyone for two things I’m doing well. You’ve no idea how awkward that was for me. I was convinced that, as the CEO, I shouldn’t ask for good things. I should only look for what I need to improve.

Anyone working in a distributed team will be familiar with this type of challenge. It’s not limited to the US, or California, and Germany. Different countries provide different cultural backgrounds and norms that we carry into the workplace.

A challenge in leadership is how you reconcile those different backgrounds so that people don’t get frustrated due to miscommunication or misunderstanding. In our book, “The Intentional Organization”, we talk about building a feedback protocol in your team. As a group, you discuss the cultural norms that exist and what expectations each creates for each person. That can happen on dimensions like decision-making, information sharing, and feedback. You can discuss how feedback is evaluated, what words trigger what meaning. And then you create a shared set of evaluation criteria, or a dictionary of what specific words mean for different people on the team.

The goal is to build a shared understanding and empathy for the different cultures present and their needs and expectations. Sara and I have been working on our protocol for years, and it’s still a work in progress. The key thing is, though, we’re aware of potential differences and we constantly discuss them. They’re out in the open so much that we have ongoing jokes about our cultural differences and how they surface.

It helps stay in tune with how we communicate with each other and how we provide feedback.

In our latest podcast episode on feedback, we discuss this in more detail, specifically what makes good feedback, how to get it and how to give it, and also how to cross international borders.