About mutual understanding in a team and feedback loops using the example of a cyclist

This problem is more common when working remotely. And since most of my employees live in other cities and don't know how to teleport to the office yet, I decided to dig deeper into the nature of such misunderstandings.

In this article, I will tell you what perception filters and feedback loops are, how not to get confused in them, and how to use them so that everyone in a remote team understands each other at a glance. And yes, I will really analyze feedback loops using the example of a bicycle.

Preface: Why I even started studying feedback

I started actively studying feedback methods when the company hired guys who live in other cities and countries, and the team became mostly remote. It’s not that we used to throw tasks and edits at each other, but when you sit face to face with a colleague in the same office, it’s somehow easier to discuss work tasks.

When we communicate only by text, we do not hear intonation and do not see the facial expressions of the interlocutor. We cannot rely on additional channels of perception, because they simply do not exist, and the brain independently supplements the text framework with emotions. If a person has doubts about the results or is simply tired and in a bad mood, the brain interprets the text in its own way and is unlikely to be good.

And also different perceptions – different understanding of tasks and vision of results, which is why situations like those at the beginning of the article actually occur.

Let's get into the theory: what are feedback loops?

A feedback loop is a part of a system in which output data, or part of it, is used as input for future operations.

The term feedback and its loops came to us from the father of cybernetics, mathematician Norbert WienerLater it was adapted and began to be used in sociology, psychology and communications.

I recommend reading Joseph O'Connor's book “The Art of Systems Thinking”. It talks about methods for understanding the complex systems that make up our lives and the ability to creatively solve problems.

In simple terms, feedback is a reaction to another person’s words or actions, and feedback loop — this is the next step, a reaction to a reaction, which adds new inputs to communication and regulates the system.

They are divided into positive and negative feedback loops:

Positive feedback loop connections causes conditions or behavior within a system to be reinforced. This can be called a reinforcing loop.

Negative feedback loop causes a relaxation of conditions or behavior within the system. This can be called a corrective loop.

These are examples of simple feedback loops, where a hypothetical cyclist receives visual information about the road conditions and responds to it by increasing or decreasing speed. There can be any number of such feedback loops throughout a bike route or daily work routine.

There are also feedforward and delayed feedback loops. Everything is simple here:

• Leading loop strives to find and eliminate weak points in advance. It's about “laying down straw” and figuring out what to do if something goes wrong.

• Delayed loop strives to solve problems as they arise. It is about “living in the here and now” without trying to look into the future.

To solve the issue of mutual understanding in the team, we chose a leading type of loops, with positive or negative feedback depending on the situation. And also, we formulated our own definition.

Feedback Loops in Teamwork — is a process of regular communication between a manager and employees that helps ensure that everyone understands the tasks in the same way and is moving in the same, preferably correct, direction.

Perception filters and how they affect mutual understanding

Avoiding errors entirely is a utopia. Let's leave that to the era when robots and neural networks will do the work for people. But, nevertheless, every error costs time and effort, big or small. Therefore, if errors can be minimized through mutual understanding in the team, it is better to do so.

It is important to understand here that most often misunderstandings occur not because someone is stupid, lazy or does not want to work, but because everyone has their own filters of perception. this article I talk in detail about the neurophysiology of communication and why we don’t always understand each other.

From one person's perspective, psychologists see feedback loops working like this:

Perception filters — is a person’s ability to extract and sort specific information from a general array of data.

Whether we like it or not, we receive a huge flow of information every day. We see, listen, feel and evaluate all of this. In order to save our time and energy, previously generated “rapid response templates” are connected to this process. They are responsible for ensuring that we do not have to re-analyze similar situations every time.

It turns out that each person perceives information differently, through the prism of their experience, knowledge and even mood. Personal “filters” can significantly distort the original task, which will lead to different understandings of it, and, as a result, to divergence of results.

What did I end up setting up in the team?

1. Checking understanding of the task

Nobody likes to ask again, but in reality, this is the best way to synchronize on the shore and understand that you see the end result in the same way.

Now the base, without which no new task moves from the backlog, is to make sure that each team member has correctly understood what needs to be done. The chain of actions is as follows:

1. Statement of the problem. The manager formulates the task, sets goals and deadlines.

2. Clarifying questions. The team studies the task and asks questions. This is a mandatory step, even if everything seems clear. It is important to make sure that there are no hidden misunderstandings.

3. Fixing understanding. Each performer writes down in text how he understood the task and his role in it. For example, if the task is to create a dark theme for the application, the designer can write a message: “Do I understand correctly that I need to create a palette of initial colors for the background and elements of the application?”

4. Correction. The manager reads the employees' messages and, if he sees any discrepancies in understanding, corrects them. This helps to immediately eliminate possible errors and misunderstandings. If the understanding coincides, the manager simply confirms that everything is ok and work can begin.

Important: The manager should not push the team to clarify how they understood the task. The initiative in this case comes from the employees.

2. Daily feedback with plans and questions

Employees share their plans for the day with their manager in the morning, and their results and thoughts in the evening. No one needs plans and reports down to the minute, but rather feedback to understand in time what difficulties arose.

At first, we held meetings in the format of phone calls, but it took too much time. Most of our team works remotely, in different time zones, and the guys organize their own workday. Therefore, the morning birds were already hard at work, and a micro call distracted them from work and irritated them.

After several employees gave feedback, I realized that the process had outlived its usefulness and transferred it to a text format. Now employees write to the manager about their plans at a convenient time, and in the evening they tell what worked out, what difficulties arose, and where help is needed.

3. Weekly reflection

Here, employees mostly share their thoughts and impressions: what was good during the week, what was bad, what was stressful. This helps the manager to catch problems in time and solve them before they become too critical. For example, to redistribute the workload of a specialist who took on too many projects before he or she gets burnt out.

Reflection is conducted in a one-on-one format, in personal messages. Here you can write anything you want – from thoughts on tasks to a request to replace the monitor or hire new employees to help.

If necessary, the manager gives advice on how to get out of a particular situation, or involves other departments to help solve problems. For example, if an employee says that the workload on the department has increased, the manager gives the HR team the task of launching a hiring process to relieve the pressure on employees.

Pros and cons

We have been using feedback loops together with feedback techniques for more than four years. Here are 3 pros and 3 cons of these hassles.

Pros:

1. There are no more situations where the team's time and resources are wasted and the work needs to be redone from scratch.

2. We see all the problems in the processes that employees share and fix them before something breaks.

3. Clarifications, feedback and reflection are a regular occurrence, so the guys are always aware of what is happening in the department or on the project.

Cons:

1. Feedback is additional time for clarification on tasks. This requires efforts in the moment, although in the long run it eliminates larger problems.

2. At first, synchronization by tasks takes a lot of time – you need to delve into it and concentrate. After several iterations, the process becomes a habit.

3. It is human nature to resist the new and unfamiliar, so not all employees immediately took additional actions. It took time to adapt and see the benefits.

In brief for those who are too lazy to read the entire article

1. To achieve the desired result, it is important not only to set tasks, but also to check their understanding by the performers, each of whom has their own perception filters.

2. Feedback loops will help to do this – a communication tool in which the manager's reaction to how the performer understood what is required of him will help. This helps to synchronize on the shore, and not when the task has already spent X amount of money and Y hours.

3. The ideal scheme: you set a task for a colleague → instead of hoping for the best, you clarify how the person understood it and what he is going to do → you synchronize understanding → you get the desired result.

4. Improve team communication by checking for understanding, sharing daily plans and questions on tasks, and reflecting weekly. Screw micromanagement – ​​track the problems your team faces and fix them.

5. Introducing these techniques may cause resistance due to the additional effort, but in the long run it will help you avoid screwing up projects and quickly make positive changes to the system.

Thank you for reading to the end. I will be glad to discuss the experience in the comments.