For the month of April, the Sustaining the Journey will focus on the Five Forms of Feedback. Each week we will provide information for you to consider in deepening your understanding of this concept.

On Day 4 of the Foundation Seminars®, participants learn that there are a variety of ways to give feedback. When we offer judgments, personal observations, and inferences, our comments become evaluative. They cause others to rely on external sources of information about their performance. The more humans come to rely on others for evaluation, the less accurate they become in their own self-evaluations.

When we offer data and mediative questions as feedback, we assist others in becoming self-directed. The individual makes his/her own meaning of the feedback and develops capacity to make his/her own judgments, personal observations, and inferences. This is a critical skill in becoming self-managing, self-monitoring and self-modifying.

As you recall the various types of feedback this week, make a conscious effort to provide data and mediative questions instead of evaluative feedback. Watch closely to observe the effects on the thinking of the recipient of your feedback.