Chapter 08 Feeding Back Diagnostic Information PDF

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8 Feeding Back Diagnostic Information Perhaps the most important step in the diagnostic process is feeding back diagnostic information to the client organization. Although the data may have been collected with the client’s help, the OD practitioner often organizes and presents them to the client. Pr...

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8 Feeding Back Diagnostic Information Perhaps the most important step in the diagnostic process is feeding back diagnostic information to the client organization. Although the data may have been collected with the client’s help, the OD practitioner often organizes and presents them to the client. Properly analyzed and meaningful data can have an impact on organizational change only if organization members can use the information to devise appropriate action plans. A key objective of the feedback process is to be sure that the client has ownership of the data. As shown in Figure 8.1, the success of data feedback depends largely on its ability to arouse organizational action and to direct energy toward organizational problem solving. Whether

feedback helps to energize the organization depends on the content of the feedback data and on the process by which they are fed back to organization members. In this chapter, we discuss criteria for developing both the content of feedback information and the processes for feeding it back. If these criteria are overlooked, the client is not apt to feel ownership of the problems facing the organization. A flexible and potentially powerful technique for data feedback that has arisen out of the wide use of questionnaires in OD work is known as survey feedback. Its central role in many large-scale OD efforts warrants a special look.

DETERMINING THE CONTENT OF THE FEEDBACK In the course of diagnosing the organization, a large amount of data is collected. In fact, there is often more information than the client needs or can interpret in a realistic period of time. If too many data are fed back, the client may decide that changing is impossible. Therefore, OD practitioners need to summarize the data in ways that enable clients to understand the information and draw action implications from it. The techniques for data analysis described in Chapter 7 can inform this task. Additional criteria for determining the content of diagnostic feedback are described below. Several characteristics of effective feedback data have been described in the literature.1 They include the following nine properties: 1. Relevant. Organization members are likely to use feedback data for problem solving when they find the information meaningful. Including managers and employees in the initial data collection activities can increase the relevance of the data. 2. Understandable. Data must be presented to organization members in a form that is readily interpreted. Statistical data, for example, can be made understandable through the use of graphs and charts. 3. Descriptive. Feedback data need to be linked to real organizational behaviors if they are to arouse and direct energy. The use of examples and detailed illustrations can help employees gain a better feel for the data. 4. Verifiable. Feedback data should be valid and accurate if they are to guide action. Thus, the information should allow organization members to verify whether the

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findings really describe the organization. For example, questionnaire data might include information about the sample of respondents as well as frequency distributions for each item or measure. Such information can help members verify whether the feedback data accurately represent organizational events or attitudes. 5. Timely. Data should be fed back to members as quickly as possible after being collected and analyzed. This will help ensure that the information is still valid and is linked to members’ motivations to examine it. 6. Limited. Because people can easily become overloaded with too much information, feedback data should be limited to what employees can realistically process at one time. 7. Significant. Feedback should be limited to those problems that organization members can do something about because it will energize them and help direct their efforts toward realistic changes.

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8. Comparative. Feedback data can be ambiguous without some benchmark as a reference. Whenever possible, data from comparative groups should be provided to give organization members a better idea of how their group fits into a broader context. 9. Unfinalized. Feedback is primarily a stimulus for action and thus should spur further diagnosis and problem solving. Members should be encouraged, for example, to use the data as a starting point for more in-depth discussion of organizational issues.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FEEDBACK PROCESS In addition to providing effective feedback data, it is equally important to attend to the process by which that information is fed back to people. Typically, data are provided to organization members in a meeting or series of meetings. Feedback meetings provide a forum for discussing the data, drawing relevant conclusions, and devising preliminary action plans. Because the data might include sensitive material and evaluations about organization members’ behaviors, people may come to the meeting with considerable anxiety and fear about receiving the feedback. This anxiety can result in defensive behaviors aimed at denying the information or providing rationales. More positively, people can be stimulated by the feedback and the hope that desired changes will result from the feedback meeting. Because people are likely to come to feedback meetings with anxiety, fear, and hope, OD practitioners need to manage the feedback process so that constructive discussion and problem solving occur. The most important objective of the feedback process is to ensure that organization members own the data. Ownership is the opposite of resistance to change and refers to people’s willingness to take responsibility for the data, their meaning, and the consequences of using them to devise a change strategy.2 If the feedback session results in organization members rejecting the data as invalid or useless, then the motivation to change is lost and members will have difficulty engaging in a meaningful process of change. Ownership of the feedback data is facilitated by the following five features of successful feedback processes:3 1. Motivation to work with the data. People need to feel that working with the feedback data will have beneficial outcomes. This may require explicit sanction and support from powerful groups so that people feel free to raise issues and to identify concerns during the feedback sessions. If people have little motivation to work with the data or feel that there is little chance to use the data for change, then the information will not be owned by the client system. 2. Structure for the meeting. Feedback meetings need some structure or they may degenerate into chaos or aimless discussion. An agenda or outline for the meeting and the presence of a discussion leader can usually provide the necessary direction. If the meeting is not kept on track, especially when the data are negative, ownership can be lost in conversations that become too general. When this happens, the energy gained from dealing directly with the problem is lost. 3. Appropriate attendance. Generally, people who have common problems and can benefit from working together should be included in the feedback meeting. This may involve a fully intact work team or groups comprising members from different functional areas or hierarchical levels. Without proper representation in the meeting, ownership of the data is lost because participants cannot address the problem(s) suggested by the feedback. 4. Appropriate power. It is important to clarify the power possessed by the group. Members need to know on which issues they can make necessary changes, on which they can only recommend changes, and over which they have no control. Unless there are clear boundaries, members are likely to have some hesitation about using the feedback data for generating action plans. Moreover, if the group

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has no power to make changes, the feedback meeting will become an empty exercise rather than a real problem-solving session. Without the power to address change, there will be little ownership of the data. 5. Process help. People in feedback meetings require assistance in working together as a group. When the data are negative, there is a natural tendency to resist the implications, deflect the conversation onto safer subjects, and the like. An OD practitioner with group process skills can help members stay focused on the subject and improve feedback discussion, problem solving, and ownership. When combined with effective feedback data, these features of successful feedback meetings enhance member ownership of the data. They help to ensure that organization members fully discuss the implications of the diagnostic information and that their conclusions are directed toward relevant and feasible organizational changes. Application 8.1 presents excerpts from some training materials that were delivered to a group of internal facilitators at a Fortune 100 telecommunications company.4 It describes how the facilitators were trained to deliver the results of a survey concerning problem solving, team functioning, and perceived effectiveness.

SURVEY FEEDBACK Survey feedback is a process of collecting and feeding back data from an organization or department through the use of a questionnaire or survey. The data are analyzed, fed back to organization members, and used by them to diagnose the organization and to develop interventions to improve it. Because questionnaires often are used in organization diagnosis, particularly in OD efforts involving large numbers of participants, and because it is a powerful intervention in its own right, survey feedback is discussed here as a special case of data feedback. As discussed in Chapter 1, survey feedback is a major technique in the history and development of OD. Originally, this intervention included only data from questionnaires about members’ attitudes. However, attitudinal data can be supplemented with interview data and more objective measures, such as productivity, turnover, and absenteeism.5 Another trend has been to combine survey feedback with other OD interventions, including work design, structural change, large-group interventions, and intergroup relations. These change methods are the outcome of the planning and implementation phase following from survey feedback and are described fully in Chapters 12 through 23.

What Are the Steps? Survey feedback generally involves the following five steps:6 1. Members of the organization, including those at the top, are involved in preliminary planning of the survey. In this step, all parties must be clear about the level of analysis (organization, department, or small group) and the objectives of the survey. Because most surveys derive from a model about organizational or group functioning, organization members must, in effect, approve that diagnostic framework. This is an important initial step in gaining ownership of the data and in ensuring that the right problems and issues are addressed by the survey. Once the objectives are determined, the organization can use one of the standardized questionnaires described in Chapter 7, or it can develop its own survey instrument. If the survey is developed internally, pretesting the questionnaire is essential to ensure that it has been constructed properly. In either case, the survey items need to reflect the objectives established for the survey and the diagnostic issues being addressed.

As part of a large-scale, employee involvement (EI) program, a large telecommunications company and the Communications Workers of America union were working to build an internal organization development consulting capability. This involved the hiring and development of several union and management employees to work with managers, facilitate EI problem-solving team meetings, and assist in the implementation of recommended changes. The implementation process included an evaluation component and the EI facilitators were expected to collect and feed back data to the organization.

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data suggest about the strengths and weaknesses of the group. Does the general picture appear to be positive or problematic? Do the data fit the experience of the group as you know it? What issues do the data suggest need group attention? Is the group likely to avoid any of these issues? If so, how will you help the group confront the difficult issues? Make sure you can answer likely technical questions about the data. Survey data have particular strengths and weaknesses. Be able to acknowledge that the data are not perfect, but that a lot of effort has gone into ensuring that they are reliable and valid. Plan your introduction to the survey-feedback portion of the meeting. Make the introduction brief and to the point. Remind the group of why it is considering the data, set the stage for problem solving by pointing out that many groups find such data helpful in tracking their progress, and be prepared to run through an example that shows how to understand the feedback data.

The data collected included observation of various work processes and problem-solving meetings; unobtrusive measures such as minutes from all D. meetings, quarterly income statements, operational reports, and communications; and questionnaire and interview data. A three-page questionnaire was administered every three months and it asked participants on EI problem-solving teams for their perceptions of team functioning and performance. Internal EI facilitators were appointed from both management and union employees, and part of their work required them to feed back the results of the quarterly surveys. II. Problem Solving with SurveyTo provide timely feedback to the problemFeedback Data solving teams, the EI facilitators were trained to A. Chunk the feedback. If a lot of data are being deliver survey feed back. Some of the material fed back, use your knowledge of the group developed for that training is summarized below. and the data to present small portions of data. Stop periodically to see if there are I. Planning for a Survey-Feedback questions or comments about each section Session or “chunk” of data. The success of a survey-feedback meeting often B. Stimulate discussion on the data. What folhas more to do with the level of preparation for lows are various ways to help get the the meeting than with anything else. There are discussion going. 1. Help clarify the meaning of the data several things to do in preparing for a surveyby asking feedback meeting. • What questions do you have about A. Distribute copies of the feedback report in what the data mean? advance. This enables people to devote • What does [a specific number] more time at the meeting to problem mean? solving and less to just digesting the data. • Does anything in the data surprise This is especially important when a large you? quantity of data is being presented. • What do the data tell you about B. Think about substantive issues in advance. how we’re doing as a group? Formulate your own view of what the

application 8.1

Training OD Practitioners in Data Feedback

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2. Help develop a shared diagnosis about the meaning of the data by commenting • What I hear people saying is . . . Does everyone agree with that? • Several people are saying that . . . is a problem. Do we agree that this is something the group needs to address? • Some people seem to be saying . . . while other comments suggest . . . Can you help me understand how the group sees this? • The group has really been struggling with [specific issue that the facilitator is familiar with], but the data say that we are strong on this. Can someone explain this? 3. Help generate action alternatives by asking • What are some of the things we can do to resolve . . . ? • Do we want to brainstorm some action steps to deal with . . . ? Focus the group on its own data. The major benefit of survey feedback for EI teams will be in learning about the group’s own behavior and outcomes. Often, however, groups will avoid dealing with issues concerning their own group in favor of broader and less helpful discussions about what other groups are doing right and wrong. Comments you might use to help get the group on track include: • What do the data say about how we are doing as a group? • There isn’t a lot we can do about what other groups are doing. What can we do about the things that are under our control? • The problem you are mentioning sounds like one this group also is facing [explain]. Is that so?

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Be prepared for problem-solving discussions that are only loosely connected to the data. It is more important for the group to use the data to understand itself better and to solve problems than it is to follow any particular steps in analyzing the data. Groups often are not very systematic in how they analyze survey-feedback data. They may ignore issues that seem obvious to them and instead focus on one or two issues that have meaning for them. E. Hot issues and how to deal with them. Survey data can be particularly helpful in addressing some hot issues within the group that might otherwise be overlooked. For example, a group often will prefer to portray itself as very effective even though group members privately acknowledge that such is not the case. If the data show problems that are not being addressed, you can raise this issue as a point for discussion. If someone denies that group members feel there is a problem, you can point out that the data come from the group and that group members reported such-and-such on the survey. Be careful not to use a parental tone; if you sound like you’re wagging your finger at or lecturing the group, you’re likely to get a negative reaction. Use the data to raise issues for discussion in a less emotional way. Ultimately, the group must take responsibility for its own use of the data. There will be times when you see the issues differently from the way group members see them or times when it appears certain to you that the group has a serious problem that it refuses to acknowledge. A facilitator cannot push a group to do something it’s not ready to do, but he or she can poke the group at times to find out if it is ready to deal with tough issues. “A little irritation is what makes a pearl in the oyster.”

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2. The survey instrument is administered to all members of the organization or department. This breadth of data collection is ideal, but it may be appropriate to administer the instrument to only a sample of members because of cost or time constraints. If so, the size of the sample should be as large as possible to improve the motivational basis for participation in the feedback sessions. 3. The OD consultant usually analyzes the survey data, tabulates the results, suggests approaches to diagnosis, and trains client members to lead the feedback process. 4. Data feedback usually begins at the top of the organization and cascades downward to groups reporting to managers at successively lower levels. This waterfall approach ensures that all groups at all organizational levels involved in the survey receive appropriate feedback. Most often, members of each organization group at each level discuss and deal with only that portion of the data involving their particular group. They, in turn, prepare to introduce data to groups at the next lower organizational level if appropriate. Data feedback also can occur in a “bottom-up” approach. Initially, the data for specific work groups or departments are fed back and action items proposed. At this point, the group addresses problems and issues within its control. The group notes any issues that are beyond its authority and suggests actions. That information is combined with information from groups reporting to the same manager, and the combined data are fed back to the managers who review the data and the re...