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CHAPTER NINE: GIVING AND RECEIVING FEEDBACK
The learning goal of this chapter is to convey the critical importance of listening in the
communication process. It invites students to apply the analysis and action lessons of Part One
to a typical range of business communication situations, including performance reviews.
No communication effort succeeds unless the manager remains highly sensitive to feedback. The
text stresses the need to seek out and be responsive to feedback during the planning, execution,
and follow-up stages of any project. While we’ve addressed feedback specifically in this chapter,
Teaching BAILEY AND WICK
This case offers an opportunity to discuss how feedback actually works — or short circuits itself –
– in a high-powered, performance-driven organization. It can encourage frank discussion about
the two core issues of organizational feedback:
l. How do seniors and juniors really perceive each other — and themselves?
2. To what extent can a dynamic organization institutionalize feedback mechanisms
without cramping the culture and individual style that has brought it success?
Students who have worked in almost any job will identify with the attitudes expressed by
associates in this case: “Nobody tells me how I‘m doing. My superiors constantly give me mixed
signals. They need honest feedback as much as I do. I’d be happier and more productive if
someone told me what was expected of me, and showed me how to do it right.” Some of these
Bailey and Wick provides a powerful opportunity to discuss the tension generated in an
organization by these conflicting perspectives because it represents an extreme. Consulting, law,
Bailey and Wick can be usefully compared to The Timken Company. There, top management
wished simultaneously to convey bad news and maintain morale without yielding authority.
Middle managers assigned to develop the communication program were faced with the question
of whether they could — or should — tell top management that it had to change. Much the same
could be said of Bailey and Wick. From the evidence of the case, the company has become much
less collegial than it was twenty years ago, when it was essentially a club of Harvard graduates,
most of whom were likely to make partner. Now, most B&W associates are mostly concerned
with acquiring the skills that will help them succeed at other firms or in private practice. This
raises an important question: How have needed business communication skills changed as
managers have become more transferable? What does this imply for the traditional managerial
tools of the carrot and the stick?
One good opening question: “Is there a real problem here, or are we just dealing with
fundamental aspects of human nature?” Some students will point out that the company faces a
1. What contextual elements encourage or restrain productive feedback?
2. If feedback mechanisms were improved, how would the company measure results?
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6. What role do performance reviews play in the B&W feedback stream? Are they being
done right? Should they be judgmental or developmental?
7. What’s the role of mentoring in this culture? Should senior managers offer everyone an
equal educational opportunity, or pick the stars and develop a long-term team?
8. Let’s presume some of the associates are merely adequate, most are solidly competent,
and a few are excellent and hit the ground running. What‘s the responsibility of the firm
to each category?
This discussion allows the instructor to pull together the strands of previous case discussions.
Clearly, the leadership of Bailey and Wick believes it’s facing a communication crisis. Many of
Performance Review. This is the most important piece of feedback managers receive. Both
Bailey and Wick and Dotsworth Press (see Appendix) create opportunities to develop
performance review exercises if time and class-size permit.
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On-line exercise: One reviewer of the first edition offers the following recommendation on the
topic of feedback exercises:
“The students are confronted with the fact that everyone had exactly the same information about
Mary – both the case and the discussion – and yet their evaluation of her greatly varied. The
lesson is – before giving feedback, be aware that someone else with the same information might