„‚ CONDITIONS THAT HINDER EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

DATA-FEEDBACK MEETINGS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Feedback of information about organizational functioning (be it from attitude surveys,
interviews, observations, or whatever) is one of a number of different tools that can be
used to initiate and guide participative change processes in organizations. Feedback can
be a powerful stimulus for change, serving both to generate (that is, motivate) behavior
and to direct behavior (through error correction or learning).
However, experience and research indicate that providing feedback to a group or
organization does not automatically lead to change. As seen in Figure 2, several
questions must be addressed for feedback (or any intervention for that matter) to result
in change. The first question is whether the feedback creates any energy at all. If no
energy is created, then there is no potential for change. People are not motivated to act,
and thus change cannot occur. If energy is created, then the second question becomes
important: What is the direction of the energy? Feedback can create energy to use data
to identify and solve problems; on the other hand, it can also be threatening and thus
create anxiety, which leads to resistance and ultimately a lack of change. Even if the
feedback does create energy and direct it toward problem identification and solution,
there is a third question: Do the means exist to transform that energy into concrete
action? If not, frustration and failure may occur, and no change will result. If the
necessary structures and processes do exist, then change can occur.
Various factors in the whole process of feedback influence how these questions are
resolved. One factor is the nature of the feedback data; the data need to be timely and
meaningful, presented in usable form, and so on. A second and possibly more important
factor is how the feedback data are used by organizational members—what processes
and structures are present to ensure that feedback will lead to the generation of energy,
the direction of energy toward constructive change, and the translation of constructive
energy into action.
Process and Content in the Feedback Meeting
Both research and experience with data-based change point to the importance of the
feedback meeting (Klein, Kraut, & Wolfson, 1971; Nadler, 1976). Very clearly, change
begins to occur when people sit down together to work with the data. What happens at
feedback meetings is thus at the center of the question of whether feedback will produce
change.
Change is initiated or occurs in two different ways in the feedback meeting. First, it
occurs as a result of attention to the content of the data that are being fed back.
Behavioral change can occur through mechanisms such as disconfirmation, learning,
cueing, and so forth (see Nadler, 1977). The data provide information on problems in the
organization and thus can trigger problem identification and solving. The data also
provide people with goals to work toward and rewards for doing well. Thus, the content
of the data—what the data actually say—is an important and obvious factor for initiating
change.
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The Pfeiffer Library Volume 6, 2nd Edition. Copyright ©1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer