11 minutes
Feedback that has to travel uphill What reaches a supervisor about her own decisions has already been edited. A route, a report-back and an honest measure are what make it accurate again.
What you’ll be able to do Build one route by which feedback about your own decisions reaches you without first passing through someone's estimate of what is safe to say, and report back what changed because of it. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What does the survey result actually tell you? Document a next step for Feedback that has to travel uphill: Pick one decision you made in the last quarter. Build one route for feedback about it that does not run through you, use it once, and tell the team what changed and what did not. What has already happened to it before it reaches you Information about how a decision is landing passes through people on its way up, and each of them makes a quick calculation: is this safe to say, is it worth the trouble, and will it change anything. Most observations fail at least one of those tests. What survives the trip is the version that sounds reasonable, arrives with evidence, and does not require anyone to contradict you directly. That is a small and unrepresentative sample of what is actually happening.
The effect is strongest for exactly the things this program is about: that a form assumes a household shape most families do not have, that a meeting time works for headquarters and not for anyone with a school run, that files needing an interpreter take longer and the count does not know it. These are noticed first by the people closest to the work and furthest from the decision, and they are the observations that cost the most to raise.
So a leader who wants accurate information cannot rely on being approachable. Approachability is a quality of the person; what is needed is a property of the process. A route has a moment in the calendar, a form that does not require someone to compose an argument, a named person who is not the supervisor, and a visible result. The result matters most. People give feedback a second time based on what happened to it the first time, and on nothing else.
Working with difference rather than around it is the practical form of Adaptation: you are not asking staff to agree with you, and you are not settling for a polite consensus. You are trying to see what somebody else can see from where they sit, and then to change the design accordingly.
One month, four seats From the supervisor's desk From the analyst reviewing interpreter-supported files From a paid community advisor From the record
The reassignment went smoothly. The survey came back positive, nobody has raised a concern in a unit meeting, and the backlog numbers are steady. There is no signal here that anything needs attention, which is precisely the problem: the absence of bad news is being read as good news.
Every one of her reviews now takes longer than the count assumes, and she has the same target as everyone else. She has said nothing, because the change was announced as a fairness improvement and objecting to it would sound like objecting to fairness. She is finishing on her own time.
She told the division six months ago that reviews involving interpreters need more time, not the same time. The comment appears in a meeting summary and in no decision. She has begun declining meetings, and nobody in the division has connected the two.
The assignment count, the satisfaction question and the backlog report all say the change worked. All three measure at a level where the uneven part cancels out. The record is not lying; it was built without the ability to see this.
What makes a route a route, rather than an invitation A moment on the calendar, not a standing offer. “My door is open” has no moment, so it never happens.
A form that fits what people can give: three written lines, a rotating note-taker, ten minutes with a peer, a question answered anonymously.
A named person who is not you, for the feedback that is about you.
A question narrow enough to answer honestly: not “how is it going,” but “what has this change made harder, and for whom?”
A measure that can detect an uneven result, which usually means a count that reflects how long the work actually takes.
A report-back with a date: what you told me, what changed, what did not and why.
Report back before you ask again What you can change You control whether people find out what happened to what they said, and you control how long that takes.
What to watch for Do not run a second round of asking when the first round produced no visible result. It teaches the team, accurately, that consultation here is a formality.
Your next step Before your next request for input, spend five minutes of a meeting on the last one: what people said, what changed, what did not and the reason.
Four ways feedback gets edited on the way up Softening
“It has been a bit of an adjustment” is what “this is unworkable” becomes after two retellings. Ask for the sharper version directly, and thank the person who gives it.
Rounding
A strong objection from two people and mild approval from twelve becomes “generally positive.” Ask who disagreed and what they said, before you accept a summary.
Going around you
People take the problem to a peer, a union representative or another unit instead. If you learn things about your own decisions from outside your team, that is the finding, not the annoyance.
Silence read as agreement
No response is information about the route, not about the decision. Treat an unusually quiet round as a reason to check the route rather than as consent.
We told them the same thing three times over a year. It turns up in every set of meeting notes and in none of the decisions. We are not short of opinions to give. We are short of reasons to keep giving them here.
Composite community advisor perspective, illustrative Carry this forward Feedback travels downhill on its own and uphill only by design. By the time an observation about your decision reaches you, it has usually been softened by the person's estimate of what saying it will cost them.
Asking is not a route. A route has a moment, a form people can actually use, a named person who is not you, and a visible result.
The report-back is what makes a second round possible: here is what you told me, here is what changed, here is what did not and why.
An average hides whoever is carrying the uneven part of a change. If the measure cannot detect an uneven burden, a good result is not evidence that there is not one.
Paid community advisors and partners are giving you feedback too. If it never reaches a decision, you have bought their time and spent their trust.
A scenario about a workload survey that reported success while two staff absorbed the difference, four views of the same month, and a knowledge check on what a measure is capable of showing.
Pick one decision you made in the last quarter. Build one route for feedback about it that does not run through you, use it once, and tell the team what changed and what did not.
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Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Respectful inquiry, learning from mistakes, feedback that travels uphill and shared accountability are conditions a leader sets, not a culture that arrives.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
