Some time ago on this very blog I wrote about what it felt like to be recruited by Captain America himself to be a part of The Avengers. A little over two years after being recruited, Cap asked if I’d like to pick up the shield. (Riki insists that he’s Nick Fury, but this is my article so we’re using my analogy.)

I quickly accepted the shield and got to work on polishing it. So what shield am I talking about? The Feedback Loop? Sure, that’s part of it. But it’s more than that.



What if the shield was feedback?



Stick with me on this one — it’s been said that our feedback culture as a program is broken. Personally, I think that’s half true. I think our feedback culture is unfinished. Lots of our teaching and philosophy is about giving feedback. Writing the reviews, submitting the exemplar recognitions, evaluating candidates.

What about the other half? I don’t think we are taught enough how to receive feedback, how to accept criticism. We aren’t learning how to complete the feedback loop. We aren’t learning how to catch the shield.

Because the shield comes back.

So what does that mean for The Feedback Loop? It means that we’re going to be talking about learning to take criticism and sharing stories about receiving feedback. It means that we’re going to be looking for people who want to share those stories with us, people that want to talk about how feedback impacts their judging and their lives. It means that we’re going to be exploring concepts like two-way feedback mentorships, diving back into accountabilibuddies, and probably making up other words along the way.

It means that we’re going to be the best resource that we can be for the judge program to finish building our feedback culture. We’ve teamed up with the Coaching Sphere to help bolster and spread thoughts on feedback from around the world.

We’re here to help you throw the shield and catch it when it comes back.

Welcome to The Feedback Loop.