Really?
Recently I went to visit a specialist doctor in a private facility. Of course I was handed out a feed back form about him and the experience and the place. That would be for me irritating enough. But I could not believe that I was handed out the form and verbally asked, please, please, to fill it in, on my arrival, when I had not even found a chair to sit in the waiting room.
The receptionist/manager/maybe-ex-nurse/ maybe nurse was pushy with me and any other arrival. An old man just arriving was overwhelmed and could not figure out what to do or why.
I’ve written before, and for some this is broken record stuff, that the so called ‘culture of feed back’ is reaching colossal grotesque proportions.
Maybe we can’t stop the temptation to give stars to anything that moves (or does not like a restaurant) but I hope we can brig some sanity.
We have prostituted reflection into a feed back form. So it’s no reflection anymore, it’s a star or a smiling face or the opposite. You don’t even have to think too much. Tick, click, smile, one-to-ten-give-me-a number. It is the anti-reflection.
Don’t give feed back forms after a meeting. Behind the conventional wisdom about learning, it is either fishing for compliments or a free canvas to vent all possible frustrations about the world. Sure, when you are in big numbers, cards and stars do the trick. But also do random, face to face sampling of people’s views.
Not all rankings rank. It’s a trap. Human activity cannot be shaped by the expectation of been given three stars.
People in services may think I am mad. I’m just frustrated with the epidemic of automatized, cold, impersonal, feed back , box ticking, lazy way to know the truth.