Was there resistance, anxiety, or frustration?

Textbook/Source Information
Organizational Development and Change 11th Edition by Cummings and Worley
Doesn’t require a cover page. DQ 5.1 and 5.2 must be at least 300 words each.
Reflect on chapter 6 and “choice supportive bias” and focus on any relevant experience you have had that helps to illustrate your understanding of this material.
Two examples are below, you may use these or reflect on something else relevant in the chapter. Illustrate concepts in the chapter and “choice supportive bias” related to your experience.
DQ 5.1 Each of us likely has experience with some of the data collection methods (Archival/Unobtrusive methods, questionnaires/surveys, interviews (individual or focus groups, and observations and choice supportive bias). You may have been involved in developing, administering, collecting, analyzing and feedback, OR you may have been a participant who responded to a survey or were interviewed.
1. Describe your experience with at least one of these data collection methods from either perspective above. Be specific in illustrating what you learned from your experience using the material in the chapter (e.g, primary strengths and weaknesses of a data collection method).
1. What went well?
2. What were the challenges?
DQ 5.2 Think about an example of a time when you received feedback from someone. It may have been individual, one-on-one, as a member of a group, or as member of a larger organization.
Describe the situation you chose.
1. Apply each of the nine factors on determining the content of feedback (page131 or listed below) to your situation.
2. Apply each of the five factors on the characteristics of the feedback process (page 132 or listed below) to your situation.
3. Overall, was your experience positive or negative? What were the key things the person giving the feedback did that made it positive or negative?
4. How would you describe your reaction to the feedback?
5. Was there resistance, anxiety, or frustration?
6. Was there acceptance of feedback and a strong desire to change?
7. What did you change as a result of the feedback? Why or why not?
Several characteristics of effective feedback data have been described in the literature. They include the following nine properties:
1. Relevant. Organization members are likely to use feedback data for problem solving when they find the information meaningful. Including managers and employees in the initial data collection activities can increase the relevance of the data.
2. Understandable. Data must be presented to organization members in a form that is readily interpreted. Statistical data, for example, can be made understandable through the use of graphs and charts.
3. Descriiptive. Feedback data need to be linked to real organizational behaviors if they are to arouse and direct energy. The use of examples and detailed illustrations can help employees gain a better feel for the data.
4. Verifiable. Feedback data should be valid and accurate if they are to guide action. Thus, the information should allow organization members to verify whether the findings really describe the organization. For example, questionnaire data might include information about the sample of respondents as well as frequency distributions for each item or measure. Such information can help members verify whether the feedback data accurately represent organizational events or attitudes.
5. Timely. Data should be fed back to members as quickly as possible after being collected and analyzed. This will help ensure that the information is still valid and is linked to members’ motivations to examine it.
6. Limited. Because people can easily become overloaded with too much information, feedback data should be limited to what employees can realistically process and understand.
7. Significant. Feedback should be limited to those problems that organization members can do something about because it will energize them and help direct their efforts toward realistic changes.
8. Comparative. Feedback data can be ambiguous without some benchmark as a reference. Whenever possible, data from comparative groups should be provided to give organization members a better idea of how their group fits into a broader context.
9. Unfinalized. Feedback is primarily a stimulus for action and thus should spur further diagnosis and problem solving. Members should be encouraged, for example, to use the data as a starting point for more in-depth discussion of organizational issues.
Ownership of the feedback data is facilitated by the following five features of successful feedback processes:
1. Motivation to work with the data. Organization members need to feel that working with the feedback data will have beneficial outcomes. This may require explicit sanction and support from powerful groups so that people feel free to raise issues and to identify concerns during the feedback sessions. If members have little motivation to work with the data or feel that there is little chance to use the data for change, then the information will not be owned by the client system.
2. Structure for the meeting. Feedback meetings need some structure or they may degenerate into chaos or aimless discussion. An agenda or outline for the meeting and the presence of a discussion leader can usually provide the necessary direction. If the meeting is not kept on track, especially when the data are negative, ownership can be lost in conversations that become too general. When this happens, the energy gained from dealing directly with the problem is lost.
3. Appropriate attendance. Generally, organization members who have common problems and can benefit from working together should be included in the feedback meeting. This may involve a fully intact work team or groups comprising members from different functional areas or hierarchical levels. Without proper representation in the meeting, ownership of the data is lost because participants cannot address the problem(s) suggested by the feedback.
4. Appropriate power. It is important to clarify the power possessed by the group receiving the feedback data. Members need to know on which issues they can make necessary changes, on which they can only recommend changes, and over which they have no control. Unless there are clear boundaries, members are likely to have some hesitation about using the feedback data for generating action plans. Moreover, if the group has no power to make changes, the feedback meeting will become an empty exercise rather than a real problem-solving session. Without the power to address change, there will be little ownership of the data.
5. Process help. People in feedback meetings require assistance in working together as a group. When the data are negative, there is a natural tendency to resist the implications, deflect the conversation onto safer subjects, and the like. An OD practitioner with group process skills can help members stay focused on the subject and improve feedback discussion, problem solving, and ownership.