How to Create a Feedback Loop in Consulting

In your 1:1s, things sound fine. Skip-level conversations are polite but rarely go deep. Yet elsewhere, you’re catching whispers of frustration, especially about how your communication lands. It’s hard to improve without clear, honest feedback. But when you're in a position of power, feedback naturally becomes filtered. Not because your team doesn’t care, but because speaking candidly can feel risky. Protecting themselves often feels safer than helping you grow. So how do you create a culture where feedback flows freely? Start by making it safe, not personal. Consider anonymous surveys that ask specific, behavior-based questions.  Engage a coach to facilitate confidential 360s. Create accountability - Invite mentors, advisors to surface insights you might be missing. And when feedback does arrive, treat it like the gift it is. Acknowledge it with appreciation, not defensiveness. Act on it visibly. Let your team see that hard truths lead to healthy change, not hidden consequences. The feedback you most need is often the feedback you’re least likely to receive, unless you actively design systems that make it safe to share.

Being smart doesn't matter if people don't like collaborating with you. In my commitment to continuous improvement, I value constructive feedback. As part of this process, I regularly posed four questions to my colleagues to enhance our working relationships. How did I use these? - Approximately every six months, I reach out to team members with the four questions listed below. I express that responses are entirely voluntary, with no set timeframe for replies. - Recognizing that not everyone may be comfortable providing direct feedback, I offer an alternative option. Team members can share their thoughts with my manager, who can then incorporate the feedback into a performance review or discuss it anonymously during our 1x1. - I use a spreadsheet to organize the insights. Each question gets its own column, and I fill in the rows with the feedback I get. This enables me to identify recurring themes, helping us focus on areas that contribute positively or require adjustment. The outcomes of this feedback loop have been instrumental in shaping my working relationships but also come through in my performance reviews: 🌟 2023 “Phyllis’ greatest strength is her constant drive to make things better – the product, processes, and relationships with those around her. Phyllis is always open to asking for feedback and incorporating the feedback quickly.” 🌟 2022 “A very consistent theme in your peer feedback is your constant focus on seeking feedback and improving upon it.” 🌟 2021 “You continue to be a culture add to the team and care about making the team better through sharing information, feedback, and creating an environment where everyone feels welcome.” The four questions I asked are: 1. What are things I’ve done that you’ve found helpful? 2. What are things I’ve done that you’ve found frustrating or confusing? 3. What do I need to know about you or how you work that could help our working relationship? 4. What are some challenges you’re facing at the moment? Please let me know: how do you navigate the world of peer feedback? Share your wisdom or give it a shot and let me know how it goes! I’m sure those around you will appreciate it.

The best managers I know recognize patterns. They spot trends in team dynamics, anticipate needs, and turn successful one-offs into repeatable systems. Here's how I use AI to help me with that through a simple loop: Spot patterns → Use patterns → Create patterns. 1. Spot patterns quickly: I feed team data into my favorite AI—even basic stuff works. One-on-one notes in a Word doc, team feedback themes, or meeting transcripts. Instead of generic prompts, I use role-playing. For example, when I want to assess whether people are collaborating inclusively or developing a learning mindset, my prompt is: "Act as an experienced people manager. Analyze these sprint retrospective transcripts and identify the top 3 barriers to inclusive collaboration and learning mindset." It sometimes surfaces patterns I hadn't connected with, such as: "[This] problem areas keep resurfacing" or "[These] people dominate team discussions." Start small: Even analyzing something like your last 5 meeting transcripts can reveal surprising patterns about core values like engagement and openness. 2. Use patterns to drive action: When AI spots recurring patterns such as engagement gaps, I create bite-sized solutions: pair quieter team members with seasoned colleagues who have strong relationships across teams. When patterns show people avoiding difficult conversations, I address it directly with the Managers or bring it up in one-on-ones to understand what's holding people back. The key: AI suggests the what, but I decide the how based on my team's personality and needs. 3. Create patterns for scale: When something works repeatedly, like mentorship pairings that boost confidence in client interactions; I use AI to help document it. I ask: "Turn this approach into a step-by-step guide for developing client partnership skills in junior managers". Now every new team member can benefit from our collective learning about building confidence and collaboration skills, not just the lucky ones who got the full attention. This Spot → Use → Create loop is more than a linear process. It produces consistent data that helps spot deeper patterns the next time around. Reality check: This doesn't work for every team dynamic, and AI suggestions sometimes miss cultural context. Crucially, never use confidential team data in public AI models, use your company's enterprise tools. I use Sapient Slingshot. #LIPostingDayJune

In just 30 days, defects dropped, morale increased... And our roadmap conversations shifted from “𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘸𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 ” to “𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.” Every engineering leader wants to get the most out of their team, but it’s easy to lose sight of what really drives them: feedback. I learned this the hard way. I launched a product that was all hype, but there was nothing from the users. I quickly realized: engineers need to see the impact of their work. Without feedback, it’s all guesswork and that leads to frustration. Here’s how I turned things around: 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤: I started recording customer calls and sharing the raw moments, the “wow!” reactions and frustrations. Engineers connect with that energy way more than bullet points. 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭’𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: Instead of just letting support tickets pile up, we held quick 5-minute debriefs each sprint to highlight recurring issues that specs missed. 𝐎𝐧-𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐲: Every quarter, we had an engineer join the on-call rotation. Waking up at 3 AM to fix a bug you wrote? That’s a whole new level of ownership. 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲: Before features hit Jira, we brought engineers into discovery calls. Hearing the “why” from customers helped them think critically before the code was even written. The results? 30 days later, defects dropped, morale improved, and our roadmap shifted from gut feeling guesses to data driven decisions. Feedback loops are the key to growth. Start today.