ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the ways in which feedback has come to be constructed and thought about in organisations and the ways in which individualism and the notion of an objective observer permeate the ways in which data are gathered, made use of and communicated. It considers what a situational, relational and intersubjective orientation might have to offer coaches and their clients in terms of how feedback is understood, thought about and used in service of individual and organisational development. Feedback in organisational life is considered to be a fundamental mechanism for enabling people to understand themselves, learn and develop. Given the tendency to tie feedback in with performance, capability and behavioural criteria, parameters are established which demarcate the territory of what can be noticed, observed and commented upon. Formal and informal feedback interactions in organisations can be experienced as unsettling and destabilising. The chapter revisits some of the ideas explored there in the context of working relationally with feedback.