Through the first few weeks of the course, I continued to reflect on previous coursework and my professional experience to help inform the focus of my Capstone. One of the ideas I continuously kept coming back to was about relationship building in the workplace and how important it is to not only build relationships, but through those relationships develop trust. Especially in the current environment in my workplace, trust is a common theme we continuously discuss and continuously find ourselves challenged with. My Capstone project explores the importance of building trust in the workplace by seeking feedback from others, listening, acting on the feedback provided, and communicating to those who provided the original feedback.

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            If you do a simple Google search of “Seek, Speak and Listen”, you will come across the Boeing Company’s website and articles about Boeing’s culture-changing initiative of the same name. Boeing created this initiative in the aftermath of the 737 MAX accidents in 2018 and 2019 “to understand each other better, grow our business resource group network globally giving teammates an opportunity to “tune in” wherever they are on the journey” (Boeing, 2024). Internally to the company, we refer to the process as “SS&L” and there are a lot of opinions about it. From my viewpoint, it was more openly received when it was first introduced and now, just feels like another avenue for people to provide feedback to leadership and nothing happens. Although I do work for Boeing, I will not be relying on any of their internal documentation for the Capstone project as I would like to create this for all industries and individuals, instead of focusing on one company.  

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            When you think about feedback in the workplace, most minds would go to feedback from leaders to employees on performance; however, it is equally important for leadership to receive feedback from employees on organization effectiveness including business performance, positive experiences, and challenges to productivity and organizational needs. Harvard Business Review authors highlight “asking for feedback…creates a culture of trust and transparency…when employees feel like their input matters, they’re more likely to remain loyal, engaged, and productive” (Fosslien et al., 2023). Some of the time, leadership will face resistance to feedback from others because they do not feel their feedback will be valued – in my workplace, we often hear that feedback sessions are a “waste of time” and some are hesitant to speak up with their concerns. Leaders are responsible for creating a safe environment to enable transparency.  

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References

Fosslien, L., Scott, K., & West Duffy, M. (2023, March 10). How leaders can get the feedback they need to                  grow.  Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 7, 2024 from https://hbr.org/2023/03/how-leaders-can-get-the-feedback-they-need-to-grow

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The Boeing Company. (n.d.). Diversity and inclusion. Diversity and Inclusion.  

           https://www.boeing.com/sustainability/diversity-and-inclusion#Commitment

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