At the intersection of you and me there is much more than meets the mind, more than just the sharing of ideas and perspectives. There are unspoken somatic exchanges and feedback loops that can affect our potential for transformative learning and engagement. “How much consciousness we give to the data presented to our senses from our own and others’ bodies, our environment and from nature will impact our behavior and the quality of our interventions as a leadership/change agent team. Indeed, conscious attention to the data could be the difference between our survival and our demise as a team, as a larger human system, as well as a planet” (Cox, 2008).

Feedback has been seen as “the single most significant non-instructional solution to human performance problems.” It is so important that “any approach that can improve the clarity and timeliness of feedback was perceived by trainers in one study to be among the most significant approaches to solving human performance problems” (Rothwell and Kazanas, 1998).  If this is so, then why wouldn’t a leader, a development professional, or coach in the trenches want to make feedback an instructional solution to the challenges we face, including engagement?

Is all feedback created equal? How does criticism or unwelcome advice show up (look like) in a human system? Can I see the shift in a person’s system when it happens? Does the feedback I give engage or disengage others?