Feedback as Downward Accountability
Posted by Laura on October 11, 2008
As part of the feedback theme on this blog, I’m sharing the idea of feedback as downward accountability, which I’ve taken from an anecdote shared in the Most Significant Change handbook. This outlook moves feedback from being viewed as an extra, an optional nice-to-have, and instead puts it in the realm of responsibility.
Perhaps one way to address this problem more directly would be to rename this stage in the M[ost] S[ignificant] C[hange] implementation process “Downward Accountability”, to create and assert rights to knowledge about decisions [...] made by others, rather than treating “feedback” almost as an optional item. (p. 35).
This term makes feedback one-directional, though, and I believe in upward and downward and lateral accountability. But the accountability notion is a useful change in mindset. So perhaps rather than using the word “feedback”, I’ll start playing with the notion of feedback as “accountability” instead – information I need to share and receive from a position of my own responsibilities.
