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Giving feedback in Dutch style

05 August 2010, by Larisa Camfferman

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An African and a South American were working in a project together. Their styles of working were vastly different. Things soon got so out of hand that they were barely speaking to each other. When they asked me for an intervention, I asked both of them how people offer feedback in their home countries.

The South American answered: "We prefer not to give feedback. Giving feedback implies you’re an expert on the matter and have a perfect record yourself. So when we do give feedback, we make sure we have all our facts straight and then tell the other person, in an authoritarian fashion and with a raised voice, what to do and how to improve."

The African said: "We also prefer not give feedback. But when we do, we lavish the other person with compliments. Then, using a soft voice, we humbly suggest they might do something differently, followed by pointing out our own flaws - anything to avoid offending them."

No wonder they were unable to exchange feedback on each other's performance! While the South American culture required a dominant behaviour when giving feedback, the African culture dictated a submissive attitude. The South American "I-am-the-expert-so-do-as-I-say" approach was perceived as highly offensive by the African. On the other hand, the subtle and polite African feedback approach, wedged between the compliments and self-deprecation, fell on deaf South American ears.

How did I solve their dilemma? I advised both of them to consider the Dutch way of giving feedback, which is rather direct (in fact, the term "direct" is the most common adjective used when describing the Dutch):

› The Dutch approach involves describing what has happened as rationally as you can, avoiding adjectives, since they display your personal judgment and are likely to set the other person off. Instead of saying: "You’re always late in completing your reports" which is not specific enough and sounds blaming, say: "Your deadline was to finish the report today and you have not."

› Tell the other person how you feel about the situation. Feeling angry, sad, confused, glad, happy, rejected, nervous or proud are emotions. A feeling statement is NOT "I feel you should have been on time" or "I feel you are not putting in your share of the work." An effective feeling statement is something like: "I feel disappointed about your being late" or "I felt left alone by your being late." The message should be entirely personal - solely about you. This avoids further discussion, because who can argue about how YOU feel?

› Ask the other person if they recognise the event as stated under point number one. If they do, ask if they can imagine your personal feelings, as you stated according to point number two.

› Discuss a future action plan, if necessary. Typically, you will ask the other person something like "How can we deal with this in the future?”

Does this sound too lovey-dovey and mushy to you? Well, you are right! Remember the Dutch are a notoriously feminine culture and we focus on feelings a lot. However, the approach seems to work in international teams as well, since the description of facts and feelings offers a safe way to provide feedback. Notice also that there is no padding around the feedback: no chitchat introduction and no niceties to soften the blow. All you do is tell the other person how you feel. The result of my intervention between the cross-cultural project team members? Their relationship improved due to their newfound feedback skills, but both of them continued to feel offended by each other’s previous behaviour. That does not necessarily reflect on their skills, but it does say something about how deeply-rooted our cultural influence is. We cannott shake whether we view certain behaviour as polite or impolite, but offering structured feedback to the other person at least allows you to share what you consider polite or impolite.

P.S. Obviously I do not mean to imply that all South American cultures are alike or that all African cultures are alike. For privacy reasons, I chose not to reveal the exact countries of origin.

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