Feedback isn’t a skill. It’s a survival strategy.
In a disruptive world, feedback isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s oxygen.
When markets shift, technology reshapes how we work, and uncertainty becomes the norm, feedback is the core mechanism for agility, at both the leadership and organisational level. The ability to give, receive, and act on feedback quickly is what allows teams to stay responsive, aligned, and human in high-stakes environments. It’s how leaders adapt. It’s how organisations learn. It’s how we stay in motion when the world keeps evolving.
Most organisations know this. Many even say it. But when the time comes to build a feedback culture, their default move is often… to launch a training programme.
Let’s talk about why that’s not enough, and what needs to happen instead.
The training trap
Feedback training seems like the logical first step. Run a few workshops. Teach the frameworks. Offer a toolkit. Maybe throw in a slide on “radical candour.”
But here’s the problem: knowing about feedback doesn’t mean we do it.
Training often gives people language but doesn’t change the deeper habits—habits shaped by hierarchy, fear, identity, or years of conflict avoidance.
In real complexity, performance doesn’t improve because someone can recite a model. It changes when people feel safe, seen, and supported enough to speak honestly, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
Culture doesn’t shift through theory. It shifts through lived experience.
Feedback as a cultural ritual, not routine
In the work we do at Living Systems, feedback isn’t treated as a standalone skill, it’s a relational ritual. Something that lives and breathes in the spaces between people. It shows up in how teams navigate challenges. How they speak truth to power. How they recover from tension. How they rebuild trust and move forward together. How they learn in real time.
That’s why our approach doesn’t start with a slide deck, it starts with a journey.
Our Immersive Development Journeys (IDJs) are designed to make feedback live. Participants feel the impact of what’s left unsaid. They experience the cost of silence. They practise speaking the truth, under time pressure, with reputational stakes, and in relationship with others. Then they reflect. Debrief. Again and again.
The shift is visceral. Not theoretical.
And because we embed feedback loops across every layer of the experience, from onboarding to team debriefs to 1:1s with leaders, it becomes more than a moment. It becomes a rhythm. A habit. A norm.
In real complexity, performance doesn’t improve because someone can recite a model. It changes when people feel safe, seen, and supported enough to speak honestly, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
Culture doesn’t shift through theory. It shifts through lived experience.
If it’s not practised, it’s not culture
Open feedback cultures don’t emerge because someone attended a workshop. They emerge when feedback becomes part of how people work and lead together. That means building:
- Shared language and permission
- Structures that hold space for honest conversation
- Teams that bounce back stronger from tensions
- Leaders who model vulnerability, not performance
Feedback doesn’t live in your Learning Management System. It lives in your team dynamics.
And if your culture isn’t practising feedback under pressure, it’s not ready for the real world.
A Final Invitation
If you’re serious about agility, you need to be serious about feedback.
Not just as a skill, but as a shared practice.
Not just taught. Lived.
If you’re ready to build a feedback culture that can weather disruption, not just name it, we’d love to talk.
Let’s build something braver, together.
And if you’re ready to experience it in action, step aboard our flagship IDJ Starship Academy.
An immersive, high-stakes leadership mission where feedback isn’t just discussed, it’s demanded.
Because the future doesn’t wait. And neither should your leadership.
Transformation starts here…
The future belongs to organisations that unlock the power of Collective Intelligence — feeling, thinking, and acting as one. Are you ready to build that capacity? Start the conversation with us.