Matt + The Runners
At age 24, I got my second job, teaching English and coaching high school cross country in Chicago. When I took over as coach of the girls’ team, there was not much of a program: just one runner in the junior or senior classes, really no uniforms, and the team had only competed in a couple of races the previous year. To build a program, I needed runners, uniforms, and a schedule of races, to be sure. But I also needed a way to teach them about all the aspects of being a competitive runner, like how to improve over time. I needed to find a way to engage every athlete, from the really talented runners to the ones more like me, in the middle of the pack. To do that, I had to learn to give feedback.
We scheduled a race every week, and following races I posted results on the bulletin board outside my classroom. Initially, these were just final results: final time for individuals and how the team finished overall. Over time, I remembered something from my own high school days: marks of improvement. My own coach had noted when we improved over the previous week’s time. I remembered this felt good, hopeful. It signaled for me that I was making some kind of progress, even if I wasn’t a top finisher.
So feedback started to get more rich, more individualized. The results started to include a variety of little marks and symbols next to times, and additional columns with more information. An asterisk* next to your time that week meant an improvement over the previous week. A carrot^ signified a runner who had run her best time of the season so far. Other symbols included a record of some kind, like the team’s best time for the season, our team’s record on that particular course, or a school record for that grade level (it was a young program, so we had a lot of records that first year).
As time went on, I added columns to the results. I shared splits, or the total time broken down by mile, to see who had run their last mile fastest—last mile, fastest mile was a team goal, and that earned you a special symbol. Beyond splits, the JV boys helped me count and share what place each runner was in at the last mile split and then at the finish, noting how many competitors each runner passed in her final mile—place is key to team points scoring process in cross country.
All of this information gave each runner some kind of feedback on her own performance that week and her performance relative to teammates, competitors, and past performances. As their coach, it finally felt like I was speaking to each runner, and not just to the team as a whole. It felt like there were no more middle of the pack runners being forgotten.
One of the ninth grade runners who joined the team that first year was Monica. Two things were immediately clear to me: that she was both academically and athletically gifted, and that running was not her first love. She laughed when she recalled to me that she enjoyed basketball and softball when she entered high school, and only joined the cross country team to help her get into better shape to compete in the sports she really liked.
But our team’s approach to cross country helped to develop in her a competitive drive for cross country similar to the one she had in other sports. “I was competitive, I didn't want to lose,” she said when we spoke about the team almost 20 years later. She appreciated a coaching approach that both tried to show the athletes ways to be successful, but was also honest in telling them when they had and had not seemed to give their best effort.
Monica recalled that she felt she had discipline when she arrived at high school, but what she needed at that time was a belief in herself. A coach that followed through, letting her know when she seemed to give her best—and when she didn’t. Feedback helped her to not give up and, eventually, develop that sense of herself that carried her forward in sports and through other areas of life. She ended up fulfilling a dream of being a college athlete; she ran cross country.
Feedback is a Skill Mentors Need
All of the mentors and mentees I have interviewed recalled not only the relationships they had, but also how mentors helped mentees grow by teaching or helping them to get better at something. Part of that growth included giving feedback, and part of giving feedback is learning how to give it in a way that produces growth by challenging without damaging the relationship. Feedback is an important skill for mentors, and the research on feedback highlights a couple of principles mentors should understand.
First, show belief. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a study led by David Yaeger at the University of Texas on “wise feedback”: that is, feedback that includes three components: high standards, a belief in the students’ potential to meet those standards, and substantive feedback to help students reach those high standards. Across the experiments that were part of their study, students who received a message of both high standards and teacher’s belief in their ability to meet them were more likely to revise their work and earned higher scores on their revised work1. Measures of trust between teachers and students of different races also increased.
Mentors who form a connection, and express belief in mentees’ potential, then have the chance to have their feedback land and make a positive impact. Runners need to know their coach believes they can be competitive, and then are more likely to accept feedback that helps them get better. As Doug said about his own mentoring, “If you want to have an influence, you have to remain influential.”
Second, feedback lands better when it focuses on the task and the process, not the person. An older but extensive review of all the research on feedback from John Hattie and Helen Timperley2 found that clear, timely feedback on the outcome (you ran a personal best) or the process (you ran your last mile faster than each of the first two miles) was more effective than feedback on the “self” (you are a good runner). Monica could act on feedback about her effort or her results more than she could commentary on how she felt about my favorite sport.
Third, and most controversially, feedback includes some kind of comparison. Ghazala Azmat and Nagore Iriberri, in their studies at a university in Spain, have found in natural experiments that providing students not only with access to their grades, but also their relative position to other students (in this case, a class average), led to improved academic performance3. Beyond schools, research on feedback in workplaces by Michalis Drouvelis and Paola Paiardini of the University of Birmingham showed that letting employees know not only how they are doing, but also their rank among peers positively impacted productivity at work4. Doctors randomly assigned to a feedback program where their care of diabetic patients was assessed against “achievable benchmarks” had patients with better outcomes5. Mentors uncomfortable with making comparisons to other people might consider benchmarks (the best runners pass at least three people in the final mile) or comparisons to past performance (runners who showed improvement from the previous week).
Runners can improve when you tell them they are not doing their best, but they first need to know you are invested in their success. Then it is helpful for runners to know their times, but even more helpful for runners to see results relative to themselves, their teammates, and their competitors.
Great mentors help people get better at something. They do this through investment, caring, and knowledge of their field, but also by understanding how to use feedback. Wise feedback reinforces that investment, and then helps mentees see where they are, and how they can get where they want to go.
Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W. T., Williams, M. E., & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804–824. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033906
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of educational research, 77(1), 81-112.
Azmat, G., & Iriberri, N. (2010). The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students. Journal of Public Economics, 94(7-8), 435-452.
Drouvelis, M., & Paiardini, P. (2022). Feedback quality and performance in organisations. The Leadership Quarterly, 33(6), 101534.
Kiefe CI, Allison JJ, Williams OD, Person SD, Weaver MT, Weissman NW. Improving Quality Improvement Using Achievable Benchmarks For Physician Feedback: A Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA.2001;285(22):2871–2879. doi:10.1001/jama.285.22.2871