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Derek Pharr's avatar

I’ve never heard of gather.town and now I’m probably more excited than I should be.

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Dani Araujo's avatar

I love it for remote teams. I had a team that used it daily and others just for online activities. You can customize and link other tools inside your office :D

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Anton Zaides's avatar

Interesting idea! I’ve tried to ‘help’ my team provide feedback to each other for a while. A couple of months ago I organized a ‘peer feedback’ meeting. Initially I wanted everyone to just write down feedback for everyone else, and then they’ll take the notes and reading them later by themselves.

I consulted with the team, and they didn’t like the idea 🤷‍♂️

They suggested doing it face to face, and in one session of pairs, so I went with it. I with mediocre, they got to talk with only one person for 20-30, and from what they later told me the feedback was not that useful.

I think the worst part is that I didn’t make it a habit - as you nicely wrote in the beginning, if you make it consistent, things will surface up eventually.

I’ve got some food for thought :)

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Dani Araujo's avatar

Yes, this kind of activity can't have feedback as the end goal but shape the culture instead. Somehow, I see it more as a focused team-building activity.

Depending on each person's background, the output can be very surprising. I'll never forget something a person said after one of those sessions. They told me that the session made them happy. They were not used to being recognized for their work; they mentioned in their culture (German) that people are always ready to say something when it is not going well. But many people don't show appreciation for each other work. During the session, they realized how much the team appreciated their work. They learned how powerful it is.

I also started seeing more public recognition from people on this team. The team was happier. With time, they started sharing more constructive feedback — not because it benefits individual growth, the team, or the org, but because they cared about each other.

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Anton Zaides's avatar

Those are some great points (and an interesting example), thanks Dani! I need to rethink my approach a bit 😅

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