Kardia Group’s Data Feedback™ Process
Academic departments have a complex interactional structure that serves specific disciplinary, professional, educational, and institutional realities. Within this structure, some habits, assumptions, and interactional norms can be problematic (for some, many, or all) or fail to fully develop the knowledge, people, and scholarly careers that are the mission of higher education. challenges intensify as the range of experiences, social identities, perspectives, methodologies, capacities, and needs of faculty, students and staff expand.
Difference has the potential to make a department smarter, more adaptable, and more able to solve complex problems, but it requires awareness, commitment, and expanded interactional capacities to realize this potential. The resiliency to navigate misunderstanding or mistakes can be depleted as individuals experience more of these, and in more ways. Those experiencing a disproportionate impact of this fallout may become the voice of change, only to risk being seen as the face of the problem. As these dynamics progress, interpersonal and departmental interactions become a threat to intellectual and departmental community rather than its source.
Kardia Group’s Data Feedback™ Methodology
Kardia Group’s Data Feedback™ process is a first step towards putting departmental interactions back on track. Features of Data Feedback include:
Changing the climate by studying, discussing, and engaging what is discovered
We don’t believe in written summaries designed to sit on a shelf.
A minimalist, targeted, and iterative approach to data collection
We emphasize rapid availability of results to build community engagement.
Innovative discussion tools to quickly promote new collective capacity
We empower existing interactional capacities and provide concrete guidelines and demonstrations of new capacities so that departments may build on this foundation.
The Steps to Building Capacity
Stage 1: Preparation
Departmental leaders, a representative small group of faculty, and a representative small group of graduate students clarify goals and provide input on a targeted climate survey.
Stage 2: Data Collection
All faculty and graduate students provide input through the targeted climate survey.
Stage 3: Dialogue about Climate Data
All faculty and graduate students participate in facilitated sessions to translate departmental data into actionable insights and productive interaction across differences in identity, rank, role, experience, and perspective.
Data Feedback in Action
We have used this method at several types of institutions with different sized groups to create deep and impactful discussions around climate, hiring and other departmental change issues. Through these discussions, participants develop an understanding of the underlying issues that exist, as well as how to address them within the department going forward.
Want to know more about this process? Please reach out!
