Giving Feedback Effectively
Check Your Motives
Before giving feedback, remind yourself why you are doing it. The purpose of giving feedback is to improve the situation or the person's performance. You won't accomplish that by being harsh, critical or offensive.
You'll likely get much more from people when your approach is positive and focused on improvement. That's not to say feedback always has to be good, but it should be fair and balanced.
Be Timely
The closer to the event you address the issue, the better. Feedback isn't about surprising someone, so the sooner you do it, the more the person will be expecting it. Think of it this way: it's much easier to provide feedback about a single, one-hour job that hasn't been done properly than it is to do so about a whole year of failed, one-hour jobs.
Tip:
If the situation involved is highly emotional, wait until everyone has calmed down before you engage in feedback. The recipient will more likely hear what you're saying, and you'll avoid saying something in the heat of the moment that you regret later.
Make It Regular
Feedback is a process that requires constant attention. When something needs to be said, say it. People then know where they stand all the time and there will be few surprises. Also, problems don't get out of hand. It's not a once-a-year or a once-every-three-month event. Though this may be the timing of formal feedback; informal, simple feedback should be given much more often than this – perhaps every week or even every day, depending on the situation.
With frequent, informal feedback like this, nothing said during formal feedback sessions should be unexpected, surprising or particularly difficult.
Prepare Your Comments
You don't want to read a script, but you do need to be clear about you are going to say. This will help you to stay on track and stick to the issues.
Be Specific
Tell the person exactly what he needs to improve. This ensures that you stick to facts and there is less room for ambiguity.
If you tell someone that she acted unprofessionally, what does that mean exactly? Was she too loud, too friendly, too casual, too flippant or too poorly dressed?
Remember to stick to what you know first hand: you'll quickly find yourself on shaky ground if you start giving feedback based on other people's views.
Tip:
Try not to exaggerate to make a point. Avoid words like "never", "all," and "always" because the person will likely get defensive. Always discuss the direct impact of the behavior and don't get personal or seek to blame.
Criticize in Private
While public recognition is appreciated, public scrutiny is not.
Establish a safe place to talk where you won't be interrupted or overheard.
Use "I" Statements
Give feedback from your perspective . This way you avoid labeling the person.
Say, "I was angry and hurt when you criticized my report in front of my boss" rather than "You were insensitive yesterday."
Limit Your Focus
A feedback session should discuss no more than two issues. Any more than that and you risk the person feeling attacked and demoralized.
You should also stick to behaviors he can actually change or influence.
Talk About Positives Too
A good rule is to start off with something positive. This helps put the person at ease. It will also allow her to "see" what success looks like and what steps she needs to take next time to get it right.
Try to end on a high note, too. Otherwise, she may be left feeling despondent and worthless.
Tip:
Many people tend to overdo this and end up sandwiching the constructive feedback between too many positives. Then the takeaway message becomes, "Gee, I'm doing really well," instead of "I'm good at communicating with customers, but I need to bring my interpersonal skills with my co-workers up to that same level."
Provide Specific Suggestions
Make sure you both know what needs to be done to improve the situation. The main message should be that you care and want to help the person grow and develop. Set goals and make plans to monitor and evaluate his progress. Use the SMART acronym and define specific steps and milestones, or the GROW model to motivate him to deliver the change that you want.
Tip:
You may not agree on everything, so it is a good idea to ask the person to give her perspective. Use phrases like, "What is your reaction to this?" or "Is this a fair representation of what happened?"
Listen actively to what she has to say and try to get her to offer some suggestions for improvement. This way she has an opportunity to own the solution and will be more likely to follow through with it. To avoid sounding like you're preaching, stay away from words like "good," "bad," "must," "need to," etc.
Follow Up
The whole purpose of feedback is to improve performance. You need to measure whether or not that is happening and then make adjustments as you go. Be sure to document your conversations and discuss what is working and what needs to be modified.
Tip:
It's also important that you actively seek feedback from your boss, colleagues, and customers.
Key Points
Feedback is a two-way street. You need to know how to give it effectively and how to receive it constructively.
When you make a conscious choice to give and receive feedback on a regular basis you demonstrate that it is a powerful means of personal development and positive change.
Done properly, feedback need not be agonizing, demoralizing or daunting, and the more practice you get the better you will become at it. It may never be your favorite means of communicating with your team members, co-workers or your boss, but it does have the potential to make your workplace a much more productive and harmonious place to be.
Giving and Receiving Feedback
4 Tips for Giving Feedback
In order to help your colleagues grow personally and professionally, you should leverage feedback often. To ensure your feedback is effective, approach these conversations from a position of wanting to help—think more like a coach and less like an evaluator.
Safeguard the receiver's feelings by remaining thoughtful and specific while discussing their actions. When you come from a supportive angle and leverage our tips below, you can make every feedback conversation an opportunity for development.
1. Collect 360-degree feedback.
Don’t be afraid to break the norm that feedback can only be given downward, from managers to employees. Employees should receive valuable 360-degree feedback from those above them, below them, and at the same level as them.
If a coworker has an excellent presentation, for example, let them know why you liked it. Similarly, managers should be open to feedback from employees. There's always room for improvement, even for rock star employees.
2. Do your research.
Before giving feedback, consider the individual’s personality and how he or she prefers to receive it. Whether that’s publicly or privately, you do not want to make anyone uncomfortable when giving feedback; rather, it should be an opportunity to grow and develop relationships.
Take into consideration the personality, tendencies, and emotional intelligence of the receiver to avoid triggering a fight-or-flight response in them.
3. Focus on constructive feedback.
Feedback itself should be a balance of positive and negative comments that highlight areas of improvement. Avoid solely relaying your criticisms without emphasizing areas of strengths too. This dual inclusion creates constructive feedback that allows the receiver to pinpoint weaknesses and improve upon them while maintaining current strengths.
4. Make it personalized.
Take the time to prepare your feedback and make sure it’s meaningful. You should think through what you're going to say, ahead of time, but remain candid. Distinguish feedback from a typical compliment by making it specific to an individual. Point out who, what, where, and when so that the individual knows exactly what you are referring to.
For example, you could say, “During our monthly team meeting yesterday, I enjoyed hearing your insights about your latest research on employee engagement.” Adding this level of depth ensures that the receiver knows exactly what you’re talking about and clearly understands your comments.
4 Tips for Receiving Feedback
Opportunities to receive feedback should be celebrated and welcomed—they help you improve and grow. While it may seem nerve-wracking to hear feedback from your peers, you should look at it as a gift that helps you improve. With ample preparation, listening skills, and self-reflection, feedback is better received to result in professional and personal development.
1. Ask for it—often.
It’s important to directly ask for feedback after a project, presentation, or meeting is wrapped up, especially when starting out in a new position. Without doing so, coworkers and managers may not know your comfort level with receiving constructive criticism. Requesting feedback sets the tone that, going forward, you want it—positive or negative—to improve.
2. Don't take it personally.
It’s easy to get defensive when receiving feedback, especially when it’s negative. While you can offer a response to the criticism that may explain your situation, steer clear of defensiveness as it implies excuse-making. For example, instead of saying, “But I tried that, and it didn’t work!” or “I didn’t have enough time,” you can say, “That’s a great idea – next time I will try harder to make that happen.”
3. Take note.
Keep track of the feedback you receive by writing it in a journal, Word Document, or employee engagement platform. This allows you to compare feedback as you progress toward your goal of improving. If your feedback stays consistent from month to month, consider changing your plans for improvement as they may be ineffective. Maintaining a feedback log allows you to see what you have improved and what still needs developing.
4. Follow up.
After receiving feedback, thank the provider for taking the time to acknowledge your performance. If the provider is someone you work closely with, you may want to share your plans for improvement so that they can hold you accountable and assist you toward that goal. This shows that you appreciate feedback and want it in the future, too.
A combination of these tips and tricks will provide the foundation for a highly-engaged team to work toward individual improvement, which will ultimately lead to overall team improvement.
Every interaction is an opportunity for feedback, in both directions. Some of the most important feedback may happen casually in a quick interchange, for example, this one, overheard while two colleagues were making coffee:
Meena (laughing): “You remind me of my mum.”
Janet (her boss): “Really, why?”
Meena: “She gets really snappy with me when she’s stressed too.”
Janet: “Oh, I’m so sorry, have I been snapping at you? I am a bit stressed, but I’ll try not to do it in future. Thank you for telling me, and I’m sorry you needed to.”
Meena had, quite casually, raised a serious behavioural issue with Janet. Janet realised that she was fortunate that Meena had recognised the behavioural pattern from a familial situation, and drawn her own conclusions.
However, Janet also recognised that not everyone she would ever work with would do the same. Having been made aware of her behaviour, she chose to change it. Meena had also, casually or not, given feedback in line with all the rules: it was about Jane’s recent behaviour, and so was specific and timely, and showed how Meena perceived it. It was also at a good moment, when Janet was relaxed and open to discussion.
ORGANIZATIONAL
THEATRE
"Performance review." Does the mere mention of this event make your heart sink?
Employees and managers the world over dread this ritual and therein lays the main problem: we have institutionalized the giving and receiving of feedback. We save up our comments and document all the things we note about a person's performance. And then, like a big cat ready to pounce, the manager brings a hapless employee into the office and springs a year's worth of "constructive criticism" onto him or her.
No wonder why this process is so unnerving and fear provoking. This is exactly the wrong emotional environment in which to discuss performance, introduce suggestions for improvement, and talk about goals for the future. This is a shame, because giving and receiving feedback is key to engaging your people and keeping them on track.
When done in the right way and with the right intentions, feedback can lead to outstanding performance. Employees have to know what they are doing well and not so well. For them to really hear your thoughts and suggestions on ways to improve, though, that feedback has to be delivered carefully and frequently.
Giving feedback is a skill. And like all skills, it takes practice to get it right.
In life as much as in work, it’s important to know how to provide feedback to others, effectively and constructively without causing offence.
There are many opportunities in life for providing others with feedback, from commenting on the way that your colleague has carried out a task, to discussing your children’s behaviour with them.Type your paragraph here.
What is Effective Feedback?
For our purposes, we will define effective feedback as that which is clearly heard, understood and accepted.Those are the areas that are within your power. You have no control over whether the recipient chooses to act upon your feedback, so let’s put that to one side.
So how can you make sure that your feedback is effective?
Develop your feedback skills by using these few rules, and you’ll soon find that you’re much more effective.
1. Feedback should be about behaviour not personality
The first, and probably the most important rule of feedback is to remember that you are making no comment on what type of person they are, or what they believe or value. You are only commenting on how they behaved. Do not be tempted to discuss aspects of personality, intelligence or anything else. Only behaviour.
2. Feedback should describe the effect of the person’s behaviour on you
After all, you do not know the effect on anyone or anything else. You only know how it made you feel or what youthought. Presenting feedback as your opinion makes it much easier for the recipient to hear and accept it, even if you are giving negative feedback. After all, they have no control over how you felt, any more than you have any control over their intention. This approach is a blame-free one, which is therefore much more acceptable.
3. Feedback should be as specific as possible
Especially when things are not going well, we all know that it’s tempting to start from the point of view of ‘everything you do is rubbish’, but don’t. Think about specific occasions, and specific behaviour, and point to exactly what the person did, and exactly how it made you feel. The more specific the better, as it is much easier to hear about a specific occasion than about ‘all the time’!
4. Feedback should be timely
It’s no good telling someone about something that offended or pleased you six months later. Feedback needs to be timely, which means while everyone can still remember what happened. If you have feedback to give, then just get on and give it. That doesn’t mean without thought. You still need to think about what you’re going to say and how.
5. Pick your moment
There are times when people are feeling open to feedback and times when they aren’t. Have a look at our page on emotional awareness and work on your social awareness, to help you develop your awareness of the emotions and feelings of others. This will help you to pick a suitable moment. For example, an angry person won’t want to accept feedback, even given skilfully. Wait until they’ve calmed down a bit.