Giving and Receiving Feedback

How to Set the Best Feedback Session Yet!

Giving feedback to employees can be stressful for you and for them! With the following three tips for acing
feedback, you will be setting up employees, and leadership, for success.
1. Set the Culture for Feedback
The successful feedback session is accomplished before the employee is even started in their new role! Effective
leaders discuss expectations with employees on the first day. Great leaders not only discuss they dialogue: allowing
employees to share what they hope the workplace expectations to be, but also sharing with the employee what work
standards are followed, as well as what is expected of the employee. If youve done a good job of the hiring process,
your new employees will want to meet your standards. So, dont hide them let employees know how they can
impress you in very particular or specific ways!
In addition, set the expectation that employees may seek feedback at any time, and supervisors are willing to give
feedback, too. Such a work environment allows even encourages frequent feedback so micro course corrections
can take place, to everyones success. Dont let everything hinge on final annual feedback when its too late for
the recipient to do anything about it! Act from the start.
2. When giving the feedback, do so in a setting and with timing that
makes sense.
Avoid the common mistake of delivering feedback as a drive by event. Setting and timing matter, so align your
feedback session with the intensity of the issue at hand.
Quick and Immediate versus Major Feedback
Savvy bosses give short, corrective feedback in a private setting a quiet end of a hallway, or an office. This type of
immediate feedback should be one-on-one if there is more than you and the employee, you obviously have a bigger
issue to discuss and you should move to a formal meeting. If giving feedback to an employee of the opposite gender,
remain visible, or let others know you are giving tips to your employee on how to be even more excellent.
For short, corrective feedback, keep the time proportional to the issue: dont meet for thirty minutes if the issue is
small! Major feedback sessions should be formal bookings on your calendar and the employees, and ideally
conducted in a private office.


3. Deliver the feedback in a quiet and planful way
Starting the Session
Start your session with a statement that this is feedback or Im going to give you some feedback relating to the
last 3 months otherwise trainees/employees may not recognize its feedback! This is especially true if feedback is
being done in a casual setting.
Giving the Feedback
The feedback sandwich is the best (and easiest!) way to remember how to sequence your words so the recipient can
best receive what you have to say. The feedback sandwich looks like this:
i) Positive comment Start with something the employee does well. Sharing a specific example (e.g. You did a
great job in your presentation to the team on Wednesday).
ii) Constructive feedback Share the area of growth for the employee, including the specific standards you are
hoping they will meet in the future. Without sharing the standards, the employee may be left with vague feedback
(e.g. Your reports are hard to follow) without knowing what youre looking for (e.g. Your reports should have
clear sub-headings, be formatted consistently throughout the document, and clearly source where you obtained the
numbers you did).
iii) Positive comment After hearing a negative, its good for the employee to hear a positive. In effect, this tells the
employee youre not all bad and reinforces the message that there is one specific area for the employee to work on.
This follow-up positive is especially important with employees who may be sensitive, or only hear negatives.
Closing the Session
How do you know the employee heard you? Ask the employee to say back to you what they heard. This helps clarify
the communication (or any miscommunication).
Ask your employee if he or she has any questions. This step particularly helps sensitive employees feel they have
been heard, and treated fairly in the feedback process.
If you have delivered major feedback, set a follow-up meeting in a reasonable time frame to discuss progress. Invite
the employee to present their great work to you, rather than making the follow-up session solely led by you. This last
step helps the employee take ownership of their progress, and reinforces youre serious about their growth.
Summary
Exceptional leaders are set apart for their ability to infuse a respectful tone throughout the regularly given feedback
cycle. If you are nervous, or not the type to like any level of confrontation, then following the above steps helps you
set a respectful climate in a way that is safe for you and the employee. Dont miss the opportunity to be a leader by
having the courage to invite a culture of feedback in your workplace.

Dealing Positively with Criticism

Criticism is never easy to take under any circumstances for most people. This is because almost all individuals
experience criticism as rejection. For many of us this feeling started early in childhood when criticism (well-founded
or otherwise) was usually delivered in a parental way to correct an apparently wrong or unwanted behavior and
move it to a right or acceptable behavior. Even in the most caring of households, this corrective criticism would
often create a degree of annoyance, defensiveness or even resentment, and it is these rather negative feelings that are
carried into the school-room (where yet more parentally corrective statements are often made) and into adulthood.
Despite our natural suspicions, as adults, we also appreciate that criticism can be valuable, particularly if it is well-
intended or constructive and not maliciously intended or destructive. The problem is that most people will typically
continue to characterize all criticism as likely to be destructive and therefore engage in defensive tactics very quickly
to handle it (and in some instances use offensive tactics to deal with the attack). However, even when criticism is
not well planned or delivered in a negative way, being defensive is not the best way to deal with it and it is therefore
better to try to handle all criticism in the most positive way possible. In order to do this, there are three main
handling strategies we can all adopt:
1. Listen carefully and with an open mind before responding
If a colleague or boss offers candid and even what may appear to be quite harsh feedback that feels like criticism, the
best initial response is to listen carefully to what is being said, even if your opinion of the person or the reasons why
he or she is offering the feedback are questionable. In other words, instead of being immediately defensive or
thinking about how to counter his or her comments, an individual should let the feedback giver offer his or her
feedback with full neutral attention and as little interruption as possible and keep an open-mind that some truth may
be usefully revealed. Once the feedback has been offered, clarification can be sought wherever this is necessary.
This may be done throughout the conversation by paraphrasing statements and/or summarizing what youre hearing
in your own words, always ensuring that good eye contact is maintained to show youre always actively engaged and
interested (even if you dont agree with the feedback or think that it may have been unfairly offered).

2. Stay calm and considered at all times
Although some feedback and direct criticism can be delivered in a loud, rude, pointed, personal, sarcastic and
generally negative fashion, the best response is always to stay objective about what the feedback-giver is saying (just
as you would in any other normal communication situation). Hence, by being calm and measured in your demeanor
and responses, you can steer the conversation to more acceptable territory. This is often best achieved by asking lots
of questions to clarify the base concerns that are being highlighted and to help overcome any confusion or
misinterpretation that may be prevailing. Asking questions not only shows that you are taking the feedback seriously
but it can also help you to calmly and reasonable gauge whether the negative feedback is appropriate, justified or
relevant (as we describe in the third step below). Questions are therefore best aimed at eliciting specific examples
and instances of the types of behavior that are at the root of the feedback (once again helping to keep the whole
exchange on a reasonable, quiet and calm footing).

3. Determine whether the feedback is useful and/or appropriate
Even if the particular feedback or criticism is given in less than ideal ways (for example in a raised voice or in public
where others can hear), it is important that we carefully determine why the criticism is being offered and whether or
not it is useful and/or appropriate. Perhaps the best way to do this is to use the time when you are listening and
clarifying the feedback and getting the discussion into the calmest possible waters to take a step back to assess the
situation that led to this discussion. This involves making a personally assessment of overall validity of the criticism,
even if this is only a part of the overall message. Hence, you need to carefully think through why your behavior has
prompted this feedback at all and owning-up to any responsibility you may have for this criticism to be levelled.
This allows you to respond in a reasonable manner, thanking the person for the feedback and accepting that you
welcome the chance to talk, but then making comment about the overall appropriateness of what has been said. This
may include direct contradictions where the facts are incorrect or more indirect contradictions (where your words,
attitude or actions were seen out of context, for example).
In the final analysis, criticism of any kind (constructively or destructively intended) is difficult for everyone to take.
However, listening carefully, keeping calm at all times and then commenting on appropriateness, in this order, is a
simple but effective handling process. The more that we adopt this approach, the less likely it is that other people
will level unfair criticisms or feedback which they have not thought through carefully, as your reputation for
responding reasonable in all circumstances will precede you.

Giving Constructive Feedback

Imagine that you are expecting feedback of some kind, perhaps from your boss or colleague. It may be on a project
you have just finished, on your personal efforts to achieve a particularly difficult goal or a more formal appraisal
session. As you think about the upcoming feedback, carefully consider how you would feel if you were treated in any
one or more of the following ways:
You are:
talked at relentlessly?
verbally attacked?
put down or patronized?
talked over or interrupted constantly?
told whats good for you?
not given the opportunity to express your views?
not given the chance to say how you feel?
given advice you neither need nor want?
The list could be a lot longer but the answer is still the same for most people-they would have whole range of
negative feelings in response to this treatment including anger, irritation, sadness, frustration, anxiousness, feeling
ashamed, bullied, discouraged, judged, resentful and more. Any yet many people have had this experience all too
often and usually just tolerate it (willingly or not).
When offering coaching, guidance, steering comments, or just general feedback, all too often a feedback-giver has a
one-way communication goal. This is to give the other person the feedback (especially when it has negative
components), often as fast as possible and ideally without interruption. In this way, the communication (at least
theoretically) is over quickly and the job is done and the goal met. Sadly, the communication may be over quite
quickly but the goal (which was to offer feedback to help people to re-focus, get some genuinely valuable input and
feel motivated to do as well and perhaps even better in the future etc) will not have been met at all. This is because
this kind of feedback is destructive and it typically achieves exactly what it sets out to do-criticize people (lots of
stick and little or no carrot).
So what is constructive feedback and how is it delivered?
There are two main ways in which feedback can be delivered constructively:
1. The feedback needs to be specific, behavior or issue-focused (rather than an unsubstantiated opinion about or
value judgment about the person concerned), based on data or what is observable (rather than assumptions of any
kind), and should include specific direction on how to make improvements.
2. The feedback needs to be delivered in a manner that does not provoke negative emotions (including those
mentioned above). This means that the feedback-giver needs to be polite, calm, respectful and use emotional
intelligence to read the other person.
In an appraisal type discussion, to take an example, feedback would often be related to performance on individual,
team and/or departmental objectives. A constructive feedback statement may therefore be something like:
As you know, our aim this year is to handle 15% more volume as a team, and we all had to do our
part to achieve this. In the first 6 months you have handled 5% less volume than last year-what is
going on?
This is factual feedback, specific to the performance concern, and helps to relate the shortfall to the wider objective
(without getting personal or assigning any blame). Describing specific observations helps the other person
understand exactly what you mean and accept the feedback as real or valid. There are two separate but equally
critical methods involved here: being specific, and, focusing on direct observations rather than on opinions or rumors
you may have heard.
Very general feedback can often be more confusing than helpful. By being specific, you help the other person
identify exactly what your points are. Additionally, its important to separate what you have actually observed, from
your opinions, or from what others have told you. Opinions (especially ones not backed up by facts) tend to turn
people off or make them defensive; rumors may simply be inaccurate. Starting with facts gives you common ground
upon which to build.
Your reactions to what you have actually observed can provide very useful information to the other person.
Submersed in their own view of the world and thought processes, most people can benefit from seeing themselves
from anothers perspective. When you describe their actions or the consequences of the observed behaviors, the other
person can better appreciate the impact that his or her actions are having on others and on the organization or team as
a whole. However, as much as it may be seen to be beneficial, constructive feedback must be done in a two-way, not
one-way conversation. This ensures that the say of both parties is respected at all times.

Being constructive in all of your feedback
After you have described your observations specifically and accurately, a constructive feedback-giver offers his or
her reactions (in a calm and polite way of course). This means explaining the consequences of the other persons
behavior and how you, as a boss or colleague, feel about it. You may also offer examples of how you and others are
affected. For example you might say:
The plan looks good. Every additional ton of waste reduced contributes to the effective operation-if
you can stick to this standard, 3 people on the team will save several hours of time. This is what can
happen when we put our heads together to solve a problem.
Once the feedback-giver has said their piece, allowing the person the chance to react to your feedback builds their
self-esteem and shows that you recognize the value of their ideas or suggestions. Getting the other persons point of
view or making an overture for one also creates an opportunity to check for any misunderstandings or
misinterpretations. When you provide an opportunity for responses and reactions, you learn valuable tips on how
things are going, gain a broader perspective, and foster open communication.
Gaining respect in a feedback conversation essentially involves encouraging and allowing a healthy two-way flow
and avoiding a number of communication traps or problems that can occur (especially when we slip back into
personal comments, blaming or even one-way feedback habits).
To make sure that all of your feedback sessions go well, and are as constructive as
possible, consider using the following checklist:
Avoid talking at people find ways to talk with them
Dont ignore people when performance issues come up-maintain a healthy connection at all times
Never attack, even if you have been attacked
Dont assume unsubstantiated comments or rumors are true until you have listened properly to the person
Avoid put downs or patronizing comments
Refrain from the use of profanity
Dont talk over others. Apologize when you do.
Avoid telling people what is good for them
Allow plenty of opportunities for them to express their views
Encourage the other person to tell you how they feel. Ask them from time to time.
Hold back on giving advice until you feel they might be ready to hear it. Ask if youre not sure: Do you mind if I
give you some advice?