A short guide on giving effective feedback
Effective individual feedback is THE most important process when it comes to learning, growing, and managing others. It is also critical for building great teams because feedback can help create a sense of psychological safety on a team. However, giving feedback is not easy and requires both skill and investment of time. This is a guide for how I have been giving feedback for the past few years. I have used it to give feedback to my peers, boss, friends, and mom. Hope you find it useful and would love to hear stories about how you applied it!
What is feedback?
Feedback is information about how someone is doing in their efforts to reach a goal. The objective of giving good feedback should be to see behavior change in the other person. That requires that the person actively listen to you rather than just hear when you give the feedback.
To help improve the chances that the other person listens, effective feedback should always have a detailed behavior example paired with the way you, as the feedback giver, experienced that person’s behavior. This helps them make the logic jumps that lead to behavior change which can look like:
- I can’t deny this person’s experience of my behavior
- If that was my behavior and it made this person feel that way, is that in line with my goals?
- If not, I should change that behavior to avoid that kind of reaction
- What should I do differently?
Feedback is not your opportunity to tell someone how much they suck or how much they hurt you. It should be about behavior and the impact of that behavior, not about your personal feelings about that person.
If the person receiving feedback feels wrong or bad during the feedback session they are more likely to shut down and not hear you or be willing to make a behavior change. The more you can tie your feedback to specific examples of that person’s behavior, the more likely they are to understand what you are talking about and connect that to what they can change.
Set-up
Great preparation is the key to effective feedback. Preparing before giving feedback shows the other person that you care about them because you put in the time to prepare. The following are steps that I take before I give feedback:
Gather Examples
Gather and write down specific behavioral examples making sure to note dates and specific details. The more specific the behavioral example the better! I will typically have notes for each part of the conversation in bullets.
Hopefully you only have 2–3 examples. If you have more than 2–3 you may have missed giving feedback in a timely manner. Organize into examples into categories (only if needed. If you have a lot of examples or need to give more than one piece of feedback, it is good to organize things in terms of themes, for example: Communication, etc.
Create Behavior Change Ideas
Prepare some behavior change ideas for each feedback point. Be prepared with ideas for how the person could have done things differently. Keep in mind you should always allow the other person to come up with ways they might change their behavior before you offer any ideas.
Set up the meeting
Before meeting, make sure to practice, at least in your head, what you are going to say. Always set up a 1 on 1 meeting and make sure to have enough time. Typically feedback requires conversation and processing in the moment. Thus, I always put an hour on someone’s calendar so as not to feel too rushed
Once you have a deeper relationship or establish some good accountability measures, you can give feedback in a less formal way (but that takes a while to get to with someone else)
The Conversation
The conversation should have the following structure:
Opening
Always ask, before or at the start of the conversation, if they are willing to hear some feedback that you prepared.
I will typically ask something like “I have some feedback that I would like to give, are you open to hearing it?”. If they say no, then you have a much bigger issue on your hands. However, most times people will say yes. That gives people the feeling of empowerment from the beginning which is helpful in them committing to real behavior change.
Positive feedback
I always start with the positive things they have done and should continue to do. This should be taken as seriously as the change feedback. It should have specific examples attached. This helps someone understand what is good and what they should do more of. I often use the positive feedback to inform my ideas for behavior change. If the person is already capable of something similar, it should be easier for them to make the behavior change.
I have heard arguments against this which can be summarized as: people won’t listen to the positive because they are on edge about the “negative feedback” they are about to get. While that may actually be true, I think people should know what they did well so that they can continue to do more of it.
Change feedback
After the positive feedback, you move into change feedback (what you would like the person to think about changing). Each point of change feedback should have the same general flow:
- What happened? Review the relevant facts of the specific behavior example
- How did it make you feel or what did it make you think or what did you see result from their behavior? Share your interpretations of the other person’s behavior
- Is this in-line with the feedback receiver’s goals?
- If so, why?
- If not, what behaviors should they do instead?
For the behaviors, offer up ideas only if they can’t come up with anything themselves. Often a situation where feedback is warranted goes both ways. You are at fault as well as the person who is receiving the feedback. Be open and own your part in it. In this case, the behavior changes need to be for both you and the other person.
Take notes during this and write down any ideas for how the person wants to change their behavior to address each feedback point.
Wrap-up
The wrap-up is critical. Even if you can’t make it through all your feedback in the time allotted, always leave 10 minutes for a wrap up.
I will review each behavior change idea and ask “how can I help you stay accountable to making these changes?”. Then agree on actions I can take to help that person recognize the problem behavior and help them with concrete actions to change that behavior. If there are mutual behavior changes needed, then the discussion should be about how you can keep each other accountable.
Accountability
Behavior change is VERY hard! Typically, behaviors have been learned over years. The best way to help someone change is if they feel like the have a partner who is there to both help and to drive accountability.
The first stage is noticing the behavior. Typically, this can be difficult for someone because if they noticed they were doing it they would stop. Often, I will offer to keep my eye out and let them know (as soon as makes sense and is respectful) that I noticed the behavior.
Changing behavior is akin to breaking an old habit and forming a new one. Often it can take up to 30 days of doing the new behavior to actually have it stick. There are many ways to help create this kind of change (see Influence by Robert Cialdini) however, typically I will just do my best to notice the behavior and give them specific encouragement. For example “Hey, I saw you do this (very specific thing) at our last meeting. That is great!”
If you need to make a change in your behavior as well, you can set up check-ins with the other person to make sure you are both making the changes.
Tips
Do
- Prepare
- Be as specific as possible for example “when you sent this email about (subject…) to (person…) last week on Monday…”
- Pause a lot and let the other person respond even if there is an awkward silence
Do Not
- Say global things that are not actionable like: “you are not good at communicating”
- Say things like “well, everyone says this about you…” or “I have talked to a lot of people and they agree that you…”
- Talk constantly and never stop
General Tips
- Feedback is always best if given in very small chunks. Sometimes this is to hard to do, but if small, it makes it more digestible and easier to remember what the behavioral changes were.
- Safety words can be a good tactic for accountability. Often, I will create a safety word or action that I will say when in the presence of someone else and I want make them aware of the behavior. For example: let’s say I have given someone feedback to stop saying “like” in between sentences and we agree that I will say the word “banana” when I catch the behavior. If we are in a meeting and that person starts saying “like”, I will find a way to say banana to help them notice the behavior.
- Always make it about your personal experience and NEVER say “well, a lot of people have been talking about this” or “I am not the only one who feels this way”. That never gets you closer to behavior change. If anything, this has a high risk of shutting the other person down.
- Feelings are OK but should removed from emotionality. Sometimes it is necessary to tell someone how their behavior made you feel (for example: “after you did that, I started to feel afraid to come to you with problems). But this shouldn’t be done in a emotional way if possible. Emotionality can make it harder for the other person to hear you.
Giving feedback can be very uncomfortable. Many people avoid it. My hope is that this guide can help break down the process so that you can give feedback effectively and more often.
