Stick to This Simple Rule in Giving Effective Feedback
Whether you are leading or working in a team nowadays, you probably have heard the buzzword “constructive feedback” too many times. Chances are that you will agree whole-heartedly every time someone mentions “constructive feedback is a gift”, but you know doubts still creep in later, asking “constructive, how?”, “a gift, for whom?”
To many people, the prospect of giving feedback could be fruitless at best and relationship threatening at worst. Unless we get in “unfortunate” situations where we absolutely have to propose “areas for improvement” to someone, it feels natural and safe for us to keep our mouth shut when we do not have anything “nice” to say. Then shall we just stick to this default mode and wait for the next formal performance review comes up?
Kim Scott says the answer is no, if you want to be a kick-ass boss and help you and all the people you work with do the best work and build the best relationships of your career. She also proposed a simple rule for us to follow in giving effective feedback: always strive for the quadrant of “Radical Candor”.
In our Reputation Management class this week, the author of Radical Candor, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller, vividly explained her radical candor framework in four quadrants.
· Radical Candor™: the ability to challenge directly and show you care personally at the same time.
· Obnoxious Aggression™: what happens when you challenge but don’t care. It’s praise that doesn’t feel sincere or criticism that isn’t delivered kindly.
· Ruinous Empathy™: what happens when you care but don’t challenge. It’s praise that isn’t specific enough to help the person understand what was good or criticism that is sugarcoated and unclear.
· Manipulative Insincerity™: what happens when you neither care nor challenge. It’s praise that is non-specific and insincere or criticism that is neither clear nor kind.
The reason why I believe the concept of “radical candor” is particularly powerful is because it points out the ultimate challenges hidden in feedback giving: “we do not possess useful tactics” and “we often do not care enough”.
Tactics in Making Feedback Constructive at Work
In class, Kim talked about a personal story in explaining radical candor. One day she was walking her dog, but cannot rein it in because she loved the dog so much that she rarely said a cross word to her before. The dog was almost run over that day by a rushing cab. A man standing by saw the incident and said to Kim “I can see you really love that dog, but you are going to kill that dog if you do not teach it to sit”. Then the man pointed to the dog in a harsh gesture and said “sit”. The dog listened and sat. Kim was very much impressed by the man’s final comment “It’s not mean. It’s clear.”
This example effectively illustrated how “challenge directly with care” should look like in giving constructive feedback at work:
· Aim to achieve a specific outcome: signal appreciation or redirect undesirable behavior, or both?
· Point out a more productive course of action;
· Show respect for the recipient;
· Express as a point of view, rather than an absolute truth.
Feedback: A Gift for Leaders to Build Reputation
The lack of motivation in giving someone constructive feedback at work often stems from not caring about either the development of this person per se or creating an overall productive working environment. Neither of these reflects good qualities of a promising business leader. Smart leaders should always use feedback as a motivation tool to show team members that you care and are attentive to their performance and personal growth. In a word, delivering thoughtful feedback in a regular manner is a great way of establishing leadership reputation in an organization.
