What Good Feedback Must Have
And you often forget about.
You give feedback on something all the time.
Yet, in many cases, you don’t think about it as feedback. “The food was excellent.” “I had a good time.” “You’ve really helped me on this project. Thanks a lot.”
You may think of feedback when something needs to be corrected. As a tool to tell someone off. Feedback is associated with negative feelings and emotionally charged conversations. Many feedback meetings are intense.
So, it happens many forget about the basics good feedback needs to have. There are three: why, listening, and agreement.
1. Why
You took time. Your feedback is well-prepared. You calmed your mind to deliver a concise and specific piece of information.
Even the best-prepared feedback meeting can fail.
Why?
Exactly because of the lack of “why”.
Feedback is a dialogue. You send a message, they receive it, and give you feedback. You receive it and give them feedback, etc.
Having prepared what you want to say is great. Now, put into your notes to ask enough why. We often have false assumptions. For instance:
- A report had the wrong numbers. You assume: The…
