How to give feedback to inspire growth
Eight members of Zalando’s product design community share their insights on how to give impactful feedback.
Valuing feedback is intrinsic to a growth mindset. When we are invested in developing ourselves and others, feedback is not only food for progress, but a gift. That’s why — along with nourishing diversity, being our team’s biggest fan, and leading with transparency — giving and receiving honest, timely, and heartfelt feedback is one of the core empowerment principles of Zalando’s Founding Mindset.
As Product Design Intern Anastasia Yezhyzhanska has learned since joining our community, feedback at Zalando transcends hierarchy: “I have been encouraged to give feedback to more experienced colleagues. Feedback is not just about mentioning that someone is doing a good job, but improving how we work together. I recently asked for a more thorough explanation of a complex topic, which led to a very open discussion within our team and improved communication.”
Feedback is empowering. Feedback unlocks potential. Still, just like any catalyst for transformation, it can also present challenges. How we deliver, request, receive, and apply feedback is crucial. How can we sensitively translate our care for our colleagues and their development? How can we ensure we motivate and not discourage? Feedback can be a thorny territory, but it doesn’t have to be. When we all work together to cultivate a strong feedback culture, feedback is embraced as an opportunity for personal and collective growth.
From establishing a safe space, to opening a discussion, to following a feedback framework, eight members of our product design community share their tips and experience on how to give impactful feedback.
Build a foundation of trust
So much of what makes feedback valuable and actionable comes from the culture within which it is shared. Asking ourselves the following questions is a good place to start: How regular and open is our team or community’s communication? Do we make a special effort to make each other feel heard, respected and safe? These values are the foundation of a healthy work environment, and can make the difference between a positive or negative experience for the feedback giver or receiver.
“My colleagues are not there to criticize me; they want to help me grow.”
“I feel really safe in my team,” says Product Designer Mary Michel Rizk. “I feel a lot of trust and belonging. My colleagues are not there to criticize me; they want to help me grow.” Likewise, openness and honesty are a priority in Product Design Manager Anna Skorobogatova’s team: “Mood check-ins at the start of each meeting are a testament to our transparent mindset. We invest in each other by constantly providing feedback, so we are always grateful to receive it.”
Thanks to the openness established by her lead, Product Designer Stephanie Marie Cedeño, Anastasia broke through her early inhibitions to share work in progress. “We are constantly communicating and sharing ideas and feedback throughout the creative process,” Stephanie explains. “We also dedicate a weekly check-in to exchanging feedback. This feedback loop has become second nature in our working relationship.”
Indeed, the more we use feedback, the more we get used to it — and the more we recognize its benefits. In Content Design Manager Chad Wright’s opinion, giving and receiving feedback is a muscle, just like any other skill: “You can recognize the people who regularly practice it. I work with a number of people who make it part of their working culture. You can tell by how at ease they are when they deliver it.” Feedback is further routinized at Zalando through rituals such as one-on-ones, design critiques, performance reviews, project retros, and feedback workshops. Connecting feedback to a growth mindset, they provide the context for focused discussions that lead to development on all fronts.
Consider time and place
Over the length of our careers, many of us can recall occasions when we received feedback that was poorly timed or out of place. It could be that we felt embarrassed by public praise, we weren’t given enough time to digest the information, or we received feedback where we weren’t expecting it. As feedback givers, it makes such a difference to think upfront about the well-being and development of the receiver, choosing the appropriate time and place accordingly.
“Let’s first check if a person is interested in hearing feedback.”
“Let’s first check if a person is interested in hearing feedback,” Director of Product Design Gloria Rupprecht suggests. “Instead of saying, ‘By the way, I have some feedback for you,’ we can approach it like, ‘I noticed some things. Are you open to hearing my feedback?’ If they say no, it’s important to respect that. It could be that it’s not the right moment for them.”
Zalando’s ‘Live high challenge and high support’ principle notes that feedback should be timely. Chad agrees that, especially in less formal cases, feedback is best served fresh: “Normalize giving feedback in the moment. First take a minute to formulate it, then we can ask if that person has five minutes. If I notice someone has improved on something in a meeting, sending a little chat message right afterward is sometimes enough.”
How can we sensitively give feedback to someone who is not expecting it? Chad has a great hack: “No matter how much we encourage a feedback culture, approaching someone with feedback can still feel challenging at times, especially if we are not part of their team. I find it helpful to first ask that person to give feedback to me or my team. It starts an open conversation and prompts them to ask for my feedback in return.”
Lead with empathy
As Chad relates, part of Zalando’s feedback mindset is to support each other and care about the person beyond their role: “The product design community at Zalando deeply cares about each other, so when they give feedback, it feels genuine, helpful, and actionable.” When someone has not met Product Design Manager Anna’s expectations, she starts by checking in with them: “Only when we know their feelings or circumstances can we help them find solutions.” But whatever the angle of our feedback, opening with a ‘thank you’ is always a great idea. When Senior Product Designer Oyindamola Akinleye offers critique to someone, he first shows his appreciation for what they’ve done: “I know it takes them a lot of effort to show their work.”
Pairing feedback with feeling is not only a way to soften delivery, but to make it stick. As Ashley Goodall and Marcus Buckingham, co-authors of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, point out in their Harvard Business Review article, “We excel only when people who know us and care about us tell us what they experience and what they feel, and in particular when they see something within us that really works.” When giving feedback, they encourage sharing what we observe and connecting it to how it made us feel, using phrases like, ‘This is how it came across for me,’ or ‘This is what that made me think.’ Furthermore, neuroscience tells us the brain grows most where it’s already strongest. Therefore, for feedback to positively impact a person’s development, it helps to lead with their strengths.
“I feel that if we deeply care about a person and their growth, the kindest thing we can do is let them know about a potential blind spot.”
Nevertheless, as the argument for radical candor suggests, an overly sensitive approach to delivering feedback can be counterproductive. Kim Scott’s controversial New York Times best-seller Radical Candor advocates for caring personally while challenging directly. “There are some parts that stuck with me,” Chad says. “For example, the book uses the metaphor of someone who gets told they need to amputate their dog’s tail. They feel so bad for the dog that they just cut off a little piece each day, only extending the discomfort. I feel that if we deeply care about a person and their growth, the kindest thing we can do is let them know about a potential blind spot. If it’s too candid and isn’t genuinely empathetic, it can come across as rude. If we’re too kind and not clear enough, we might leave them more confused or unaware of the point of the feedback. It’s all about hitting the sweet spot of delivery.”
Ask questions
Delivering feedback in a supportive way means being mindful of how we formulate it. As Principal Product Designer Simone Ihde expressed in an earlier article, “In the best case, feedback comes in the form of questions or suggestions — critique not criticism — enabling you to reflect and act. It should help you to grow and to bring your solution forward.” Criticism focuses on finding faults, while critique offers a detailed analysis or evaluation.
Just as an empathetic tone promotes reflection, posing feedback in the form of questions averts judgment and opens a conversation. “Say I didn’t like someone’s color choice,” says Oyindamola. “Instead of criticizing it, I would tell them, ‘It’s good you used this color, but what if we try something else? Then I’d explain why the alternate solution might be a better option.” Asking how someone came to a decision, or to explain their process or perspective, also provides valuable clues we can use to help them improve.
Likewise, when someone requests our feedback, asking them questions can help us discern what kind of support to offer. In Product Designer Mary’s perspective, it’s important to ask, ‘Do you want me to listen, or do you want me to help you?’ before jumping into solutions. “Let’s always consider their intentions and preferences.”
Apply a framework
Actionable feedback is clear, specific, factual, and connected to tangible points like the team or company’s strategy or values. Building a picture of the past, present, and future, it says, ‘This is what we’ve done, this is where we stand, this is where we want to go together, and why.’ Since feedback is a company value at Zalando, using a feedback framework helps us all to align consistently with best practices across our entire product design community.
“To connect it to the bigger picture, I often refer back to Our Founding Mindset: principles like ‘Act like an owner’ or ‘Always put yourself in our customer’s shoes.’”
‘Situation,’ ‘Behavior,’ ‘Impact,’ and ‘Next steps’ (S.B.I.N.) are the four pillars of our feedback culture, using the structure of non-violent communication. As Anna affirms, “It’s an amazing way to focus on particular topics and map them to the company.” The concise and memorable framework guides us to constructively structure our feedback around how someone behaved in a specific situation, the tangible impact it had, and the concrete action they can take.
“‘Impact’ refers to the result it had for the project or team setup, but also to emotions it may have evoked,” Gloria explains. “‘Next steps’ is how you recommend the person to act in a similar situation in the future. That can also mean acting identically because the results were fantastic. This framework makes us think carefully about how to give meaningful feedback. To connect it to the bigger picture, I often refer back to Our Founding Mindset: principles like ‘Act like an owner’ or ‘Always put yourself in our customer’s shoes.’”
Tailoring feedback to the role and development pathway of the individual is another useful approach. “I’m always trying to understand what I can expect from a person,” Gloria adds. “Based on their position or seniority, and the hard skills and soft skills they should be demonstrating, I adjust the type of feedback I give.”
Key takeaways
Are you working on improving the way you give feedback? Consider these suggestions.
- Establish a safe and transparent culture
- Make giving and receiving feedback a routine
- Find the appropriate time and place
- Create multiple settings for practical feedback
- Use questions to open a conversation
- Feedback frameworks encourage actionable, values-driven feedback
How can we ask for the feedback we need, and how can we take it on board to boost our development? Read the next article in this series, focusing on how to request and receive feedback.
