Executive Coach, CEO of Something Major, and author of the forthcoming book "Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work" (2023).
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“Mommy, I’m not saying this to be mean, I’m saying this to be nice,” my daughter said as I walked down the hall to grab my keys and head out to dinner with a friend.
“I don’t think those sunglasses look good with that outfit. I think you should either wear your normal sunglasses or just not wear sunglasses at all.”
Stunned by the fact that my first-grader had just delivered feedback more effectively than many managers I’ve met throughout the years, I stood with my jaw dropped.
Reading my silence as hurt feelings, my daughter walked up to me, placed her arm around my waist and said, “Really mommy, I’m not saying this to be mean. I want you to look nice for your dinner.”
If my six-year-old can deliver effective feedback, there are just no excuses anymore for anyone who doesn’t. It’s not that most managers mean malice when they give bad feedback (toxic managers notwithstanding). It’s just that too much feedback out there is lazy: given off the cuff without much thought or, sometimes worse, not given at all until performance review season rolls around.
We can do better and we must do better. Accordingly, here are three tips for giving better feedback—all of which are six-year-old-approved:
1. Stop giving 'lazy' feedback. When I say lazy feedback, I mean feedback that is too general or not given at all. Consider, for example, the difference between “You need to be more prepared and organized” and “When you presented at Tuesday’s meeting, it was clear that you hadn’t taken as much time to prepare your slides and remarks as you needed to in order to share a clear status update on the project. It left our stakeholders confused and diminished our credibility. Can we discuss how you will approach next month’s meeting?”
The second example is the same feedback, it just follows the SBIR formula: situation (the meeting), behavior (being underprepared), impact (ineffective communication), request (game-planning the next meeting)—and it’s monumentally more effective as a result. The SBIR framework keeps feedback clear and actionable on your end and creates accountability on theirs. Notably, it also keeps feedback work-related, so that recipients trust you are giving feedback on their work (how the meeting went) versus their character (the boss just thinks I’m lazy).
2. Remember it’s your responsibility to create an environment of psychological safety. This is another element of effective feedback delivery that can be missed. Too often, feedback is shared in a public place (the hallways, the cafeteria, at a team meeting in front of others). Or it might be shared in haste, with little thought as a boss fires off a quick text, Slack message or email where tone can easily be misread.
To create an environment of psychological safety, feedback should be delivered verbally (and in person or on video whenever possible), in a private setting. After you’ve delivered your SBIR feedback, you can also use questions like “How is this landing with you?” or “What do you think of this, and how can I support you moving forward?” to help build a sense of trust and collaboration. Asking questions allows your direct report to process feedback with you and co-design the next steps they are willing to take moving forward. Asking questions like these, which engender psychological safety, helps them stay in a collaborative posture, rather than a defensive one. This, in turn, often makes the feedback recipient both more receptive to your feedback and more accountable on next steps.
3. Regularly share positive feedback. Please resist the urge to roll your eyes and chalk this up to our “everyone gets a gold star” culture before you hear me out on this. If you want your constructive feedback to be effective, it is absolutely critical that you take time to share positive feedback on an ongoing basis. Not only does this create an ongoing sense of trust between feedback giver and receiver, but it also makes your direct reports more receptive to your feedback.
Consider again the difference between these two mindsets: “The boss has my back and sees my accomplishments” and “I never hear anything from her but negative feedback.” This is particularly important because research shows that negative feedback punches above its weight in our psyches: According to research from organizational psychologists Dr. Marcial Losada and Dr. Emily Heaphy, it can take high-performers six pieces of positive feedback to neutralize the self-esteem impact of a single negative piece of feedback. Our people need to hear hard things, but we don’t want them feeling beaten down by them; we want them empowered to take constructive action moving forward. As you look for opportunities to share positive feedback, harken back to the SBIR framework: Telling your people how they nailed it in that meeting and the impact of their great performance is so much more meaningful than a “Great job today!!!” text.
Remember, we can all give feedback just as well (if not better) than a six-year-old. It’s our job to both develop our employees and ensure their work is excellent. If we’re giving effective feedback, those two elements should function as a virtuous cycle, and these three tips are a great place to start.
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