Developing a feedback culture - Part 2: "How to give feedback"
How feedback is given and received plays a crucial role for how effective it will be. Neither of the two is trivial, so if you're serious about improving the feedback culture in your working environment you'll want to learn at least some fundamentals. In this article I'll focus on the 'giving side'.
If you search the web and the literature you'll find a vast amount of information on how to give feedback. Popular methods like e.g. the (in)famous feedback sandwich, the AID, GROW and SBI models and Rosenberg's non-violent communication are described in countless books and articles. And the number of variations and mixtures of those is even greater. All of these models are built around valuable concepts worth knowing about, and I recommend you familiarize yourself with at least a few of them. Instead of recommending a specific method here however, I'd like to share a few ideas that I found to be essential in any case.
Be authentic
Whichever methodolgy you choose, please make sure not to apply it mechanically as a one-size-fits-all solution. If your colleagues become aware that a technique is being applied to them, that you are basically copying your words from a book, your feedback will loose a lot of it's impact. It may even spark reflexive resistance and thus turn out counterproductive.
My general recommendation here is to use the parts of each model that you understand and that resonate with you and leave everything else aside. Treat those parts as tools that you have in your toolbox and apply the one that you feel most comfortable with in the respective situation. Use your own words instead of pre-defined phrases. In my experience authentic feedback delivered in a suboptimal way is still much more powerful than perfect words that leave your colleagues guessing which of your statements are actually genuine.
Be honest
As Adam Grant phrased it in a tweet recently: "Tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear."1. You need to mean what you say and how you say it, otherwise your feedback will never unfold it's full potential. That of course doesn't mean that you shouldn't think about how you bring your feedback across: please be polite, be constructive, be mindful of your colleagues' feelings. But say what you think.
One great advantage of having multiple techniques at hand is that you can adapt to the person you're giving feedback to. Some of your colleagues - especially when they're not used to open feedback - might need reassurance first that you value and appreciate them and the work they do. So some form of the feedback sandwich might be a good choice here. Others (like me) like the message to be open and straightforward and would probably be annoyed by any additional sugarcoating. If you don't know your colleague well enough yet, it's probably best if you play it safe and start out with mostly positive feedback and only a little criticism at the end. See how they react and adjust your communication over time.
But once again: be honest and say what you think.
It's all about improvement
The goal of critical feedback should always be to create an opportunity for improvement, be it the professional development of your colleague, the collaboration within the team or the general atmosphere in the company. It should not just serve to make you appear superior or to lower your own stress level by venting. Try to center your communication around this goal and encourage a dialogue. Keep in mind that your perspective is always subjective and give your colleague the chance to share theirs. By doing so you make it much easier for your counterpart to digest criticism and you increase the chances that your feedback is really understood and taken into consideration.
In person
If at all possible you should give your feedback in person. Delegating it to someone else or writing an email can easily seem cowardly or disrespectful. It also prevents a true dialogue from the start. In any case feedback transported like this is much less likely to be accepted and reflected upon.
Now, this might seem obvious. However, to my knowledge it is still common practice that supervisors ask the peers of an employee for (written) feedback in preparation of e.g. an annual performance review. By doing so they are actually encouraging people to delegate their feedback, sometimes even anonymously.
Please don't do this. Share your thoughts with your colleagues directly and encourage everyone else to do the same.
Give feedback regularly
All feedback models that I've come across so far agree that one of the most important aspects of valuable feedback is that it has to be timely. That is not to say that a reaction has to always come immediately. Sometimes it may be more helpful to sort out the concrete situation first and let emotions cool down before talking about it. But it should definitely be a matter of days, not weeks or even months (so much for anual appraisal meetings as the only form of feedback).
Scheduling regular slots and adhering to them is in my experience the easiest way to get into the habit of giving feedback frequently and timely. It also avoids the otherwise sometimes awkward 'We need to talk' situations when there actually is a bigger issue to discuss.
Finally, like everything else, feedback needs practice and the more often you do it, the better you'll become at it.
With all that said, let me encourage you once more to go and read about the various models for giving good feedback. Internalize and practice the ones that make sense to you and develop your own feedback style from there.
I hope the read was worth your time. In the next article I'll take a look at the other side: how to receive feedback.