Suck at giving feedbacks?
5 techniques to get you started with anyone.
“Feedback is not really for me, I don't want to criticize others”
Did you know that 65% of employees claim they want more feedback? (According to OfficeVibe).
So no, feedback isn’t exclusively for manager-talent relationship.
It concerns your colleagues, your team, your boss, your CEO… pretty much everyone is welcoming genuine feedbacks.
Did you know that the ideal praise-to-criticism ratio is 5:1? (According to this study).
So yes, feedback is more often positive than negative.
If you care about your professional relationships and career development, let’s unwrap 5 techniques that can help you get started easily.
The OREO: your guiding principles
It stands for:
Open: providing a feedback is not one way, it’s a conversation. Your goal is to improve a situation, avoid something bad from happening again, clarify a previous conversation. You want to create a framework resulting in a positive outcome.
Regular: following the previous principle, feedbacks (both giving and receiving) are part of a journey and an on-going professional relationship. It requires followup, checkpoints.
Empathic: genuine feedbacks, that’s all that matters. Your feedback might not be perfectly built but if your intentions are pure, it will have more impact.
Observable: you want to have data-driven feedbacks, based on repeated observations. Otherwise, it’s a feeling, a preference. It’s also key so that the person you are giving the feedback to can relate to the situation, understand it.
The EDGE: a simple tool to build your structure
It stands for:
Explain: the situation. Summarize what happened, both good or bad. You essentially lay out the situation. Stick to the facts.
Describe: the impact. What was the impact on you, a deal, on others…? Then, suggest how the situation could have been handled differently, what should be done next time. It’s important to highlight what was positive as well.
Give: the other person floor. Again, this is a conversation. You now want to actively listen, eventually ask questions to clarify. It is vital to stay open because the other person might have additional information that you were not aware of.
End positively: try to adopt a collaborative approach and end the conversation with learnings, next steps, followups if necessary.
The F.B.I.: a more personal, human-to-human alternative structure
It is specially interesting when you provide a feedback based on recent behaviours and/or specific actions, not performances.
It stands for:
Feeling: how did you feel when someone acted in a certain way? What emotions did that triggered in you? Are you disappointed, sad, angry, concerned…?
Behaviour: what was the specific action or a set of repetitive actions that caused this feeling? Try to be as precise as possible.
Impact: what are the consequences of such actions? Does it impact your relationship? The company? The culture?
Here’s an example:
“I’m frustrated because you didn’t give me feedback yesterday like I asked. It is difficult for me to continue with the project without proper feedback about the work I’ve done so far and this made me feel like my effort is not valuable.”
The SANDWICH: a common mistake to avoid when delivering your feedbacks
Truth be told, providing a feedback is not always comfortable and when we lack practice, we tend to sandwich our feedbacks:
We start with some positive observations, then we share a negative feedback and we quickly jump into more positive feedbacks.
It’s quite reinsuring to do so.
At least you have given the constructive feedback.. right?
Well, doing so is absolutely counterproductive because the other person will focus on the positive and you haven’t really engaged in a deeper conversation.
That’s why it’s recommended to provide a few positive feedbacks first, and then move on your constructive feedback. Take the time to unwrap this challenge, have a conversation and setup next steps.
The CURVE: it’s not about you, it’s about your coachee readiness and learning curve.
You want to think about how you are going to deliver your feedback, according to the situation. Should you tell? Should you convince? Should you collaborate? Should you delegate?
It pretty much depends on the other person journey.
You might want to tell (S1) when it comes to new joiners but it might me counterproductive with a more senior colleague. (S3 might be a better approach here).
Simply put, an effective feedback consists of two things:
Your level of preparation
Your understanding of the other person situation