Give and take: The art of useful feedback

How you communicate with your team is critical to how your team thinks, acts and performs. There are techniques to ensure the feedback you give, and take, is treated seriously, especially when delivering negative news.

This Expert’s Playbook features input from successful managers, cognitive psychologists, founders, and professors, explaining how feedback is received, and how it should be given.

“Feedback is not one-size-fits-all. Everybody is different,” says Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, in The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

“Some employees are extremely sensitive to feedback while others have particularly thick skin and often thick skulls. Stylistically, your tone should match the employee’s personality, not your mood. Be direct, but not mean. Don’t be obtuse. If you think somebody’s presentation sucks, don’t say, ‘It’s really good, but could use one more pass to tighten up the conclusion.’ While it may seem harsh, it’s much better to say, ‘I couldn’t follow it and I didn’t understand your point and here are the reasons why.’ Watered-down feedback can be worse than no feedback at all because it’s deceptive and confusing to the recipient. But don’t beat them up or attempt to show your superiority. Doing so will defeat your purpose because when done properly, feedback is a dialogue, not a monologue.”

“The most constructive approach to critical feedback follows from the concept of leader as teacher,” writes business guru Jim Collins in Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.

“When you need to provide corrective or negative guidance, think not of yourself as a critic — or even a boss — but as a guide, mentor, and teacher. The process of critique should be an educational experience that contributes to the further development of the individual.”

“Great feedback givers begin their feedback by asking a question that is short but important”, says cognitive psychologist LeeAnn Renninger, the founder of LifeLabs Learning, in her TED talk, The secret to giving great feedback.

“It lets the brain know that feedback is actually coming. It would be something, for example, like, ‘Do you have five minutes to talk about how that last conversation went’. The second part of the feedback formula is going to be giving your data point. Here, you should name specifically what you saw or heard, and cut out any words that aren’t objective… So for example, instead of saying, ‘You aren’t reliable,’ we would say, ‘You said you’d get that email to me by 11, and I still don’t have it yet.’ Specificity is also important when it comes to positive feedback, and the reason for that is that we want to be able to specify exactly what we want the other person to increase or diminish.

“The third part of the feedback formula is the impact statement. Here, you name exactly how that data point impacted you. So, for example, I might say, ‘Because I didn’t get the message, I was blocked on my work and couldn’t move forward’ … It gives you a sense of purpose and meaning and logic between the points, which is something the brain really craves. 

“The fourth part of the feedback formula is a question. Great feedback givers wrap their feedback message with a question. They’ll ask something like, ‘Well, how do you see it?’ … What it does is it creates commitment rather than just compliance. It makes the conversation no longer be a monologue, but rather becomes a joint problem-solving situation.”

“Managers tend to inflate the feedback they give to their direct reports, particularly when giving bad news,” according to management professors Michael Schaerer and Roderick Swaab in the Harvard Business Review.

“And by presenting subpar performance more positively than they should, managers make it impossible for employees to learn, damaging their careers and, often, the company.”

Their research shows that “many managers deliver inflated feedback unintentionally, and in fact think they’ve been much more clear than is the case … We believe that managers’ assumption that their direct reports understand what they mean is due to a common cognitive bias called the illusion of transparency, in which people are so focused on their own intense feelings and intentions that they overestimate the extent to which their inner worlds come across to others. As a result their words may be too vague to convey their true intent. The illusion of transparency is one of the most common causes of misunderstandings when we communicate with others.”

Why do managers fall prey to the illusion of transparency?

“Because they aren’t sufficiently motivated to consider how their employees will perceive their comments. While of course they want employees to understand what they’re saying, they’re bogged down by multiple demands, especially during the end-of-year period when appraisals usually take place. Stopping to think about whether their feedback is clear doesn’t rise to the top of their mental to-do lists.”

What to do about it?

1. Increase the frequency of feedback

   As a manager, you can augment your annual appraisals with continuous reminders, ongoing training, and structured weekly or monthly ‘pulse checks’ to break the discomfort that may be preventing you from communicating more clearly. 

2. Promote a culture that encourages employees to request more candid feedback from their managers prior to appraisals

   Failing that, firms can institute a formal process obligating them to do so.

3. Use clear language and avoid phrases that could obscure your meaning

   One phrase to avoid, for example, is ‘a real possibility,’ which people interpret as conveying a likelihood of anywhere from 20–80%. Also, ask your employee to paraphrase what you’ve told them to make sure they fully understand your message. 

4. Actively encourage employees to tell you how they see their own performance

   As a manager, ask open-ended questions like, “What am I not seeing here? What may I be overlooking?”

“Very few people are actually good at receiving feedback,” Shane Metcalf, chief culture officer at 15Five, a performance management platform, tells Fast Company.

“Anybody that is good at receiving feedback has probably gone through a process of learning how to actually receive feedback and not just get triggered,” he says.

“Establish expectations … It’s always going to be better received when employees have asked for it, so discuss why it’s important and how it can help them.”

“Recognise that tough love is both the hardest and the most important type of love to give (because it is so rarely welcomed),” writes entrepreneur and business thinker Ray Dalio in Principles: Life and Work.

“The greatest gift you can give someone is the power to be successful. Giving people the opportunity to struggle rather than giving them the things they are struggling for will make them stronger. Compliments are easy to give but they don’t help people stretch. Pointing out someone’s mistakes and weaknesses (so they learn what they need to deal with) is harder and less appreciated, but much more valuable in the long run. Though new employees will come to appreciate what you are doing, it is typically difficult for them to understand it at first; to be effective, you must clearly and repeatedly explain the logic and the caring behind it. Recognise that while most people prefer compliments, accurate criticism is more valuable.” 

“You’ve heard the expression ‘no pain no gain’,” writes Dalio.

“Psychologists have shown that the most powerful personal transformations come from experiencing the pain from mistakes that a person never wants to have again — known as ‘hitting bottom.’ So don’t be hesitant to give people those experiences or have them yourself. While it is important to be clear to people about what they are doing well, it is even more important to point out their weaknesses and have them reflect on them. Problems require more time than things that are going well. They must be identified and understood and addressed, while things that are running smoothly require less attention. Instead of celebrating how great we are, we focus on where we need to improve, which is how we got to be so great.”

“A funny thing about providing feedback — once you start providing your thoughts to others, you will begin receiving their thoughts on you,” writes Anna Carroll, executive coach and author of The Feedback Imperative: How to Give Everyday Feedback to Speed Up Your Team’s Success, in Fast Company.

“It’s a natural human reaction that when you suggest someone can do something better, they will have something for you, as well … You’ve been doing a good job of getting your team members used to frequent feedback. They even like it now, seeing how helpful it is to their success. Now it’s your turn to get used to it, even though you may have been avoiding it … When you ask people to do things differently, you are starting a whole new conversation and a whole new relationship … The fact that you are inviting two-way feedback puts you on a peer- and team member-like level with the other person. This equality sends a soothing signal to your employee’s brain that you are trustworthy. Stirring up feelings of equality and camaraderie has an extremely positive effect on other’s openness to your feedback … The other great thing about encouraging two-way feedback is that both you and a team member are now spinning feedback loops faster and faster. This positive cycle of new information is a good thing when the information is perceived to be valid … As you exchange feedback with each of your team members, everyone takes it seriously, it gets easier, and feedback gets more accurate and more timely. Everyone has some feedback in mind.”

“Since you are trying to cultivate a beneficial feedback culture, it is absolutely essential that you do not insult, demean, or answer with a quick comeback,” says Carroll.

“For every single comment, no matter how critical or challenging, it’s important to preface any response with a thank-you for being courageous and sharing the feedback … When your team members first give you feedback, you may not immediately see the ‘gold nugget’ in their words … What’s important is to show your sincerity in wanting to make changes and to show evidence of the changes as quickly possibly … After your employees have taken the risk to give you feedback, your team members will closely observe whether you have taken their words to heart … If you show everyone that you receive feedback well and can change your behaviour as a result, you will earn a reputation for receptivity that, in turn, will encourage more people to give you constructive feedback.”

Brené Brown has put together a 10 point checklist from her book, Dare to Lead, that you can run through so that you’re in the right mental space to give and receive feedback.

Brené Brown knows she’s ready to give feedback when

1. I’m ready to sit next to you rather than across from you.

2. I’m willing to put the problem in front of us rather than between us (or sliding it toward you).

3. I’m ready to listen, ask questions, and accept that I may not fully understand the issue. 

4. I want to acknowledge what you do well instead of picking apart your mistakes.

5. I recognise your strengths and how you can use them to address your challenges.

6. I can hold you accountable without shaming or blaming you.

7. I’m willing to own my part.

8. I can genuinely thank you for your efforts rather than criticise you for your failings.

9. I can talk about how resolving these challenges will lead to your growth and opportunity.

10. I can model the vulnerability and openness that I expect to see from you.