How to Give Feedback That Works

You can make your feedback have an impact. If you can avoid provoking a defensive response, you can make a real difference for people. By using a reasonable approach when providing people with performance feedback, you can ensure it has the impact it deserves.

Especially when faced with perceived negative feedback, people tend to react defensively because they take feedback personally and not professionally. This prevents you from helping the person improve their performance. When you provide feedback, be respectful and empathetic. You want to provide feedback in a constructive manner and avoid the person feeling like the feedback is a personal attack.

The following guidelines will help you help people improve their performance through your positive use of feedback. You can make your feedback have an impact.

Effective feedback is specific, not general.

To provide specific feedback, for example, say, “The report that you turned in yesterday was well-written, understandable, and made your points about the budget effectively.” Don’t just say, “Good report.” This statement is too general for the employee to use the information to improve.

One purpose of effective, constructive feedback is to let the individual know the specific behavior you’d like to see more from them. General feedback, like a pat on the back or “Nice work,” makes the employee feel good momentarily but doesn’t reinforce the behavior well.

Useful feedback always focuses on a specific behavior.

You want to identify the behavior needing improvement, not comment on the person or their intentions. “When you participated in a competing conversation during the staff meeting while Mary had the floor, you distracted the other people in attendance. As a result, the people meeting partially missed Mary’s point.”

In another example, “This team thrives on diverse perspectives. To ensure everyone has a chance to voice their opinions, perhaps asking clarifying questions before jumping in with potential solutions is helpful. This approach would allow everyone to participate in the discussion.”

The best feedback is sincerely and honestly provided to help.

Trust this statement. People will know if they are receiving feedback for any other reason. Most people have an internal radar that can easily detect insincerity. Keep this in mind when you offer feedback to have an impact.

Focus on actionable feedback that the individual controls.

You want to provide feedback the person can put to use. For example, “Your presentation was informative, but it would have been even more impactful if you had included actionable next steps for the audience. “Your report is well-written, but more specific data points would have strengthened the analysis.”

Feedback is not helpful if you cannot provide the tools, training, time, or support that the person needs to perform as successfully as you need them to.

Feedback that is requested is more powerful.

Ask permission to provide feedback. Say, “I’d like to give you some feedback about the presentation. Is that okay with you?” This gives the recipient some desirable control over the situation.

Perhaps the recipient might say, “How about tomorrow? I want to think about my performance overnight.”  Or, they might say, “Do you have time now while the presentation is fresh in my mind?” The point is to give them some control over the feedback process, if not the actual feedback.

Provide actionable feedback.

When you share information and specific observations, you provide feedback that an employee might use. For example, “I appreciate that you are using the shared kitchen. Maybe taking a minute to clean up after using it would be helpful to keep it a pleasant space for everyone. This can be as simple as wiping down the counters or putting dishes in the dishwasher.”

More powerfully, don’t include advice unless it was requested. Provide feedback and ask the person what they might do differently. Chances are the person knows what behavior is unacceptable. You are more likely to help them change their approach than if you tell them what to do or how to change.

Provide feedback close to the event.

Whether the feedback is positive or constructive, provide the information as closely tied to the event as possible. Effective feedback is well-timed so employees can easily connect it with their actions. It is not ideal to remember what happened a few days later.

Effective feedback involves what or how something was done, not why.

Asking why a person did what they did is asking people about their personal motivation and provokes defensiveness from the person receiving the feedback. Instead, ask questions like, “What happened?” “How did that happen?” “How can you prevent that outcome in the future?” “How can I have done a better job of helping you?” “What do you need from me in the future?”

Use a feedback loop to ensure the person understood what you communicated.

A feedback loop, such as asking people questions or observing their changed behavior in a similar situation, lets you know that the person understood what you communicated. Set a time to get back together to discuss whether the feedback changed performance and whether additional actions are needed.

Successful feedback is as consistent as possible.

If a person’s actions are great today, they are also great tomorrow. If the policy violation merits disciplinary action, it should always merit disciplinary action—for this individual or any other similarly performing one. Mixed messages produce no results and confuse people.

Tips for Providing the Most Effective Feedback

When you provide feedback to an employee, remember these five tips to make your feedback have an impact.

• Feedback is communication to a person or a team regarding the effect their behavior has on another person, the organization, the customer, the family, or the team.
• Positive feedback involves telling someone about good performance. Make this feedback timely, specific, and frequent.
• Constructive feedback alerts an individual to an area where their performance could improve. It is not criticism. It is descriptive and should always be directed at the actions taken, not the person. For example, “Mary, your communication during your presentation was too in-depth for your audience.
• They needed to hear just the basics, and you shared all the information you had researched.” For effective feedback, you would not say, “Mary, that was a long, boring speech.”
• The main purpose of constructive feedback is to help people understand their performance in relation to expected and/or productive job behavior.
• Recognition for effective performance is a powerful motivator. Most people want to obtain more positive recognition, so recognition fosters appreciated actions.