10 Simple & Effective Tips For Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is one of the most important tools leaders have to support and improve their teams.

However, not all feedback is created equal.

When feedback is delivered badly, it can be much less effective and people will start to dread receiving it.

And if you feel uncomfortable giving feedback (like many thoughtful leaders) then you’ll start to avoid providing feedback too!

In this post, I’m going to look at 10 simple and effective tips that will help you give more useful feedback to help your team.

Why is Giving Feedback So Important?

Feedback is critical for people to improve.

A big part of leadership is helping people grow, and to do that, they need to know where they need to get better.

Without giving feedback, there is a chance that your people will:

• Be unaware of where they need to improve
• Try to improve the wrong things
• Keep making the same mistakes
• Think they’re doing a great job… when maybe they aren’t; or
• Have no idea how they are performing, leading to reduced motivation.

All of these things can damage the functioning of your team, which is why feedback really matters.

But it’s not just any feedback… we want to give useful feedback.

Why is Giving Feedback Difficult for Thoughtful Leaders?

Giving people feedback can feel quite confrontational, especially if you are a people-focused, introverted, thoughtful leader.

You want to help people, and it doesn’t feel very helpful telling someone they’re not doing things right.

You may also feel like a bit of an imposter.

“Who am I to give this feedback? I’m not perfect either”

But giving feedback is not about being perfect before you feel justified in opening your mouth.

It’s simply about providing people with an opportunity to improve, so they can deliver what you need from them, and get better at the same time.

Giving feedback can also feel quite awkward, as you worry about what the other person’s reaction might be.

Hopefully the 10 tips here can help you to feel more confident about providing feedback, and help you deliver it in a way that will make it effective, and better to receive!

So let’s get into them right now.

1. When Giving Feedback, Use Specific Examples

You can improve your feedback by using examples where you observed an issue or positive event and mentioning it specifically and directly.

There is no value in telling a team member “You need to work better with your colleagues” if you don’t have any specific examples that you can use to describe why this is the case.

It would be much better to say something like:

“I noticed when you were meeting with Bob that you dismissed his ideas.

This may mean he doesn’t contribute as much in the future, so can we talk about how we could improve this for next time?”

Without being specific, your feedback can easily be ignored because people can question whether it is really valid.

2. When Giving Feedback, Use the Company Values or Your Team Purpose

Sometimes you’ll come across situations where you feel that someone’s behaviour was inappropriate.

Your company values or a team purpose can be a useful reference point for your feedback.

For example, if one of your company values is “Teamwork”, then you may be able to use this as a way to provide feedback about behaviour that goes against teamwork.

For more about why a Team Purpose is important, read this post: Don’t Have a Clear Team Purpose? Here’s Why You Need One.

Company values or a team purpose can be a good reference point for identifying behaviour that is unwanted and specifically drawing attention to it.

3. When Providing Feedback, Avoid the Compliment Sandwich

You’ve probably heard of the compliment sandwich, where negative feedback is provided between two pieces of good feedback.

“That was a great presentation you gave yesterday, well done.”

“You haven’t hit your sales targets for the last quarter and this is a big problem.”

“That’s a great shirt you have on today, where did you get it?”

While this might seem strange, it actually happens quite frequently. People often feel awkward giving people constructive feedback, so they try to soften the blow by saying something nice at the same time.

This is less effective because you are mixing positive and negative points. Your team member might leave the meeting feeling quite confused and not really understand that there’s a problem.

Don’t dilute your feedback with a compliment sandwich.

4. When Giving Feedback, Don’t Act on Hearsay

In some workplaces, informal feedback about other teams and people (yes, gossip!) is common. When you’re working in this environment, it’s important to attempt to check any hearsay before you pass it onto anybody.

If you are unable to verify your feedback it might be wise not to say anything, because it could be someone simply playing politics to get what they want.

In other words, be very careful if you are using somebody else’s information when giving feedback to a team member, if you haven’t observed the specific action or behaviour for yourself.

5. When Providing Feedback, Verify it With Others

If you’re in a team where you don’t always work closely with every team member, it’s important to build relationships with the people who do.

For example, you may lead a team of people who work closely with other business areas, so they are out and about for a lot of the time.

You can’t see their behaviour directly, so you need to find ways to monitor their performance.

Otherwise, you won’t be giving accurate feedback.

You’ll just be playing a guessing game based on your own limited experiences.

This makes the feedback less relevant, and potentially harmful.

6. When Giving Feedback, Make Sure They Can Act on it

There is no point giving feedback that has no outcome. You need to ensure that the feedback receiver knows how they can take steps to improve.

A tool that can help with this is the SBI-BI model, which stands for Situation, Behaviour, Impact.

First, you discuss the specific situation that occurred, and you let the person know the behaviour that caused the problem. Then you include how this behaviour negatively impacted or caused the situation.

Next, you can have a discussion about how an alternative behaviour could have been used instead, to create a more positive impact.

It’s a simple model which can really help frame the conversation and result in a constructive outcome.

This structured approach will help you to provide better feedback, and give people something to work on for next time.

7. Always Consider the Good and the Bad

Some people only ever deliver bad feedback.

They miss all the opportunities for giving positive feedback, saying “Well, that’s just called doing your job”.

It’s important to find opportunities to give positive feedback where you can.

Otherwise, you run the risk of being a leader who only speaks to your team when something bad has happened.

This is likely to make the whole feedback exercise into a stressful encounter for your team members.

8. When Providing Feedback, Be Honest

Say what you mean.

Don’t dance around the issue or fail to deliver bad feedback. People need feedback to improve and to understand how others are perceiving them.

It’s definitely harder to deliver bad feedback to people more senior than you, but I’ve managed to do it successfully from time to time. The key is to appear constructive rather than spiteful.

Remember that your other team members are relying on you to address performance issues in your team, so don’t avoid giving feedback, or you might just make your team issues worse.

Learn More:  Is It Picking Your Battles or Just Avoidance?

9. When Giving Feedback, Stick to the Point

When you’re giving feedback, make sure that it is clear to the other person that this is the purpose of the discussion.

If you deliver constructive feedback, be prepared for an uncomfortable situation, as some people don’t respond favourably to negative reviews.

It’s OK to frame the situation by saying something like “I have something difficult to discuss with you.” Then, at least the other person can be a little prepared for what is coming.

But also make sure you tell the other person what you aim to achieve from providing the feedback. If you have positive intentions, then giving feedback should be a little easier.

So don’t waffle and talk about the weather.

Get to the point, so you can give the feedback quickly and focus the discussion on what you can improve for next time.

10. When Giving Feedback, Make It Timely

Don’t wait until it’s too late for your team to act on your feedback. As soon as you are aware of it, you should really deliver it.

I’ve seen situations where people didn’t know there was an issue until it came to performance review time, which might only happen once a year.

Surprise!

This gives your team members a chance to improve their performance, rather than having no idea and hearing about it months later.

This is the same with positive feedback. If you hold onto it for too long, the person may not even have known they were doing well.

Providing Feedback Can Be Difficult, But it’s Worth it

Many leaders avoid giving feedback because it feels uncomfortable.

But unless you provide it, it’s very hard to hold people accountable, because they may not really be aware of where they’re going wrong.

Hopefully these tips can help you to give better feedback, so you can help your team work more effectively, and your people can grow at the same time.

Remember that the short-term discomfort of having a feedback conversation can provide long-term gain.

What are your tips for giving feedback? Let me and all the other thoughtful leaders know in the comments below!