As Leaders, we often have to give feedback to our direct reports on negative behaviour that needs to change. Research has shown that up to 95% of Leaders find it uncomfortable to give constructive feedback, due to fear of how it might be perceived by the team member.
Imagine your manager calls you and says, “Please come into my office. I have some feedback to give you.” Your first reaction is not likely to be, “Great”. In fact, the first instant reaction we usually get, would be, ‘What have I done wrong’?
Knowing how to give feedback in a non-judgmental and less intimidating way, that will encourage the team member to want to change the behaviour, requires feedback skills, of which we all can learn when we follow these steps.
Steps on how to give feedback
- Ask for permission to offer the feedback
- Stick to facts
- Don’t interpret these facts
- Describe the impact of the observed behaviour on you
- Link it with the team members’s goals
- Ask for the team member’s view on what you observed
1 . Ask for permission
This ensures that the team member has bought in to listening in the first place and is prepared to hear what benefit the feedback has for him/her.
2. Stick to facts not opinions
Only state what was observed. This way you are only ever dealing with the specifics and not the ambiguity of your opinions.
3. Don’t interpret these facts
One of the dangers that most leaders face is the desire to interpret what they see. The problem with this is that we all see the world through our own eyes and our interpretation is a representation of our view not the team member’s. This means that most times your interpretation will, at best, be not quite right and at worst wrong. This will damage the coaching outcomes.
4. Describe the impact on you/ environment/organisation
This allows for you to explain why you’re offering the feedback and, to some extent, offer your opinion through the thought process it created for you.
So, for instance:
“When you consistently come late at important meetings, it makes me wonder how committed you are to this project, your job and the reputation of the organisation.
This is different from interpreting the facts since you are not offering it as a definitive explanation but rather as a feeling it gave you.
5. Link it to the goal
To take this a step further, you need to link it to the conversation since you are offering this feedback and you need to keep it focused on what the team member wants. So, taking the previous phrase on a stage, you might say
“When you consistently come late at these meetings, it makes me wonder how committed you are to the success of this project, your job, the organisation and moreover on your desire to get promotion.”
6. Ask for the team member’s view
So far you have offered a context for the feedback by gaining permission, stating the facts, describing what made you gave the feedback and linking it to the goal. The final and most important step is to allow the team member to respond. So, to take the conversation to the final step:
When you consistently come late at these meetings, it made me wonder how committed you are to the success of this project, your job, the organisation and moreover, your desire to get promotion.
” What are your thoughts on that?
Feedback in this context is objective and clear information offered to the team member to facilitate thought, create change or elicit a new response.
It is not a subjective opinion on the part of the leader offered as fact, but an observation backed up by specific instances. This is key.
Giving feedback is not an excuse for a leader to analyse the team member or become the “expert”.
So, what makes up effective feedback, the coaching way:
− It is based upon an observed event or outcome
− It’s attached to specific instances
− It leads to a question for the team member to consider that leads them to want to change their negative behaviour.
This coaching approach to feedback is designed in a way to take the pressure off leaders to feel uncomfortable to give constructive feedback to team members on negative behaviour that needs to change. It is non-judgmental and non intimidating. It leaves the team member with the question to consider the impact of the negative behaviour on their performance and the organisation.
