I am sure we have all been asked this at some point in our working lives? As a leader of others, you have probably used this more of a way of ‘correcting’ the performance of a team member.
If you have been on the receiving end of this question, how do you feel? Do you feel your brain shut down? Do you expect the feedback to be negative? Do you feel defensive? Feedback taps into our emotions – we all want feedback and we all want to be liked.
Leaders and managers are taught that giving feedback is an important part of the ongoing performance management process with their team. A great leader will provide feedback — the right kind, at the right time. It really is an essential tool for any manager, whether in a small business or a large corporation.
However many find using this skill very challenging and daunting – “how do I approach it?”, “what do I say?”, “what happens if they react badly?”. So, sometimes it just never happens.
There are some many feedback models that can used to help with this. Here are just three – but there are many more out there:
B O F F – (Behaviour, Outcome, Feedback, Feelings)
A I D – (Action, Impact, Do)
Feedback Sandwich – (positive feedback/developmental feedback/positive feedback)
As an organisation delivering leadership development workshops for managers, we are often told – “I don’t have time to give feedback” – or “I talk to my team everyday – I don’t need to give feedback”.
There was a recent post on LinkedIn from Fred Kofman (Philosopher and Vice President at Linkedin):
He says there is no such thing as constructive feedback. My response was …really, that counters what we say! Anyway I was intrigued enough to watch the video (it is only about eight minutes) – and it made sense. Fred refers to ‘performance enhancing conversations’ rather than feedback – take a look.
From now on when training managers on the skill of giving feedback, I will be emphasising the need not to start the conversation with “Can I give you some feedback?”
