The Art Of Giving Negative Feedback
You just watched your team member run a meeting, your boss told you it was awful – how are you going to provide that feedback?
It is going to be a difficult discussion.
The team member believed they were doing well and this is going to be a shock.
Something leaders face often – learning the art of giving feedback is the foundation of creating a strong culture.
Here are my thoughts.
The first consideration is who is the feedback difficult for?
You or the person getting the feedback?
This is important because we have our own fears of being uncomfortable and the fear of how people will react.
These are often exaggerated fears and cause us to actually do a terrible job of giving feedback.
We try to soften the message to make it more palatable for us and it becomes convoluted and confusing.
Ultimately it is a poor experience and neither person gains anything.
The person receiving the feedback doesn’t get it and the person giving the feedback feels that they can’t do it again.
Learning to give clear feedback is a skill and overcoming YOUR personal barriers is essential.
I studied medical doctors like oncologists who give bad news all the time to learn the process and art of giving people the most difficult feedback that they will ever receive.
There are two parts.
The first is communicating the news as a starting point.
💬 Be clear and precise. Tell them exactly what they need to know, be factual and do not use opinion, instead discuss actions and impact. For example do not say, your presentation was poor. Instead, explain that you have spoken to some people at the meeting and that they didn’t understand the main message of the presentation.
💬Pause. Give them a few moments to process what they have heard. Silence is necessary for them to have an internal dialogue.
💬Empathise. Explain that you understand this might be hard to accept and perhaps disappointing. Tell them that it is normal and that you are there to help support them
💬Action plan. Explain what is going to happen next. Give them a timeline and an objective so that they have clarity.
After the message is communicated it is time to coach the person on improvement.
Coaching. You can offer support and allow them to self diagnose. You encourage them to find ways to improve and learn and you provide check in points. Make them feel you trust them to get better.
Mentoring. You can provide direction on what to do. Specific advice on how to perform a task to a high standard, with review points. They own the actions, but you provide clear guidance.
Used incorrectly these solutions can be a disaster. Coaching someone who has no idea what good looks like feels unhelpful, nonspecific and frustrates them.
Mentoring someone who is experienced and can find the solutions if given space feels like micromanaging. It creates tension and makes the person feel patronised. It quickly causes them to disengage from the process.