How to Give Feedback
Posted July 3rd, 2017
As a manager, you want to be open and honest with your workers. You want to give them ongoing feedback on their performance, something workers want as well. But giving feedback can be tricky because it involves a balance. You want to point out where someone needs improvement, but if you are too critical, you may end up hurting morale rather than helping it.
There are different kinds of feedback. There is negative feedback, providing examples where a person has not performed up to expectations and needs to improve. There is positive feedback, pointing out where the person has performed well and to keep up the good work. There is also feedback that is called negative feedforward. This is where the manager points out deficiencies or substandard performance that should not be repeated in the future. There is also positive feedforward, praise for behavior that you want repeated in the future.
When giving feedback, you want to balance the negative with the positive. You want to explain to workers what they did well, what they did not do well, and how they can move forward and avoid negative behaviors.
Here are a few things to do when giving feedback.
1. Keep it factual, not emotional.
When giving feedback, you want to deliver it in a calm, deliberate manner, focusing on facts, and avoiding any emotional outbursts.
2. Focus on the person’s performance, not the person himself.
You may have workers whose personality just rubs you the wrong way. Even so, you cannot let a person’s personality or character cloud your judgment when giving feedback. You need to stick to what the person has done, not who they are.
Make sure the feedback is about specific things in the person’s performance.
3. Balance the feedback.
Make sure it is not all negative. Balance the negative with the positive, and make sure to emphasize those good things you would like to see more of in the future. Here it is good to use the 70-30 rule – if you are giving 70 percent negative feedback, you need to balance it with 30 percent positive feedback.
4. Give instructions for improvement.
You cannot simply tell your worker what they did wrong. You must also tell them how they can improve, what specific things they can do to enhance their performance.
5. Have a conversation
Feedback is not just lecturing. You want to let your people know you care about them and their performance, and you want them to do well. You need to have a meaningful conversation about their performance and how they can improve.
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