How do you give feedback?

Giving feedback is an inescapable responsibility of leaders, managers, coaches, and facilitators. Used skilfully, it can promote growth and development of the receiver. Used unskilfully, it can trigger defensiveness, anxiety, and drop in performance. So how can we offer feedback effectively?

Before I offer feedback, I like to keep three principles in mind: Encourage, Educate, Empower. Asking myself the following questions helps me apply these principles.

Encourage: Will what I am about to communicate encourage the receiver to keep an open mind? Will it put him in a positive frame of mind? Will it make him feel confident and capable?

Educate: Will it reveal blind spots that she was not aware of? Will it make her aware of strengths she did not know she possessed? Will it make her aware of potential areas of improvement to keep growing?

Empower: Will it prompt him to think for himself and find his own way forward?

Following are some specific actions I try to take, to ensure alignment with the above three principles.

Encourage:

• If possible, wait for the receiver to seek feedback before offering it
• Establish trust and connection. Feedback will be wasted if the receiver does not trust your intentions and consider you credible. Establishing trust and connection starts from the very first time you communicate with the person, not simply when you offer feedback.
• Start with some positive comments.
• Consider the sandwich method: Start with positive comments, then some corrective suggestions, and end again with some positive comments
• Describe content or behaviour, not the person
• Take into account the capacity of the receiver to receive corrective feedback

Educate:

• Suggest some potential areas of improvement
• Be specific in the feedback; avoid general, overarching comments (e.g. "You did great" or "You did pretty poorly". Such statements do not inform the receiver what she did that made her performance great or poor).

Empower:

• Ask questions instead of making statements. E.g., What are three things you think you did well? What can you improve? What is one thing you can do differently next time?
• Clarify that my feedback is primarily based my subjective perception and not an objective truth. So finally the receiver has to decide which of my comments are meaningful
• Ensure that my tone of voice and body language clearly indicates that the final decision whether to accept my feedback is up to the receiver.

How do you offer feedback? How would you like to?