Don’t give feedback to someone without these 3 things

Whether you are a manager or an employee , there are times when providing feedback to someone is necessary. May be its your job to regularly provide feedback or maybe someone is not behaving appropriately with you or someone explicitly asked you to provide feedback .

But how do you provide feedback when you are new to the process or not good at it ? If it makes you feel uncomfortable or makes you sweat , this article is for you . We will go through the tips on the content of the feedback first , then talk about how to deliver the message and the most important of all , how to ensure the feedback is actionable.

1. Content of the feedback

Whether it is a direct observation from you or feedback collected from someone else , there are 2 critical pieces of information that are necessary in the content of the feedback.

a. Specific observation points in a context , within a bounded time frame: This could be behavior exhibited in a particular situation , skills demonstrated in a particular project assignment or lack of skills during a particular time period of observation. This needs to be very specific and not vague .

For example : It doesn’t help to say , you are weak in your communication ; instead more meaningful message would be , “when you gave a presentation in our team meeting last month , half of the room had to repeatedly ask you questions to get to your intent. You need to improve your communication to get to the point that you are trying to say precisely “ .

b. What kind of impact it had: Another mandatory information in the feedback is the impact certain behaviors or skills had on the project , fellow team members, stakeholders , business or customers . This could be a positive or negative impact.

In the example above , this would look like , “ the team meeting was unproductive as a lot of time was wasted for those in the room “.

Another example would be “When you released faulty code to production, it resulted in the customers seeing a misleading message , making them call our call centers and causing impacts to agent productivity and customer experience “.

2. Delivering the feedback

As important is the content of the feedback , delivering the feedback right is equally important. This is where the even the experienced , can strike the chord negatively.

a. Deliver a rounded message : Remember , you are not just there to talk about areas of improvement or it make someone look bad . Dont forget to call out positive observations.

b. Dont beat around the bush or sugar coat the message: So as to not waste anyone’s time and to make sure the feedback is registered , come to the point soon. Sugar coating a message can have the effects of missing the emphasis on the actual feedback.

c. Be empathetic but keep your other emotions out of it : We are all human at the end of the day , and humans have emotions ,let’s not forget that. So listen, spend time and genuinely care about the other person’s emotions. Also, while delivering feedback, watch out for unprofessional behavior in your expressions or body language or tone.

d. Timing is important : Feedback needs to be timely to have the best effect. It needs to be ongoing . Don’t save the feedback for year end , a lot of damage could have happened by then.

e. Own your feedback : Your feedback is yours, not your managers, not your colleagues, its yours. Dont put the blame on someone else just to get by the situation.

3. Make the feedback actionable

Ask yourself a question when you are about to give feedback to someone , What is the purpose of it ? If the answer is that, you want the recipient of the feedback to course correct their behavior or skills and show improvement, then make the feedback actionable as well .

a. Suggest relevant training or courses to take or a coach who can help

b. Give them opportunities to demonstrate progress

c. Make the action items time bound

d. Regularly measure progress

Hopefully this article has provided some guidance around what and how of delivering feedback to someone. If you are the one receiving feedback and don’t have clarity on the feedback that was handed to you , ask for the above details .

Remember, feedback is extremely valuable for ones personal growth and emotional wellbeing . Preparing , Delivering and measuring it right can really transform individuals . Don’t do it half baked , without clarity or just for the sake of checking the box .