How to be tactfully honest
In my experience, a lot of people are terrible at giving feedback. They either 1) don't give feedback at all, 2) give vague feedback or generic praise or 3) overreact in the moment and give destructive feedback.
Typically, this is to avoid conflict and/ or is based on fear.
If we don't share feedback we have to assume that whatever happened, will happen again. If that's not want you want - you have to intervene to get behaviour change.
It is your responsibility to give feedback - you can't pass it along to someone else who didn't observe the person in action - you need to 'own' your feedback. Everyone deserves feedback - your boss, your peers, stakeholders, direct reports etc.
And if you're someone who wants to get better at your job (most of us!) then you need feedback to know what to work on.
So when we're up against people's fear of confrontation, fear of causing offence, their anger at something going wrong or general apathy (too busy to give feedback) how can we deal with this to get what we need?
Here's 5 ideas to help you give feedback to others:
Be tactful, but honest. Consider what you think they should do differently and how to best phrase it so that they get the message clearly. Jot down some notes in advance so you've got your thoughts straight.
Don't obscure the message!! It's so tempting to give people glowing praise, then constructive feedback and then quickly more glowing praise, to keep them motivated (the proverbial sandwich). Hiding/ obscuring the feedback won't help them or you. You can still give positive feedback too - just sign post it clearly e.g. one that that went really well was 'x', one thing you could do differently is 'y'.
Only share 1-2 pieces of constructive feedback at a time. People won't absorb more information than that, so you need to prioritise the most important changes. Little and often means they can concentrate on incorporating your change ideas one at a time.
Be very specific. Could they have used different words? Which words specifically? Or a different tone? At which point in the meeting? The more granular, the better. Equally important when you're giving praise - if you just say 'great job' they don't know which part was great. Tell them so they can repeat it.
Warn them it's coming - no one likes to be caught by surprise. If you're in the moment say something like 'Is it ok if I share some observations/ feedback?'. People rarely say no and you look polite. They can mentally prepare for the news.
Here's 3 ideas to help you get useful feedback for your own progress:
Ask for it! Many people fear giving feedback and worry about how to deliver it - this means they'll avoid it or wait until the formal appraisal times of year. Ask for it and you'll get it more often.
React well when you get it. Yes, you might feel crushed by the feedback but try to convey your gratitude or your boss/ colleague won't risk it again. Or worse, if you argue and they were just trying to help, again they won't bother next time and your pace of learning will slow significantly.
Ask for details. If they say 'great job', say 'amazing, thank you! Which part do you think went well?' If they're giving you constructive feedback and say something vague like 'you could have more attention to detail' or another favourite 'you just need more experience' call them on it! Ask what specific experience, or what specific details were needed. If you don't understand the feedback you can't act on it.
Being able to build the performance of a team, whilst inspiring and motivating them is an asset of great leadership. It's all of our responsibility to share feedback.
So schedule time this week to share feedback and let me know how you get on.
