PRACTICE 4 CREATE A CULTURE OF FEEDBACK

In college, I was one of the highest-tipped waiters at the Sunset Grill in Winter Park, Florida. I developed a system for delivering the absolute fastest service. Because I’ve always had a pretty good memory, I’d simply take my tables’ orders without notes, race back to the kitchen, and let the cooks know exactly what I needed… ahead of everyone else.

With this speedy—albeit somewhat selfish—system, my tables were enjoying their desserts when other customers were still waiting for their soup. In the restaurant business, it’s all about turning over the tables. My customers loved me, and I had the tips to prove it. But every time I exited the kitchen, I left chaos in my wake.

Eventually, one of my friends, a fellow waiter, was promoted to manager. One day he was serving fettuccine Alfredo with the rest of us; the next day he was our boss.

The first item on his managerial to-do list was to crack down on my chaos. I viscerally remember the moment he sat me down after the last customer had cleared out, and said, “Scott, I need to see a marked improvement in your teamwork.” Then he took out an index card, wrote down what he’d just said word for word, and handed me the card.

I was shocked. I thought, “Who the hell do you think you are? You were my buddy three days ago, and now you want to see a ‘marked’ improvement?”

How many of us can remember the exact moment we received some difficult feedback? I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that feedback is often traumatic, for both the giver and the receiver. And yet Dr. Stephen R. Covey wrote, “One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is constructive feedback on a blind spot they never knew they had. It’s a great disservice not to say what needs to be said just because it isn’t comfortable. Care enough to give honest, accurate feedback.”

Now I can appreciate that my restaurant manager had the courage to tell it to me straight. He had the right intention, but the skills in this chapter would have helped him deliver sensitive feedback without an index card.

As a leader, your job is to summon the courage and consideration to provide actionable, specific, and sometimes tough feedback to your employees. It’s an art, not a science, and it’s learned through repetition. It isn’t just a nice-to-have skill; if you want to be an effective leader, you must learn to do this. Taking it a step further, we believe you don’t have the right to be a leader if you’re not willing to step out of your comfort zone and provide people with feedback.

When it comes to giving feedback, there are two extremes:

• Too much courage. This type of boss has no problem telling anybody what they think. I have fallen into this camp, and I may have even given too much feedback, too harshly, too often.
• Too much consideration. For this other type of person, the thought of giving someone tough feedback makes them want to throw up. So they avoid it entirely, and the problems not only persist, but grow.

Both extremes of the spectrum do their teams a disservice. With too much courage and not enough consideration, I might destroy someone’s self-esteem or confidence. I don’t know when to stop. I never set out to harm people, but I deliver brutally honest feedback and let the person deal with it the best they know how.

But just as damaging is too much consideration and no courage, where the leader unintentionally abandons their team. By not giving feedback at all or being too vague, they’re reinforcing employees’ weaknesses. The team members keep falling into the same traps that hinder their performance and growth. Failing to give feedback also damages the team’s perception of the boss. If you seem to be ignoring a challenging or difficult issue, the team may see you as weak and lose confidence in your abilities.

I find that your amount of courage and consideration is situational, depending on the relationship. How long have you been managing them? Are you intimidated by the person? How mature are they? Perhaps they’re older and more experienced than you. Some team members are more difficult to provide feedback to; others are more receptive to coaching.

Do you have a natural tendency: too much courage or too much consideration? Does it vary depending on the relationship?

It’s a balance. You ideally want to be high in both courage and consideration in every situation and relationship.

—VICTORIA

Whatever our natural tendency, it’s up to us to find the right balance.

The common manager mindset is to think of yourself as “the fixer”: your team has problems, so you think it’s your job to point out what they are doing wrong through feedback. In contrast, the effective mindset is all about unleashing the potential in others—including yourself, when you seek feedback.

Giving feedback comes down to motives. Your team has to know your intent is to help them develop their skills and talents. They have to feel secure and safe with you. And that doesn’t happen overnight; you have to build a reservoir of trust.

Leaders provide feedback to help people see what they are not seeing. In my experience, most people (including me, perhaps even you) aren’t naturally self-aware. Your team members’ previous managers might not have called out what the team needed to work on in a way that built them up.

As a leader, you have blind spots too. Part of this mindset shift is being willing to let go of your ego and seek feedback from your team. This not only models the skills you want your team to practice, but helps you improve while creating a sense of safety around giving and receiving feedback.

People regard feedback differently based on their individual experiences, but some universal principles apply to almost everyone. Feedback matters just as much to a young employee working her first job out of college as it does to the thirty-year veteran starting to think about retirement. As you master giving and receiving feedback through practice, you’ll get to a place where you can use your natural instincts to grow a culture in which constructive, well-intended thoughts flow freely in both directions. Everyone feels heard and respected, and performance and productivity blossom.

SKILL 1: GIVE REINFORCING FEEDBACK

Everybody wants to be valued. And you can help communicate that through reinforcing feedback.

Reinforcing feedback shouldn’t be routine or formulaic. Simply be mindful of this question: “Am I reinforcing and praising the right performance at the right time for the right people?”

I’m specifically using the term “reinforcing feedback” instead of “positive feedback” to avoid just a pat on the back, a “You’re awesome! Way to go! You’re the best.” That type of feedback is encouraging but doesn’t provide specific enough information about what the person did well. Reinforcing feedback clearly communicates that a team member’s behavior, attitude, or work is outstanding, and that they should keep it up. It can influence behavior change and increase engagement.

Reinforcing feedback has many purposes:

• To affirm a team member’s method of solving a problem and let them know that they should keep doing it. “When you reorganized the data-gathering process, you simplified a confusing and frustrating system. Let me know if you see other opportunities to do that.”
• To instill confidence in someone stretching their capacity or working on something unfamiliar. “I know you were nervous about taking on the benefits project, but I want you to know how impressed I am with your ability to get answers and figure out what you didn’t know.”
• To encourage a more positive culture where people don’t feel taken for granted. “Before we move on to your next project, I wanted to make sure you know how much I appreciated your extra effort on the last project.”
• To reassure someone developing a new skill that they’re making progress. “I know you may be feeling like you’re in over your head with this project, but I’m confident from what I’ve seen so far that you are headed in the right direction and will make this work.”
• To help a new team member feel recognized and appreciated. “In the few short weeks you’ve been on the team, we have all been so impressed with the difference you are making. Your willingness and courage to diplomatically ask why we are doing things a certain way has us rethinking some old processes.”
• To reinforce and point out a skill or a talent that the individual may have not noticed themself. “Yesterday when you greeted the guests at the door rather than waiting for them to reach the reception desk, you made a difference in a noticeable service you provided them. I could see just how welcomed you made them feel.”

High-performing teams are nearly six times more likely to share reinforcing feedback than average teams, according to behavioral scientists Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy. They also discovered that low-performing teams share nearly twice as much negative feedback as average-performing teams.^I Reinforcing feedback is a performance-enhancing substance that’s not addictive and costs nothing.

HOW TO GIVE REINFORCING FEEDBACK

Studies show that while most managers think they give enough reinforcing feedback, most employees feel like they don’t get enough. Consider these best practices for giving reinforcing feedback:

Find the right frequency and format. Praise is like champagne: delicious in the right context, but too much on an empty stomach and you’re going to regret it. Your job instead is to notice and learn how people prefer reinforcing feedback: through email, in private, verbally, during your 1-on-1s, in public during a team meeting, to their peers, to your boss—and how often. Some people might be embarrassed by public praise; others love nothing more than looking good in the eyes of their peers. There’s nothing wrong with either of these—and it’s easy to accommodate.

Each member of your team will have different preferences. You might give reinforcing feedback to certain team members more frequently, if that’s what especially motivates them. Be careful not to assume they have the same preference as you. The idea is to use feedback to reinforce good behavior and create a culture where it’s welcome.

Praise specific behavior and describe the impact on the team, goals, or project. “Great job” isn’t instructive. Help your employees know exactly what they did right so they know what to keep doing. Reinforcing feedback is even more effective when you include details about the impact of the behavior. For example, “The report you developed was phenomenal. You included data from all seven divisions, which showed that our team isn’t playing favorites.”

Connect the behavior to their intrinsic motivation. During your regular 1-on-1s, you’ve hopefully uncovered what motivates your team members and revealed their vision for long-term development. Show how their good work is helping them get there. For example, if someone wants to be promoted down the line, link their behavior to their career goals. “You were so confident presenting in last week’s team meeting. Looks like your efforts to become a better public speaker are really paying off,” or “You showed a lot of patience mentoring our new team hire. I can see you’ve been working on your leadership skills.”

Listen carefully to people’s response. Praise makes some people uncomfortable, and your team members’ responses to reinforcing feedback might give you clues about who could use additional encouragement and confidence building. Listen for these three common responses:

• Accepting praise: “Thanks, I spent a lot of time simplifying the executive summary, and it’s nice to hear that it helped you in the meeting.” The recipient indicates that they understood the specific behavior and the impact.
• Deflecting praise: “It was actually Carl’s idea to rewrite the executive summary, not mine.” Help your team member take credit by acknowledging the deflection and pointing out their contribution and reiterating the impact. Let them know that it’s okay to acknowledge that they did good work.
• Negating praise: “It’s a miracle it even turned out halfway decent.” This might indicate a deeper issue. Ask open-ended questions to identify insecurities or other concerns.

Make up for the sparse feedback many remote team members receive. If you’re managing remote employees, they might be starved for feedback. Go out of your way to acknowledge their good work even more frequently than you do with your onsite team. You could even deliver some reinforcing feedback via a group email to help those working remotely feel appreciated and connected. Keep the team feeling like a team.

Giving reinforcing feedback is one of the more enjoyable leadership responsibilities. Go ahead and pop that champagne.

A colleague at our organization works remotely and does a great job, but she’s been feeling very disconnected from the rest of the team. Her bosses don’t know as much about her as they do about the people they see in person. I was made aware of this, so I contacted her managers to get feedback on what she does well, where she could improve, and so on. Well, I must have made a strong impression about her feeling disconnected and not getting feedback, because several of those bosses called her and poured on the reinforcing feedback. It was sincere, but it was so out of context that she texted me, “I haven’t had a compliment for two years, and now I get four days of nonstop compliments? What’s going on?” It was a lesson in the importance of giving consistent reinforcing feedback.

—TODD

SKILL 2: GIVE REDIRECTING FEEDBACK

During my time at Disney, my boss’s style was to never let the team know where they stood. It was frustrating… even paralyzing. I remember lying awake nearly every night, wondering if I was going to get fired the next day.

From that experience, I decided I never wanted my team to guess where they stood with me. Unfortunately, I went a little overboard, despite having good intentions. For my first decade as a manager, my strategy was to give feedback straight: You need to speak up. You need to learn to spell. You need to work on your hygiene. I would give feedback the same way from one team member to another, regardless of their personality, preferences, or experience—and with little to no emotional maturity. As I mentioned in the mindset section, I went all in on the courage side. (I’ve since learned to deliver feedback in a more considerate and respectful way.)

Redirecting feedback is what has historically been called critical or negative feedback. However, it’s easy to see how weighted that word is. It implies all sorts of thoughts that can make individual contributors break out in a cold sweat: judgment, not being good enough, letting the team down, failure, punishment, even termination.

Too often, redirecting feedback is delivered only during annual reviews—but then it’s too late for the team member to do anything that might influence a more positive review. No one should be caught off guard; feedback should be given consistently, but not so often that it’s suffocating.

Redirecting communicates that the employee is capable of a stronger performance with some guidance. It’s feedback intended to let someone know that a behavior, an attitude, or a result needs to improve—and you believe it can. But leaders at all levels tell us that giving redirecting feedback is one of the hardest, most stressful parts of their job. If you don’t do it skillfully, you can destroy your relationship with someone and the progress that might have been possible.

Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean you obfuscate, spin, or avoid it. You deliver redirecting feedback because you’re invested in your team. Now you might be thinking, “This person will never change,” but give them the opportunity to adjust and learn. After all, failure is how we all learn. They might just surprise you.

HOW TO GIVE REDIRECTING FEEDBACK

Decide if you should give feedback. Here are a few instances where redirecting feedback is a no-brainer:

• If a team member’s behavior is a serious infraction or has immediate, substantial, and recurring negative consequences.
• If you believe the team member isn’t likely to correct the behavior on their own.
• If reinforcing feedback and modeling haven’t worked.
• If the team member genuinely wants a lot of redirecting feedback.
• If the person’s behavior is negatively impacting team performance or morale.
• If the team member has a blind spot and is not aware of their behavior or the impact it has on others.
• If the behavior is an emergency, or threatens the company or the safety of your team. (These issues are beyond the scope of this chapter, but obviously, they should be dealt with immediately in a coordinated effort with your HR department.)

As a new manager, I was asked by a peer to observe her sales calls and give feedback on how she could improve. It was with great enthusiasm that I set out to help her. I noted every little item she could possibly improve. After she finished the meeting, I gave her a list of all twenty ways to change. I obviously overwhelmed her. Only later did I realize that she was actually looking for credit for how well she was conducting her sales calls. She was devastated… and never asked me for feedback again.

While I accidentally created an awful experience for her that day, I learned valuable lessons from my mistake. First, pick the most important things that are within the individual’s power to change, and focus on those. Second, tune in and listen to the individual you are giving feedback to, no matter if they are a manager or a peer. Third, if you are addressing a blind spot, you might need to spend more time and use very specific examples in order to help the person see what you are sharing.

—VICTORIA

You can quickly overwhelm an individual if you ask them to change more than one or two behaviors at a time. No matter how calm and accepting a person is, too much redirecting behavior can be demotivating or make you seem like you’re out to get them.

As a leader, pick your battles. Don’t pummel someone with feedback so that they feel like they aren’t doing anything right. If you’re unsure whether or not to broach the subject, consider these types of issues:

• Is this going to cause them more embarrassment than the benefit of solving it? Is this really that important? Is this going to matter? You might hate their messy desk, but it might not be impacting their results. Consider letting it slide so you can focus on more important issues.
• Have I built enough trust with them? If you’ve only worked with them for a short time, consider waiting until you’ve sufficiently communicated that you’re invested in them and your intent is to help.
• Is the negative behavior a reaction to me as a manager? I once had an employee who would put his head down and doodle whenever he got irritated in a meeting. He made it very clear that he did not want to be involved. I was about to give him feedback, when I realized that he usually checked out as a result of what I had said or done. This won’t apply in all cases, but if, for example, someone isn’t speaking up in meetings, consider if you’re talking the majority of the time or if you might have unintentionally embarrassed them (or shut them down) the last time they suggested an idea.
• Can I fix this with reinforcing feedback? If the individual sometimes models the correct behavior, try instead to offer reinforcing feedback when you see them doing it right.
• Can I fix this by modeling the correct behavior? If you want your team to be on time for meetings or not look at their phones, start by doing this yourself. If that’s the culture you want, model it—and even occasionally exaggerate the behavior.
• Is the person emotionally ready for feedback? If the person is on edge or under a lot of stress, wait for a better time, if possible.
• Is the behavior actually wrong, or is it just different from how I’d do it? If they’re getting the results you want, consider letting them continue in their preferred style.
• Is it just my personal preference? Be especially careful about giving feedback on subjective issues like the way someone dresses, whether they wear earphones while working, etc.
• Is the impact serious enough to justify redirecting feedback? If the impact is small, consider letting it slide. Some managers try to correct every small behavior and create a suffocating atmosphere.

A member of my team was talented, a lot of fun, and a pleasure to work with. But she was also unorganized, which caused her to fall behind and miss deadlines for important deliverables. She was working on a project that she turned in on time. I made a point of acknowledging her performance in an email, with several others copied. I specifically commented on how getting the information when we did made a huge difference in the outcome. I went a little overboard (but in a sincere way) whenever she completed something on time. Eventually, she worked harder and harder at hitting deadlines, and the positive feedback continued from me and from others. While she never became what I would call “extremely organized,” she did start to develop a reputation as someone who followed through and could be counted on.

—TODD

Prepare. Once you’ve determined that a behavior requires redirecting feedback, carefully plan how, when, and where you will share your feedback, and how you will handle the response. Identify the specific behavior you’ve observed and its impact. Omit any judgments of the person’s character and stick to the facts. When you give feedback, remember what it feels like to get feedback. It’s a vulnerable moment for your team member. Be as specific as possible, and remember to exercise a balance of courage and consideration.

Plan what you’ll say so you eliminate ad-libbing, which can take you down a rabbit hole. Try not to become scripted, as you may lose your humanity or authenticity. If you can, role-play the feedback session with a trusted adviser who has insights and deeper experience in this skill. In a redirecting-feedback situation, your direct report might parse every word you say for hidden meaning, so be precise in your language. I never cease to be surprised at how people will recap things I said a decade later, word for word, when I have zero recollection. Words matter, and people remember them, so choose them carefully.

I’ve often found that writing down my feedback prior to delivering it allows me to:

• Assess its accuracy.
• Determine how harsh or sensitive it seems.
• Separate my emotions from the situation.
• Think through specific examples and impact.
• Ensure I’m focused on behaviors and not personality styles.

—VICTORIA

The longer you wait between letting a direct report know you’re going to deliver some feedback and actually giving them feedback, the more tension they’ll feel. You will create unnecessary anxiety by casually saying to a team member, “Hey, I’d like to talk to you about something tomorrow.” Don’t do that. Most people will fixate on all the possible negatives. Keep the interval between “I’d like to share some thoughts with you” and actually sharing the thoughts as brief as possible.

Begin the discussion by stating your intent and priming the team member to listen. Be absolutely clear that your intent is to build the team member up, in an atmosphere of trust. This way, the manager is less a bearer of bad news and more of a coach helping the employee reach their goals. “Before we begin, please know that my only intent is to help you improve on some areas so you can grow.”

When someone feels defensive, hostile, or embarrassed, they have a hard time hearing anything you’re saying. Before the conversation begins, I do anything I can do to reduce defensiveness. That’s where I always begin. I try to avoid the word “feedback,” because it freezes people up. I’ll say, “Hey, I want to share some information with you.” I’ll put myself in their place and let them know I just received helpful insights on something I did last week. “I need to share some tough information with you. I realize that when any of us receives information that’s hard to hear, it’s human nature to feel defensive, at least I know I do. Please know that my only intent as your manager is to help you get better.”

That seems to put us on the same level and lowers their defensiveness, because they think, “He goes through this too. I’m not being singled out.” That opens up their ability to hear and trust what I’m saying.

—TODD

When giving tough feedback, I’ll find that, occasionally, some employees will respond with what I’m doing wrong as a boss. If that’s likely to happen, I say, “I’m going to give you some feedback, and I can only imagine there are some things you’d like to share with me. I’m willing to hear those at a different time, but this meeting is about providing you with feedback.”

Ask the employee what they think about the particular situation. You can save a lot of time and energy by first checking if the person is already aware of their behavior. Consider opening with “How did you think the client event went last week? What do you think went well and what do you think you need to improve next time?” Or in my Sunset Grill manager’s case, maybe, “Hey, Scott, I notice you’re super fast at serving your tables. How do you think things are going with the kitchen and the other waiters?” If they’re aware, it will be easier to give feedback. If they’re not, you will need to spend more time explaining and citing examples. Be careful that the person doesn’t take over the conversation from there—if you have that concern, be very specific about how you phrase that question.

Describe the specific behavior you noticed and its impact. Redirecting feedback is about behavior, not character. What you say should feel neutral and nonjudgmental so the other person doesn’t feel shame or become defensive. You’re keeping it professional, not making it personal. Use terms like “I noticed that…” and be specific about the impact.

I once worked with an employee who kept getting feedback that he was unpleasant to work with. That’s harsh feedback to begin with, but to make things worse, he didn’t know how to fix it. No one told him the specific behaviors he could work on.

As we dug into the issue, I was able to coach him on simple things like beginning emails with a greeting instead of launching right into a request. He assumed that was wasting people’s time, which is understandable. While it may sound obvious to some, I gave him simple examples like, “Hey, Tina, I hope you had a great weekend. Did you have time to look through the information I sent you?” versus “Tina, did you look through the information I sent you?” or “Sam, I know you’re busy and get a ton of requests, but I was hoping you could help me with a quick piece of data,” versus “Sam, I need you to find some data.” He tried those suggestions and made progress.

I know it may sound simple, but don’t assume everyone thinks like you do or sees the obvious. They don’t. And maybe you don’t either.

—TODD

Listen carefully to the recipient’s response and react appropriately. It’s hard to predict how someone will respond to redirecting feedback, though the more you know about your people, the better you can anticipate their reactions.

Sometimes people justify or explain their side of the story. They’ll offer excuses or their “whys.” I’m fairly forgiving of the why, but unforgiving of the what. I know there are whys, lots of them, all the time. Some of them I can do something about; others not. The fact of the matter is we are where we are, so I might say next: “I didn’t realize that was going on in your life. It sounds challenging. That doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got to figure out how to get this done. Let’s brainstorm how we could do that.”

Don’t be afraid of how emotions can manifest in physical ways during this conversation: flushed cheeks, automatic tears, contracted body language, sweating. Allow someone to react without feeling compelled to fix it immediately. Don’t ascribe a judgment to it. If it interferes with delivering the feedback, give your employee a moment to collect themself.

Help your employee take responsibility for changing their behavior. You may find a team member unwilling to take responsibility for their behavior. Should that be the case, you might say something like, “Can you see that your actions are contributing to this problem?” or “Do you agree that this behavior needs to change?” If the person avoids taking any responsibility, continue to present examples about the extent of the problem and its negative impact.

Codevelop an action plan. Your direct report has agreed that there’s a problem and it’s their responsibility to fix it—now what? Develop an action plan together. The person should understand what behavior you expect and find that expectation reasonable.

In most cases, you’ll get better results if the action plan comes from that person rather than from you. Try asking something like, “We’ve agreed on what needs to improve. What could you do differently to get there?” If they’re unable to come up with a plan, give them more time or make suggestions.

Summarize the discussion and thank the team member. Once you have both agreed to an action plan, recap what was agreed on, both verbally and in a follow-up email. “I’d like to briefly summarize what we talked about today. We both acknowledged that it’s important for you to meet your deadlines, and we developed a plan to help you get there. Thank you for your effort. I think it will have a big impact on the performance of our team.”

Provide support. Heading in the right direction is the key here, not overnight perfection. In the weeks that follow, don’t overload your team member with additional behaviors they need to change; give them time to make adjustments. Provide reinforcing feedback every time they change their behavior. Your regular 1-on-1s are a great time to provide the support needed for sustainable change.

SKILL 3: SEEK FEEDBACK ABOUT YOURSELF

Sometimes when I put on cologne, I think I’ve applied a perfectly subtle amount—then my wife will say, “Are you kidding me? Go walk around outside for five minutes before I have an asthma attack.”

There are physiological reasons why I can’t smell my own cologne (our brains filter out familiar smells). It’s the same thing with our job performance: we become numb to our own weaknesses, foibles, stumbling blocks, and habits. We need other people to point them out before we give someone an asthma attack.

I’ve smelled Scott’s cologne, and I agree with his wife.

—TODD

While asking for feedback puts you in a vulnerable position, you have to learn to actually crave it. Make it your brand. Personally, I’m constantly asking for feedback, and believe that soliciting so much feedback has been responsible for whatever success I’ve had, as painful as it might have been to receive it at the time.

After my team went through a turbulent time, I decided to recalibrate through a focusing session that I usually led with clients. As a creative way to discuss the current status, I had everyone draw pictures of how they saw the team at the moment, illustrating our communication, execution, team spirit, collaboration, goal achievement, and more. The exercise puts people at ease; rather than sitting around discussing, you can be creative.

My team loved this idea and got right to work. To my horror, one team came back with a picture of a frantic, high-speed flight, with me as the captain wearing a turquoise scarf (that I apparently wore too often in real life), and the team members performing crazy duties in a chaotic environment. That picture will be forever instilled in my memory.

While I didn’t feel great about this picture, I was proud of my team for being so candid. Now that our issues were out in the open, we could address them. I learned so much that day from them, and the picture was a meaningful and different way of getting feedback. It doesn’t always have to be a 1-on-1 conversation in an office.

—VICTORIA

Over the years, I’ve gotten more deliberate about when and whom I ask for feedback. I have to carefully evaluate the feedback I get against my own priorities, capacity, and value system, and not just agree with the last person I talked to. As you’re accepting feedback, develop a sense of context and accuracy: Did one person say that or seven?

Your team will be one of your most important sources of feedback. But they generally won’t want to give it to you. They will be cautious because they’ve heard about—or experienced—managers lashing out, stunting people’s careers, or just ignoring them. Your job is to make it safe for them to tell you the truth.

Now that you’re in leadership, your title has become potentially threatening. It can create a barrier to feedback, so you’ll need to make an extra effort to seek it out.

—TODD

There are so many good reasons to eagerly solicit feedback from your team:

• It creates a thriving feedback culture. The more you ask for feedback, the more your people become comfortable giving it, and also receiving it themselves.
• It helps you grow personally. Just as your team will grow from feedback, so will you. The practice will help you improve your skills, stay humble, and control your emotions.
• It models for your team how to accept feedback. It’s never easy to hear what you’re doing wrong, so do your best to show by example how to accept feedback graciously.
• It helps your team feel heard and respected. Feeling like they can come to you anytime with their concerns goes a long way to defusing resentment, rumors, and other forces that harm team cohesion.

6 STEPS TO GET GREAT FEEDBACK

Seek, and get, actionable feedback by using our six-part approach:

1. 1. Prepare people in advance and declare your intent. Showing up in someone’s office and asking for feedback will put them on the spot. Most people are going to say something like, “Oh, um, the meeting was great, boss!” Not helpful. Instead, let them know ahead of time that you’d like to get their feedback on, for example, how effective you are at conducting team meetings. Make it safe by telling them that you really want to improve in this area, and they can help. Then schedule a time after a team meeting or two when they’ve had a chance to think through what they want to share.

   If you haven’t been in the habit of seeking feedback from your team, it will take some work to build trust. Be up front about why you’re asking. Don’t make your direct reports guess your motivations for requesting feedback.

   In terms of whom to ask for feedback, don’t only pick your champions or your detractors. Get a cross section of people.

2. 2. Ask for specific feedback. Generic questions like “How am I doing as a manager?” won’t yield many insights. Provide more context and a specific area to work on. For example, I have asked people to observe me delivering a presentation and then email their comments to me. Some people tend to be more courageous in email than face-to-face, and it gives you some space to digest their comments.

   Use the words “advice” or “input” instead of “feedback.” By choosing language that implies you’re asking someone to share their expertise, you might avoid hitting the panic button, such as “I could use your advice on ways to better recognize our team’s contributions” or “Can I get your input on my email communication and how I might improve it?”

   Offer examples of feedback you’ve received in the past. This signals that you know you’re not perfect and are open to feedback. For example, “Team members in the past have told me I can be unclear when I assign tasks. That was very helpful for me to hear, and it’s something I’m working on. Any additional thoughts you might share with me?”

3. 3. Listen empathically. Bring your Empathic Listening skills from Practice 2: Hold Regular 1-on-1s. Don’t interrupt. Control your emotions, listen, and ask only clarifying questions. When receiving difficult feedback, you may feel devastated. Or you might feel like saying, “Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard my job is?” Which is a great way to guarantee that you’ll never get honest feedback again.

   Forgive awkward deliveries. Many individual contributors haven’t received training on how to give feedback in the workplace and have few opportunities to practice. As a result, their delivery might come across as too blunt, hesitant, or unpolished. Look past the delivery and focus on the substance of what they’re saying and the intent behind it.

   Go back to the “6 Most Common Responses to Feedback” in Skill 2 earlier in this section. Do you recognize yourself as one of them? Do you need to manage your own reaction accordingly?

4. 4. Acknowledge the feedback. Once I’ve had time to digest the feedback and go through my stages of grief (anger, anger, anger, and denial), I meet with the person to debrief.

   When I receive feedback, my first response is to bristle at it, probably like everyone else in the world. But you cannot lure people into your den and then be a snake. If you ask someone to share feedback at their own risk, you cannot punish them, hold it against them, or in any way make them regret it—primarily by becoming defensive. So you will want to say something like, “While your feedback was hard to hear, I really appreciate your willingness to share your observations with me.”

   Find the humility to be sincerely appreciative. Ask clarifying questions, but be careful not to frame questions as excuses (“So you don’t think it’s important to set high standards?” for example).

   It probably wasn’t easy for that person to share feedback, so show them some respect. You’ll be more likely to get feedback from them in the future as well.

5. 5. Evaluate the feedback. You have three options when a direct report or others share feedback: take it, don’t take it, or do some additional investigating (i.e., ask your manager, peers, or other direct reports for feedback on the same behavior).

   This takes discernment. The feedback might not be helpful or relevant. (A colleague once got feedback that she was too short.) It might not even be about you. Once I was piloting an event and asked some colleagues to review it. At the end, one of my peers tore it apart, including sections everyone else was raving about. I started feeling insecure, but then I realized the feedback didn’t seem to be about the event at all, but something—or someone—else. I thanked her, then chose not to act on that specific feedback.

6. 6. Commit to action. Regardless of your decision, communicate your intentions to the person who gave you the feedback, either during the initial conversation or after you’ve thought it over. If you don’t, you might as well say they were wrong to trust you. So consider saying, “I really appreciate our discussion and everything you shared. I’m going to think through what you and others have provided and then determine where I want to focus. Again, I found this so valuable, and I hope you will be willing to share your feedback in the future.”

You won’t give and accept feedback perfectly out of the gate, and that’s okay. But learning to do it well is a distinctive feature of a great leader and manager—one your team deserves.

I. Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). “The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams.” American Behavioral Scientist, 47(6), 740–765. doi:10.1177/0002764203260208.