Three things even experienced managers often get wrong about giving feedback
How to give effective feedback
Feedback is part of every manager’s toolkit, but it is a tool that is unfortunately often misused or not fully utilized even by experienced managers.
Read our post for three tips about giving effective feedback to create high-performing, motivated teams.
1) Make it motivating
Feedback is not about controlling behavior; it is about motivation.
If you have children, you might have heard about Tatiana Ivanko's "green pencil" method, illustrated with two images from her blog, real-parents.com, below:
Can you spot the difference?
In the image on the left, the mistakes are highlighted in red. In the image on the right, green highlights reinforce the successful attempts.
Which approach do you think will be more effective?
Let me tell you a personal story.
When I was working in management consulting, at one of the top global firms in the world, I reported to two different managers on most of my projects.
Both were exceptionally smart, hard-working, and demanding, and I have learnt a great deal from both of them. But they were very different in their approach to giving feedback.
One of them went out of his way to praise me whenever I did something well. He kept thanking me for my "great help," my "insightful analysis," and my hard work (no quotation marks there; we all did work exceptionally hard, with 14-16-hour days being the norm).
The other manager kept finding fault with my work and attitude. I remember one day in particular, when I was able to exceed my daily targets by over 100%. As I was finishing up my work around 1 a.m., feeling proud and happy after a tough but — so I thought — successful day, she came by to give me feedback about "typing too slowly."
Rhetorical question: which manager do you think I was more motivated to work for?
The truth is, we all make mistakes no matter how hard we try, and we all need corrective feedback every now and then. But no one can improve their performance without confidence — or, as my piano teacher in the conservatory put it, "without confidence, you can't even take a cr*p."
As a result, too much corrective feedback can be counterproductive. (Speaking of piano playing, some commentators credit the Suzuki method and its emphasis on positive reinforcement with the fact that many of today's best classical musicians come from Asia.)
For anyone who knows psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this should come as no surprise.
As we know from Maslow's famous pyramid, reproduced below, every human being has a need for esteem.
That is, all of us have a desire to feel recognized and appreciated, and to be accepted, valued and respected by others, so we can maintain a healthy sense of contribution and confidence.
Academic research by Barbara Fredrickson, Emily Heaphy and Marcial Losada has indicated that teams in which the ratio of positive to negative feedback is very high, so that positive feedback outweighs negative feedback by roughly 6 to 1, are a lot more effective than teams where negative feedback is prevalent.
There has since been considerable debate on the validity of the mathematical models used to calculate that ratio, but ample justification still remains for the overall message that feedback given with an appreciative mindset, with the mindset of aiming to motivate your team, will be a lot more effective than feedback that aims to prune and control behavior.
2) Make it tailored
Even experienced managers often give feedback to everyone in the same way. But the reality is that each of us has a different level of need for feedback.
In our own research, carried out with a team of I-O psychologists, we have found that junior employees typically have a lot higher need for feedback than experienced, senior employees, who appear to be more confident in their self-assessment.
We have also found that people who are highly analytical and data-driven in their decision-making appreciate constructive feedback in particular as they like to incorporate a lot of information and contrasting viewpoints in their decision-making.
There are also cultural factors at play.
One of the most damaging mistakes I made as a manager in Japan was related to such cultural differences. I had done my homework, so I was well aware that in Japan (and for that matter, in most places), under no circumstances should a manager give constructive feedback publicly as it'd cause the other person to "lose face."
What I did not realize was that a stark difference also existed in what people understood to be negative feedback. In a cross-functional meeting, after what I thought was a brief factual comment I made about the progress we were making as a team, one of my colleagues turned as red as a lobster, and I could see they were holding back tears. I did what I could to clarify the situation and salvage the relationship after the meeting, but to no avail. I made a cultural faux pas from which there was no way to recover, and the relationship was forever destroyed.
As I learnt the hard way, the way feedback is given in Japan or Germany is not the same as the way it is given in the US or the UK. Factors such as the directness of communication or the setting and tone in which feedback is appropriate to give can differ greatly in different environments.
So, in order to give feedback effectively, always aim to adjust your feedback style to the specific culture and the specific person you are giving feedback to. You will save yourself from a lot of embarrassment, misunderstandings and headache.
3) Make it a two-way street
Even experienced managers often give feedback without asking for it, but to be effective, feedback should always be a two-way street, for at least three reasons:
By asking for feedback, you can model the behavior you expect from your team, and make it more likely that others will accept the feedback you give them.
Even experienced leaders have room to improve, and by actively soliciting feedback from your team members, you can gather the input you need for your own development.
To a large extent, management is a support function, so every manager should ask their team members regularly if there is anything they can do to support them in a better way and to help them achieve their goals.
On that last point: it is even better if you can reflect proactively on your management style, and ask targeted questions to understand which specific aspects of your behavior you might need to adjust to your team members' needs.
For me, one of the hardest things to learn was that not everyone craves the same level of autonomy that I thrive on.
In fact, when given a lot of freedom and flexibility, many people feel as if they are thrust into a vacuum, and consequently they cannot perform at their best. So now I make sure I ask my team members about whether they are happy with the level of detail I provide when I delegate projects or the frequency and depth of our check-ins.
One of my favorite ways for getting upward feedback in one-on-ones is the "mastermind" format. I borrowed the idea from Leo Widrich, the Co-Founder & COO of Buffer. In this SaaStr talk, he credits this format for developing a great relationship with his co-founder.
This is how a mastermind works in a one-on-one setting:
Part 1: You discuss each other's achievements (c. 10 minutes)
Part 2: You discuss each other's challenges (c. 40 minutes)
Part 3: You give feedback to each other (c. 10 minutes)
The ideal frequency is once a week or once every two weeks, depending on how much autonomy your counterpart expects (and is able to handle), and how many other opportunities you have to catch up at least briefly during the week.
If you are in HR or manage a larger organization (e.g., a whole division as opposed to a team or two), you may also want to make sure there are safe, established channels for employees to provide upward feedback on their managers, and that such feedback is part of managers' performance evaluations, promotion criteria and bonus allocation.
That can be a great way to contain any toxicity before it engulfs the entire organization, which we have recently seen happen and cause great tumult even at some of the world's most high-profile companies.
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