1. Make it specific rather than general and vague.
2. Focus on giving balanced feedback which highlights both the positives and opportunities for improvement.
3. Don’t make it personal.
4. Make it useable by giving some specific things the person can do to improve.

I wonder what else you would add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Today’s letter is G.

G in terms of leadership success is about:

• Goal setting
• Giving effective feedback
• Gaining the support of others
• Gauging the impact of key decisions
• Getting honest feedback

What else would you add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

One of the areas where managers and leaders are criticised is for not giving employees regular and useful feedback.  There might be a whole host of reasons why feedback does not happen on a regular basis, including:

• The manager or leader is focused too much on task

• The manager or leader has never had much feedback themselves so does not recognise the value

• The manager or leader quite simply does not set aside enough time for managing

Given the value of feedback, what are the top tips for giving feedback?

Tip 1: Do it as a matter of routine

One of the easiest ways of ensuring that you give effective feedback is to make it something you do routinely.  Build it into your schedule and make a point of looking out for things on which to provide feedback.

Tip 2:  Be specific

Whenever you give feedback, aim to be as specific as possible with your feedback.  Often, people say things like something was good.  While this might be nice to hear it is not very useful.  On the other hand if you can point to the specific action or behaviour that was good, the recipient of the feedback can use this strength in the future.

Tip 3:  Know the preferences of the feedback recipient

People in the team have different preferences and part of your job as a manager is to know them and respond to them appropriately.  For example, some will appreciate an e-mail; others will appreciate being praised verbally in front of the whole team, while others will want to get praise one to one.

Tip 4: Be yourself

It is important to be yourself rather than putting on an act.  People will see through the latter and will value the feedback less.

Tip 5: Deal with all aspects of feedback

The chances are that you will be providing positive feedback to most people, most of the time.  There will on the other hand situations where you will have to deal with feedback that is negative.  It is important that you are as ready and willing to deal with the difficult stuff as you are the good stuff.

Bottom Line- Giving feedback can be a huge source of motivation and personal development for team members.  So what do you need to be doing differently to give more effective feedback?

As a manager or leader, part of your role is to give feedback to your team.  Feedback is incredibly important to individuals and teams.  They want to know what they are doing well and where they need to develop.  Sadly, managers and leaders are often poor at giving feedback or worse still, don’t give it at all.  So what are my 10 top tips for giving feedback?

Tip 1: Catch people doing things right

It is so easy to fall into the trap of only giving feedback when things have gone wrong.  In reality people get more right than they do wrong in the work place.  Make a point of noticing when people do things right like hitting sales targets, dealing with an angry customer or hitting deadlines.

Tip 2: Look for the signals that the employee wants feedback

People are sometimes a little hesitant to ask directly for feedback.  They may ask in a much more subtle way by asking:

• How they are doing in the job

• Whether they are living up to expectations

Be alert to these signals.

Tip 3:  Feedback as early as possible

You don’t have to wait for an appraisal or meeting to feedback.  Whether the feedback is positive or negative, give it at the earliest opportunity.

Tip 4: Focus on behaviours

It is important to focus on the behaviours that are helping or getting in the way of achievement when giving feedback.  For example:

• I notice you were behaving aggressively in your dealing with x

• I saw you take decisive action when it was clear we might slip on the timetable

In the first scenario you are referring to aggression as the behaviour in your feedback.  In the second scenario the behaviour you are drawing attention to is decisiveness.

Tip 5: Avoid feedback that cannot be acted upon

The purpose of giving the feedback is to facilitate action.  Make sure is can be acted upon.  For example, there is no point is telling someone who has a stammer or stutter to get their message across quicker.

Tip 6: Check the feedback is understood

The quickest and often most effective way of doing this is to ask the other person to tell you to play back to them what they understand they heard.  This lets you deal with ambiguity there and then.

Tip 7: Give the opportunity to the other party to discuss how the feedback might be improved

If you ask people how you could improve the way you give feedback and allow them to respond authentically, truthfully and openly, you will learn and improve.

Tip 8: Use non threatening language

When giving negative feedback, choose your words carefully.  While you have to make clear the consequences if improvement is not achieved you don’t need to do it in a threatening way.

Tip 9:  Be a role model

One of the most effective ways of demonstrating that you are open to feedback is to actively seek it.  Many organisations have formal 360 degree feedback processes.  One organisation I worked for did not have a formal 360 degree process so I simply sent out an e-mail to a mixture of subordinates, peers and superiors asking them:

• What I did well

• What I did not do so well

• Where I needed to develop

If you are worried that people will be reluctant to respond, ask them to send their responses to your boss and ask your boss to feedback key themes anonymously.

Tip 10: Set up a date for follow up

The final thing to do after giving feedback is to set up a follow up appointment.  This lets the other party know that you are committed to supporting them and to making the necessary change.

Giving feedback will always be a challenge but you can greatly enhance your performance by following these simple but effective tips.