How to land feedback from the start

With feedback, you need a strong takeoff for a solid landing. Sharing good feedback takes skill and savvy, but it also requires a plan of action — an intentional effort to understand what others need and how you intend to meet and manage those expectations. If you want feedback to land smoothly, a good place to start is at the beginning, before you engage in conversation. Through my work helping leaders design and deliver feedback without fear, I’ve seen the positive effect of having a feedback “entry point,” a well-designed plan for sharing your message…. Read More
Don’t inflate your feedback

Don’t inflate your message. Set the feedback record straight with these actions. It’s no surprise that people inflate their feedback, especially when the message is critical. To spare others (and ourselves) from blame, discord or even retaliation, we sugarcoat feedback with more innocuous-sounding words and phrases that soften its blow. Telling people their work is “good” or that there’s a “real possibility” for promotion in the future seems harmless enough. But is it? Not only does sugarcoating create confusion, but it holds others back from identifying and correcting performance flaws. Worse, managers… Read More
How to receive feedback (and like it, too)

Receive feedback with more grace, gratitude and guts. We don’t choose the feedback we get, but we always control where it goes. Easier said than done, right? After years of helping organizations around the world receive and achieve feedback without fear, I’ve settled on a few principles and practices that can help. Some are directed at others. Others are pointed at ourselves. Questions to ask yourself: Before responding to negative feedback, impose a cool-down period and ask yourself these questions: These questions can help you separate facts from feelings, distinguish fixed conditions from… Read More
5 ways to heal the hurt of feedback

Turn the hurt into hope with a different outlook and attitude. Getting negative feedback, especially from those we respect and trust, can quickly become an emotional train wreck that leaves us feeling hurt, helpless, and even a little bit hopeless. And when critical feedback is repeated over time, researchers have found that it can diminish our productivity, motivation and even our prospects for employment. Ouch. How can we turn a hurtful comment into a helpful construct? Try practicing the following five techniques, and you’ll start receiving feedback without fear — and maybe even with joy! Receive, don’t respond Instead… Read More
How to flip your feedback

Changing the frame can change the effect. Getting negative feedback, especially from those we respect and trust, can quickly become an emotional train wreck that leaves us feeling hurt, helpless, and even a little bit hopeless. And when critical feedback is repeated over time, researchers have found that it can diminish our productivity, motivation and even our prospects for employment. The good news? We can flip the frame on negative feedback by changing the story. While we can’t control what happens to us, we can always change what happens next. Whether negative feedback causes us to become… Read More
Leadership is Listening

Listening is the key to great leadership. Here’s how you can tune in. Leaders do plenty of talking — delivering feedback, communicating goals, and managing change. But the best leaders are listeners. Good listening makes it possible to read people’s attitudes and motivations. It fosters more cooperative relationships. And it helps us detect the subtle, simmering issues that hum quietly in the background. Some leaders are naturally good listeners. When others speak, they eliminate surrounding noise and distractions. They’re fully engaged partners. For everyone else, there’s hope: Like most skills, listening is a learned behavior… Read More
Make a plan for difficult feedback

How do you make difficult feedback even harder? By not showing up prepared. Communicating effectively takes skill and savvy, but it also requires a plan of action — an intentional effort to understand what others need and how you intend to meet and manage those expectations. If you need to share difficult feedback and want your feedback message to land smoothly, you need a plan for success. Through my work helping leaders design and deliver feedback without fear, I’ve seen the positive effect of having a feedback “entry point,” a well-designed plan… Read More
Avoid feedback mind traps

To give better ratings, check your blind spots. It’s not easy to truly evaluate someone’s performance, especially in this age of hyperconnected and decentralized work. When work is happening under many roofs, not one, how can we accurately assign ratings? Who gets credit for the product or prototype that emerges from cross-functional collaboration? And with so many companies modifying their performance management practices (and even dropping them altogether), assigning ratings to work has become a head-scratching experience. But what if the biggest barrier to giving a meaningful measure of work…is the person giving… Read More
Turn Feedback Into a Partnership

Taking a partnership approach helps both sides reach their destination. If it seems like feedback is one-sided, that’s probably because it is. Traditional feedback operates with a sense of hierarchy. The giver holds the power and the position. He or she spends most of the time talking and tuning. The process feels more like “tell and sell” than “listen and learn.” At its core, this type of feedback sparks fear, not joy. In today’s post-pandemic workplace, this approach is no longer viable. Employees work with less visibility and greater flexibility than before…. Read More
A Better You (Part 3)

Four podcasts to help you turn downtime into primetime for personal growth. This is the final installment of A Better You, a special summer series featuring popular podcasts from I Wish They Knew, a show where leaders share big ideas that deserve more attention in about the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. (Or the amount of time they wish they had to enjoy it!) The first edition featured great insights on discovering our hidden influence, developing a plan for productivity, growing sideways in our careers and finding that… Read More