For the final installment of the feedback series, it’s time to address the hardest kind – behavioral feedback. Giving feedback on another person’s actions or behaviors feels SO personal, and can be really difficult to do well. Especially if one generally likes to avoid conflict, it can feel easier to withhold feedback than to give it. The problem is, tolerance is a slippery slope! And avoiding feedback is not the same as avoiding conflict – and can often end up fueling larger and more complex conflict in the future!
Today I’m going to share some dos and don’ts for giving behavioral feedback. But first, let’s start with two related pieces of advice I shared in part 1.
- Use the feedback sandwich very carefully or not at all. Be wary of coming off disingenuous and think about the perspective of the recipient. Might they pay attention to only the part they want to hear?
- Remember that feedback is a two player game. Being a good feedback giver necessitates that you are also open to receiving it. And always, always, always give the recipient an opportunity to respond, whether right away or after some processing time.
Other Feedback Dos and Don’ts
- DO find a framework or a structure to use as a support/scaffold for giving the feedback. A good one to check out is the SBI framework from the Center for Creative Leadership. This framework helps to make the feedback less personal, and grounds the discussion in the context of the situation, the behavior that was experienced, and the impact it had on you, the person delivering the feedback.
- DO find an accountability buddy (which I like to call an accountabilibuddy 😆). If you can find a peer or a group of colleagues who are all committed to improving on their practice of giving and receiving feedback, you will be more likely to hold yourself accountable for working on it. True confessions: Here’s a trap I’ve found myself falling into at times – someone does something that impacts me negatively, and I vent to a friend about it. Then I feel like I have “given” the feedback even though I haven’t! If that person I vent to becomes my accountabilibuddy… she can say “OK, sounds like you have some feedback to give to [person]. Want to practice with me before you give it? Then let’s connect afterwards and see how it went.”
- DO Practice, practice, practice. Engaging with feedback takes practice, it’s not something we are just good at as soon as we start. You can practice in low stakes environments (as described with your accountabilibuddy) or you can practice in fictional situations. (For example, try giving feedback to a character on a TV show… you won’t get the benefit of their response, but it can help you start to build the muscles.) And consider the art of giving and receiving feedback a practice just like yoga is a practice. You don’t ever perfect it, you just practice it!
- DON’T squeeze feedback in at the end of a meeting. There is nothing worse than capping off an otherwise productive and positive meeting with a zinger of critical feedback when there is no time left to process or discuss. The recipient will be destabilized, particularly if there is an imbalance of power at play, and it most certainly does not encourage the two-player game.
- DON’T surprise the recipient. If the feedback is delivered as a part of a meeting with an agenda, don’t leave the topic off the agenda. Give the recipient the gift of being prepared to be in a space to receive the feedback.
- DON’T rush into giving emotionally charged feedback. This is a delicate balance, because you also don’t want to let something fester without it being addressed. So, consider the severity of the circumstance and your emotional state before deciding whether to address it immediately or give it some time. If you feel something must be said immediately, you can always say “I’d like to reflect a little bit on what just happened and come back to it tomorrow/before the end of the week.” Give yourself some time to step out of the emotionally charged situation before trying to have a productive conversation.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list. What are your go-to feedback “rules”?
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