How do you give effective and caring feedback?
Offering feedback, whether it’s reinforcement or realignment, isn’t always easy, is it? If you want to find a balance between being caring and efficient, here are two essential and simple keys to apply.
This article is part of a series of 3 video articles that aims to help you improve the monitoring of team performance. The 3 key principles of this series:
- The coaching staff motivates.
- Alignment puts into action.
- Clarity creates trust.
In this third part:
- Choosing the right time for effective feedback;
- Discover a simple and concrete method for benevolent feedback.
Feedback is an extraordinary source of recognition and motivation… when it is done in an efficient and benevolent way. How do we get there?
First of all, let’s see how the right timing makes it more efficient. Then, learn about a 4-step method to make your feedback more benevolent.
1. Choosing the right time to give effective feedback
First, choosing the right time will make your life easier and allow for more effective feedback. Yes, but when is the right time? Is there really one? The answer is yes!
The right time to give feedback is: the moment when the situation occurs so that it makes sense.
Sounds trivial?
However, it is not.
How many positive or negative comments are never mentioned because “it’s not the right time” or some other valid reason?
As a leader, the faster you learn to give feedback, the better you’ll perform.
Quickly means 24 hours or a week. In other words, the time it takes for emotions to pass, if any. What is important is not to lose momentum in order to maintain all the relevance and meaning.
Has. To reinforce a behavior
First, timely feedback increases performance!
Indeed, if you do nothing, the person will lack recognition and will not know what behavior to repeat.
Conversely, the less you wait, the more effective your feedback will be from a performance point of view since the person will know what to repeat.
In addition, the frequency of interactions with your team members helps to deepen relationships. As a result, comments become easy!
B. To realign a behavior
Then, it is just as important here to act at the right time. The impact is that the longer you wait to communicate what needs to be changed, improved, or developed, the more uncomfortable you are likely to be to talk to them about it.
In short, effective feedback throughout the year allows for better performance because the person will know what
- continue to do so;
- improve;
- stop doing
- Start doing!
To facilitate your communication, make sure your expectations are clear. See how to set clear and aligned goals in the 2nd article of this series. Read it here.
Now that we know when to give feedback, let’s see how to do it!
Here is a simple and concrete method to use to add kindness to your communications.
2. Use this method to give effective and caring feedback
A. Have a clear message
First, tell yourself that clarity leads to action.
Always make your intentions clear:
Here’s what I want you to keep doing (…), now I want to talk to you about something to improve (…).
Do you know the Hamburger/Sandwich method in order to give your feedback to someone? I talked about it in the first article of this series and you’ll see why not use it. Go to the article.
Thus, one impact of clarity is benevolence. It may seem counterintuitive, but telling each other the truth, with the right tone and method, helps build trusting relationships.
For me, the majority of people want to know what to continue doing, what to improve, what to stop and what to start doing! I don’t know many people who like the status quo… or worse. surprises during the annual evaluation.
Here is the method to be more benevolent. This tool can be used for readjustment or reinforcement.
B. The method
First, as seen above, make a clear decision about what type of communication you are offering.
Then, whether it’s realignment or reinforcement feedback, start with the facts, then continue with the impacts, make an agreement, and finally organize a follow-up.
a) Example of reinforcement feedback
Step #1: Tell the Facts
Geneviève, 2 clients congratulated me on your approach this week.
Step #2: Give the Impacts
This creates really positive impacts on the customer service team, I feel a greater motivation. And customers have confidence in the solutions provided. Congratulations!
Step #3: Get the agreement
Geneviève must accept the remark. Don’t just say, “Ahhhh, that’s normal, it’s my job.” Geneviève should be encouraged to accept the congratulations.
Step #4: Follow Up
Finally, follow up when applicable, for example other customers have mentioned the same thing.
b) Example of a realignment feedback
Step #1: Tell the Facts
Geneviève, that’s two customers who tell me that you lack patience on the phone. According to them, it seems that you want to hang up your phone quickly.
Step #2: Give the Impacts
The impact is that clients have told me that they want someone else to help them. It can’t work.
Step #3: Get the agreement
What does that tell you? How do you see the situation?
Through questions, we seek an agreement or an agreement. We want to generate a discussion that will go there and ideally when it is a realignment, it will be an agreement about the solution to be put in place.
Quickly switch to solution mode (get out of defensive mode as soon as possible!).
Step #4: Follow Up
Finally, arrange a follow-up. Whether the person is improving or not, follow up within a reasonable time (1 week to 3 weeks).
GO FURTHER: Learn how to have difficult conversations and develop the courage to speak, decide, and act to achieve your goals more easily.
Conclusion
In summary, effective and caring feedback requires:
- Give feedback at the appropriate time, once emotions have passed;
- Prepare a clear, fact-based message;
- To show the impacts of the behaviour;
- Say what the person needs to continue, improve, stop or start;
- Obtain the agreement or acceptance of the person receiving the message;
- Follow up after your discussion.
Take action by giving feedback to someone WITHOUT delay!
Want to measure your skills? Take the interactive test on your feedback skills.