When You Want to Give Someone “Feedback”, Do This Instead
The Paradox of Feedback
Feedback from other people is a magic key to life.
Excellence is rarely achieved in a vacuum. Growing requires reaching outside ourselves and seeking new ideas and perspectives. It’s important to engage in conversations with others on how we can improve. Powerful feedback can come from anywhere — from a peer, coach or mentor, or from people you serve, like your direct reports, your board, or your investors.
Feedback is a conversation with a direction — it flows from the giver to the receiver. In order for the feedback to be effective, it needs to be invited in, to be asked for.
A person must be intentionally seeking feedback.
When we ask for feedback, we’re offering the other person power in the relationship, if only for a time. A coach or mentor is given the power to share insights that are relevant to the goals of the coachee or mentee and to shape the thread of the conversation. How can you design your feedback conversations, as a giver or a receiver?
Simply telling someone how to be better doesn’t actually help. Finding gaps and filling them with information isn’t how people learn.
So…What ways of giving people feedback actually work?
I wrote a book about conversations and how we can (and already do) design them. Some people feel like “conversations” is a squishy word and that “design” excludes people. I say: design belongs to everyone now. And I believe that we are all designers of our conversations.
What you’re reading is an excerpt from that book, Good Talk: How to Design Conversations that Matter. Read on or click that link to get free chapters of the book.
How to Actually Help Someone
If only we could get and give more candid and direct feedback, we could all grow and improve faster, right? Research shows otherwise. Praise and criticism light up our brains very differently. Negative feedback can trigger a “fight or flight” response, flooding our brains with stress hormones and limiting our ability to absorb information. Yet, we believe that to only tell someone what’s working would be ruinous — how can they possibly improve with praise alone?
Brain-based learning research suggests that new neural connections build on existing connections, like a branch budding new leaves. We expand and strengthen what’s working. Growing a new branch where one is missing is hard. Appreciative Inquiry, a methodology developed in the 1980s, also suggests that amplifying success is more effective than focusing on dysfunction. Legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry turned around his struggling team by showing each player a highlight reel of moments when they did something effective and natural. He told the players “we only replay your winning plays.” Positive reinforcement of what’s working works.
Roses, Thorns and Buds
Giving feedback in a Rose, Thorn, Bud format is one of the simplest ways to make sure we offer feedback effectively. A rose is something that’s positive, working well. Starting with Roses creates ease. Thorns are gaps, clear negative issues. After roses, people can be open to hearing the thorns. Ending feedback with buds, areas of potential growth that are present but not fully realized, leaves the person with solid, positive next actions, based on what they’re already doing.
I’ve found that when people know, understand and expect feedback in this format, it creates safety and clarity.
There’s plenty of research that backs positive reinforcement. There’s even research that suggests that top-performing teams give positive feedback 5 times more than constructive criticism. A five to one ratio! That’s a worthy reach goal.
If you don’t want to believe the research, search your own feelings. How often do you welcome unsolicited negative feedback? Or even enjoy negative feedback you’ve asked for? The true, internal answer to the question “Can I give you some feedback?” is more than likely “ummm….hard pass?”
If you *still* don’t believe me, that’s cool. I invite you to try it out for yourself.
Whatever you praise in someone you’ll magnify. If you focus on the positives, you’ll get more of it…and maybe find a way to slip in the corrective feedback along the way.
Try this:
“I loved how you told stories in your presentation. I’d love to see some more of that next time.”
ie, start with Roses (I loved) and move on to Buds (I’d love to see more of…)
Instead of starting with the Thorns:
“You really botched the ending of that presentation. Work on your wrap up skills.”
Leveraging Rose/Thorn/Bud will get your ratio of positive to negative to at least 2:1, which is a solid improvement.
If you want to learn how to have better conversations with yourself, in your life and in your work check out my book. Learn more and pre-order Good Talk: How To Design Conversations That Matter.
You can also find free chapters and downloads here.
