Watered Down Feedback; Trumped Up Praise?

Neither. Both are worth zilch.

Seriously, the point of feedback is to create value for the recipient and the company.

So, what goes wrong? Employees want more feedback including “negative” (aka corrective or constructive) feedback. Mangers are afraid and avoid giving feedback. Those that do, think they are giving direct and actionable feedback, but research shows not so much. Some studies find that giving feedback more frequently improves performance and others say nope not all that much (and if it’s unclear you are just reinforcing the wrong message).

What a mess!

 Sugarcoating the Subpar

A study discussed in a 2019 HBR article, found that managers tend to sugarcoat feedback unintentionally. It’s not that they think hmmm, how can I make this land softer? Rather, it stems from a common cognitive bias -- the illusion of transparency. That is, managers think that what they are communicating is crystal clear.

But there is a disconnect. A costly one. The goal of feedback is to inspire and help employees improve their performance. Unclear feedback or feedback that isn’t honest or comprehensive fails to do that.

Employees want suggestions for improvement and to explore other ways to approach something. Maybe where they should seek out extra training or ask for more projects to improve on that thing.

It’s Not What You Say, It’s What They Hear

What if they essentially hear nothing!?

The recipient must be open and receptive to the feedback. The problem is that when you haven’t normalized it as part of a weekly check-in, and come at them with “can I give you some feedback on that” and the employee think “whoa, sh$t, what did I do wrong? Am I going to get fired? Am I in trouble? How will this impact my chance at a promotion?” (it’s like the dreaded ‘can with talk?’)

It’s fight or flight time. They tune out. Or sit there defensively thinking about ways to respond and rebut. They don’t thoughtfully receive, process, and digest what it means and how to apply it. Bring them into the conversation by asking them how they see their performance of what you may be missing/what actually happened. Get them talking about their thought process and the options they considered, challenges they ran into, how they handled. 

Flip side, we have all heard someone say sandwich negative feedback between positive feedback.  Sure, employees need praise and recognition to remain engaged and motivated. But if the praise is less than genuine and feels forced, they will not be any more engaged than before.

Set It Up, Knock It Down

It’s all in the set up and delivery.

If you can sandwich it with genuine praise, great. Some recommend 5 to 1 praise to corrective feedback – seems excessive to me. All I can say is do it when it’s warranted. When someone has gone above and beyond expectations or has demonstrated he or she has mastered a new skill. Not everyone gets a trophy for showing up.

As for opening the conversation, some suggest asking “permission”. That may help but I would say don’t do it all the time. As a manager your job is to give feedback and sometimes tough feedback. Perhaps it’s more: “I noticed X, what is going on there?” “May we find some time to chat about X?” Or, a time to talk through your progress on X?” I think giving a heads up helps.

You can end with “what did you hear me say?”; “what will you take away from this conversation?” or give them time to digest and say “shoot me some bullet points this week with what your goals are going forward or the areas of focus for improvement based on our conversation.

Employees that felt inspired to improve or positive about knowing how to do their work better are 3.9x more likely to be engaged. That’s the goal.