What if I told you that the problem with feedback isn’t feedback?
It’s the experience people have around it.
Many organizations spend a lot of time helping managers give better feedback. But if employees dread their performance reviews, don’t want to ask for input, and when they get it, it’s more destructive than developmental, that’s rarely a quality of feedback problem.
It’s more often a quality of relationship and process problem.
So let’s talk about six simple things managers can do to improve the employee experience of feedback, so it’s something people look forward to instead of something they fear.
1. Make Feedback Predictable, Not Surprising
One reason people dread feedback is that the only feedback they get is negative feedback about what they’re doing wrong. Whether it shows up in a performance review, or the boss only reaches out with criticism, that’s why we start associating feedback with only that.
So we need to normalize it by baking it into everything we do. That can be as simple as asking questions in meetings and inviting input:
- “What’s working?”
- “What’s not working as well as you’d like it to?”
- “How do you think we could improve on this?”
- “What are your ideas for that?”
If we’re asking questions and giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis, it becomes part of everything we do. So when we do need to give more challenging feedback, people are used to it. It’s part of our culture.
And, by the way, one of the key elements of engagement is feeling that our opinions matter.
2. Build Trust Before You Need It
Feedback is never just about the words we say. They’re always filtered through the relationships we’ve built.
And here’s what most people don’t realize about trust. Trust is not a result we produce with one-off actions. It’s a status somebody else grants us based on their experience of us over time.
Think of it like an invisible rope between us. Our actions either strengthen that rope or they fray it.
When we take time to get to know people, learn about them, ask about their weekends, check in about their kids (or not check in about their kids, if they’d rather not talk about their personal lives), we’re strengthening the rope. Take time to understand people’s past, their present, and their future.
Do those things on a regular basis, so when we do need to give challenging feedback, we have a strong enough relationship to withstand it.
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3. Balance Recognition and Refocusing
If we want people to value our feedback, we also need to give them recognition.
And here’s the best part. Research from Achievers found that 92% of employees said they’re more likely to take an action again in the future when they get recognized for it. Recognition creates reinforcement loops that show people the behaviors we want more of.
But we need to be clear about what we’re recognizing. So when you recognize someone, include:
- What you appreciate
- Why you appreciate it
- The impact on you, the team, and the organization
Do that on a regular basis and you build the relationship, and people become far more receptive to your feedback when you need to give it.
Because by the way, recognition is a form of feedback. It’s just on the positive side.
(If you’d like to help your team get better at this together, it’s the heart of what we cover in The Art of Recognition Training.)
4. Ask More Questions and Give Fewer Answers
Leaders often fall into the trap of thinking it’s the advice we give that helps people grow. It’s really more about the questions we ask.
One study I saw recently, which I believe was in the book The Leader Lab, looked at top leaders. Good leaders asked about two questions every 15 minutes. Great leaders asked about 10.
Now, that doesn’t mean asking random questions. But the more questions we ask, the more we understand how someone else is seeing and experiencing what they’re going through, whether it’s a work thing, an interaction with a client or customer, their goals, or how they want to develop and grow.
The more questions we ask, the more data we have.
- “How did you see this unfold?”
- “Why do you think it went the way it did?”
- “What could we have done differently, and why do you say that?”
- “What may I not be seeing about this situation?”
And the best part is, the questions we ask help the employee take ownership of the situation, their growth, and their development. That’s how a learning culture gets built.
5. Focus More on the Future Than the Past
Whatever happened, that person can’t change it.
So take 10% of the time to talk about what happened. Share an example of what you saw and the impact it had. Then move on to what you’re going to do in the future, and turn that into a discussion using the questions we just talked about.
Understand what you could do differently next time. Explore what may get in the way of it being successful. Get their input. Then decide on next steps, both for them and for you, and when you’re going to check in.
Now, here’s the other tip I want to throw into this one.
The more you understand about what they want to make happen and their goals for the future, both personally and professionally, the more you can tie that feedback conversation, both the recognition and what you want them to improve, to a path toward reaching those goals. And the more bought in they’ll be on taking those steps.
6. Make Feedback a Two-Way Street
As leaders, we need to role model the behaviors we want to see in others.
One of the best examples of this is Gary Ridge from WD-40. Gary was renowned for building a learning culture there. He constantly created learning moments, invited people to share the things that didn’t work, and shared his own mistakes and what he learned from them. Every single day, Gary sends a learning moment out by email to everyone on his list.
If you want to create a learning culture, invite input from other people and make it easy for them to give it.
“On a scale of one to 10, how am I doing at supporting you?”
They may say, “A nine.”
And you say, “I think I’m more like a six, and here’s why. What do you think about that? And what’s one thing I could do to improve?” By doing this, we make it safer for them to give more open and honest feedback, and also signal to them that we know that there’s room for improvement.
Do that on a regular basis and guess what? You get feedback that helps you grow, and people become far more open to feedback from you and from the people they work with every day.
At the End of the Day
Feedback is not about the quality of the words we say. It’s about the quality of the relationships and the culture we’ve built.
If we bake conversations about growth and development and learning into our meetings and our one-on-ones, if we invite feedback from others, and if we do the small things that build stronger relationships, then feedback becomes something people look forward to and part of everything we do, instead of something people avoid.
Start with one. Pick whichever of the six feels most doable this week, and see what shifts.
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And if you want to build a feedback-rich culture in your organization, reach out to me here. I’d love to start that conversation.
