Christine vs. Work: How to Give Feedback — Especially When You’re Dreading it

Feedback, especially if it’s constructive, can be agonizing to deliver. So, how do you deal with it? One extreme is to brush your concerns under the rug and wait until the very last minute. The other extreme is to come across as blunt or judgemental — which can unintentionally create a defensive, disagreeable relationship with the person on the other end. That said, the “gift of feedback” is one of the most valuable ways to help others grow and improve in their roles. If given thoughtfully, quality and constructive feedback creates real, positive change. That’s why it pays to deliver feedback with clarity and empathy. In this episode, Innovation Editor Christine Liu turns to Liane Davey, author of The Good Fight, for answers on how to get better at these tough conversations. Other Videos in This Series How to Make Virtual Meetings Feel More Real Does Virtual Presence Still Matter at Work? How to Answer the Question, “Tell Me About Yourself” How to Be Less Lonely at Work How to Say No at Work How to Make a Presentation Deck That Doesn’t Stink What Does ‘Just Be Yourself’ Really Look Like at Work? You Need Tough Feedback—Here’s How to Get It How to Speak Up in Meetings What Difficult Emotions Are Trying to Tell You Transcript CHRISTINE LIU: I know that giving feedback is super important and helps someone grow in their role. That said, giving feedback, especially tough feedback, is agony. I dread giving tough feedback. Positive, good, good job, all that stuff — that’s a walk in the park. But if someone is struggling or I see places where I should intervene, in my heart, I want to put it off. It is just really tough and — How do you be empathetic and crystal clear at the same time? “OK. So it’s not really a problem, per se, but sometimes, I know your heart’s in it, but sometimes I think, like, you’re not — I wish you were more prepared. You’re prepared a little, but just prepare more for meetings. I think that would really help you and me. Other than that, you’re doing great.” Or it’s the total opposite situation where I suck all the emotion of it, and it’s 100% business: “You need to be more prepared for our meeting. Thanks.” Then there’s always the risk of a disagreement. Things get heated, and feelings get hurt. So I need to know, how do I give feedback the right away? Before we get started, this episode is brought to you by Microsoft. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. But it’s nothing without the people behind it. Watch and read some of the stories of the people behind the mission at MicrosoftLife.com. LIANE DAVEY: I still don’t enjoy it. I’m a very conflict-averse person by nature. I get pretty sweaty palms when I have to do that. CHRISTINE LIU: That’s Liane Davey. She’s known as the Teamwork Doctor. She’s also the author of The Good Fight, which is about how to use conflict to your advantage. She really believes in the power of feedback. Let’s start with the common mistakes of giving feedback. What should feedback not sound like? LIANE DAVEY: We believe feedback is about the other person when really, feedback is about you. And that is like — CHRISTINE LIU: What? Did I hear that right? LIANE DAVEY: And once you internalize it, it changes everything about how you deliver feedback. You shouldn’t be sharing any judgment about the other person. You want to be much more objective, talking about what behavior was objectively there. And any subjectivity in feedback can and should only be about you. So I can talk subjectively. I can have all the adjectives in the world about my own experience because I own that, and that’s my truth, and that’s OK. But it’s a big misconception that we should be using any adjectives whatsoever when we’re describing the other person, so not that they were rude, not that they rushed not that they — none of those subjective statements about the other person are legit. CHRISTINE LIU: Let’s just say, this seems really hard. I don’t want to do it right now. Can’t we just brush it under the rug? What are the risks of not doing the hard thing and actually reaching out and giving the feedback? LIANE DAVEY: You don’t want to get into that conflict debt with somebody. If we carry some kind of an issue with respect to another person without giving them a chance to rectify it, then we are very likely to have all the rest of our experiences with that person be prejudiced by that original thought. So we know how many cognitive biases humans have. The other thing is, you miss the positive side. People want to grow, want to develop, want to get better. And if you deny them the data on which to do that, you’ve denied them the opportunity to grow. CHRISTINE LIU: Tell me the framework for proper, effective, and kind feedback? LIANE DAVEY: First, orient. The situation that you’re thinking of is top of mind for you. But if you just phone somebody up and be like, do you hate my project — what? You want to keep that super short. You just want to say, in this morning’s call, or when we were working on this project, or when I heard you talking to Chris. The reason is if you make that bit too verbose, your awkwardness is going to transfer over to them. It’s just going to be like — their skin is going to be crawling. Step two — and this is where we’ve had to do a little bit of our work in advance because this is where we’re going to share with the person what their behavior was that caused us to have some kind of an insight or a reaction or something else. What we want in great description of behavior is nouns and verbs, nouns and verbs, no adjectives, nouns and verbs. Adjectives are slippery. So we want to be able to say, when I was giving my presentation, you asked for questions during the presentation. So I might have wanted to say you were rude, and you interrupted, or you got me off my flow, but I want to convert that, translate it into nouns and verbs. CHRISTINE LIU: Theoretically, the person you’re giving this to will agree with those things. LIANE DAVEY: That’s the goal. None of this should be new information. You know you’re doing it right if the person either looks completely nonplussed, just kind of like, uh-huh, or if they’re like, yup, yup, yup. So we want, at best, neutrality to those statements. And ideally, you want the person being like, “Yep, I remember that. Yes, I did that.” Now we can shift to the new information. And this is where we go back to the idea that great feedback is about you. So what you’re going to give the person is some new insight about the impact of their behavior on you. I started jumping around in my presentation, and I got off my game. And I lost my confidence. I lost my mojo. I felt like I wasn’t in control anymore. Now, there’s lots of adjectives and lots of subjective comments in what I just said. That’s OK because you’re talking about yourself. We want to go through one more step, which is a step that passes the accountability to the other person, gives them the baton to do something with it. And the best way to do that is to ask some kind of a question that causes them to own it, to take it, to grab hold of it, something that’s an open-ended question, not one that starts with why, because why is accusatory and will tend to get people being defensive. CHRISTINE LIU: These components look really clean on paper, but I assume, because humans are involved, it’s going to get messy. So what do I do if the other person reacts poorly or just disagrees with the feedback? LIANE DAVEY: Leave a little room for somebody to react to that feedback, to find it hard to swallow, because they’ve been telling themselves a different story all along. And until we get to that dialogue section, you’re not going to know what their story is. If the misalignment is in their reaction to your behavior, you can, first of all, leave them a little space for that, and then you can just say, that was my experience of it. Just reinforce that you don’t get to say what I was feeling or not feeling. This is my truth. CHRISTINE LIU: Liane, do you have tips on how to give good, positive feedback that’s more than just, great job, you’re doing awesome? LIANE DAVEY: Guess what? They’re the exact same tips. And the good news is, practicing your orient and behavior and impact and question on positive feedback is a great place to practice it because when you get it wrong, which you inevitably will the first few times, people don’t get upset when you praise them in not the absolute best way. CHRISTINE LIU: Yeah. Cue the practice montage. LIANE DAVEY: Cue the practice montage. CHRISTINE LIU: All right. So in order to get better at feedback, especially giving negative feedback, I’m going to practice. And practice is super fun with positive feedback. So I’m going to practice on Kelsey Alpaio. She’s one of my direct reports. And you might recognize her from some of the other HBR Ascend videos. Last week, Kelsey gave a presentation on Clubhouse, and I want to commend her for it. Step one — orient. During last week’s Clubhouse project readout — so my truth — how did I feel about that? So why don’t we start off this one-on-one with — I wanted to give you some feedback. Last week, you led the readout for what we’ve been doing on the Clubhouse project to stakeholders. And the presentation and the insights engendered questions and comments from the audience. So I was really excited to see you lead this project that’s been doing so much. I personally think you’ve had a great attitude. So I’m really thrilled with how things are going and the development of the project and development of you as the project leader. So that said, I was wondering how you felt about the readout. And also, I was thinking, are there other opportunities for you to share some of those insights that we’ve learned on Clubhouse internally, other channels, or even externally, like, this is what we’ve done at HBR? KELSEY ALPAIO: Yeah. Well, thank you. I’m really glad that you think it went well, and you think the project’s been going well. CHRISTINE LIU: I felt a little bit like, this is a lot of scaffolding and technical architecture to, basically, what boils down into, great job. I hope you can grow from this. It definitely makes it feel less scary or like you’re just winging it, and there’s less risk for the unexpected to come out of your mouth in real time. I definitely want to keep practicing. I think doing it more will make it easier. And I hope that this will help me so when I do get to a point where this is a really big challenge, or something I’ve never really dealt with in this capacity, I will have a lot more confidence that I can bridge it.

Christine vs. Work: How to Give Feedback — Especially When You’re Dreading it

Partner Center