Feedback is an amazing thing. When it’s positive, it can lift you up and give you confidence. When it’s constructive (and poorly delivered), it can have the exact opposite effect. Delivering and receiving feedback with coworkers can be especially difficult, but it shouldn’t be something you and your team fear or avoid. In this blog, we explain the importance of keeping it honest, discuss the best delivery methods and explain how we can provide the necessary tools for success.
Why Honesty is the Best Policy
A lot of people want to avoid engaging in feedback-related discussions out of fear that they’ll hurt someone’s feelings, or that they’ll deliver feedback and feel frustrated when nothing changes. As uncomfortable as these situations can be, feedback is a critical element in improving workplace culture as well as an important step in personal and professional development.
Remember: if you don’t provide the members of your team with the honest feedback necessary for them to improve and get better, you’re hurting them in the long run.
Tips to Successfully Provide Feedback
How can you constructively provide developmental feedback without damaging your workplace relationships? Here are a few tips:
- Dedicate the appropriate amount of time. Sit down one-on-one with the recipient and let them know that the conversation is important to you. Feedback delivered in passing won’t have the effect you’re looking for.
- Avoid sugar coating. You have to be direct, yet fair. The point of the discussion is to improve the recipient’s development, so don’t dance around the subject by providing unrelated compliments.
- Provide specific examples. You want to accurately illustrate what the feedback recipient did or didn’t do, and how they could do it better in the future. A specific example will go a long way in demonstrating your point.
- Follow up. Feedback is not a one-and-done process. Check back in with your employee or coworker to see how they are progressing.
- Invest in the relationship. Don’t let constructive criticism be the only communication you have with the individual as it will create a bad tone for any potential meetings. If your employee or coworker goes above and beyond or excels on a project, remember to vocalize your appreciation for those efforts.
The 360 Degree Review
In need of some feedback about your own performance? We can help with our 360 Degree Review. This comprehensive development tool will identify areas for improvement, provide a safe harbor for very open and honest feedback and assist you in developing a plan of focused personal and professional development, with specific goals and objectives.
Our 360 Degree Review allows you to receive independent and anonymous feedback from your team to increase your self-awareness and accountability. The feedback session links this information with your Performance Dynamics® assessment results, providing a comprehensive appraisal of strengths and areas of development.
Interested in learning more? Contact us today to discover the ways we can improve your workplace communication.