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How to Offer Effective Feedback

Constructive, yet delivered with compassion, feedback is what makes learning cultures thrive.

How to Offer Effective Feedback

Exchanging regular feedback empowers teams to reach their goals, and helps create a culture of transparency and honest communication. Organizations that dedicate themselves to practicing transparent, everyday feedback reap many benefits, including stronger teams, improved performance and increased trust in leadership.

The tricky part is to deliver feedback in a way that does not put the feedback recipient on the defensive. The following steps will help you make feedback effective:

1. Create a Safe Environment

For feedback to be effective, create a work culture that accepts it. Foster an environment where people feel safe enough to make mistakes without fear of repercussions. Negative feedback feels much less threatening in a culture where mistakes are framed as learning opportunities. Leaders can set an example by openly discussing negative feedback they have received and explaining how they have been trying to improve.

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Companies can’t succeed until employees feel safe enough to try – and fail.

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The Truth Doesn’t Have to Hurt

Performance consultant Deb Bright shows you how to become more proficient at giving and even receiving criticism.

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The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety

Unleash your employees’ untapped potential by offering them the freedom to learn, engage and innovate.

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The Fearless Organization

Leadership expert Amy C. Edmondson explores censorship in the workplace and reveals its consequences.

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2. Tailor Your Feedback

A one-size-fits-all method of delivering feedback does not exist. Instead, tailor your feedback to the workplace situation at hand. Does the area of improvement you seek to address involve hard skills or soft skills? Does it involve an objective error or a subjective mistake? Vary your approach depending on the feedback topic.

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Give Employees the Right Kind of Feedback

Adjust your feedback to the skill you seek to address.

Chris Musser Gallup, Inc.
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3. Be Tactful – But Candid

Giving feedback is an art. It needs to be clearly articulated to be constructive but delivered in a non-threatening way. Management consultant Kim Scott refers to the ability of offering frank criticism without creating an adversarial relationship as “radical candor.” To exercise radical candor, be humble and helpful. Offer instant feedback that identifies flaws in a person’s actions, not their character. Be public when issuing praise but private when delivering criticism. 

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Radical Candor

Radical candor is a leadership approach that balances empathy and accountability.

Kim Scott St. Martin’s Press Read Summary
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Give Compassionate Feedback While Still Being Constructive

Don’t hold back on giving feedback – but do so with compassion.

Arianna Huffington The New York Times Read Summary

4. Inspire Productive Conversation

Get into the habit of providing regular, constructive feedback. You can do so in both formal and informal ways. Use short but regular feedback sessions to reflect on accomplishments and discuss areas of improvement. More informally, build feedback into a coaching management style. Offer feedback as well as ask thoughtful questions in your everyday workplace interactions. An ongoing feedback process promotes learning and builds trust.

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The Feedback Imperative

Creating faster feedback loops within your organization will help you become a better leader and coach.

Anna Carroll River Grove Books Read Summary
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Performance Conversations

Replace the annual performance review with more frequent and effective coaching conversations based on powerful questions.

Christopher D. Lee Society For Human Resource Management Read Summary
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The Coaching Habit

Asking “seven essential questions” can improve your executive coaching skills.

Michael Bungay Stanier Box of Crayons Press Read Summary

Find additional tips and best practices in the getAbstract Journal.

https://journal.getabstract.com/en/2020/10/12/feedback-embrace-it-dont-brace-for-it/
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10 We have curated the most actionable insights from 10 summaries for this feature.
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7 We read and summarized 7 books with 1668 pages for this article.
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