Why giving instant feedback makes everyone’s life better

Ask 10 experts about how to give feedback and you will get 10 different answers, simply because everyone is different. Giving feedback always seems to be a very tricky thing to get right. How often you do it, how you do it, where you do it and who you give the feedback to are all parts of the puzzle. Then factor in yourself, are you a conflict avoider, do you prefer to keep the piece or are you someone who goes in all guns blazing with no care of the consequences?

Avoiding or delaying feedback to a quarterly or worse, an annual review, is a terrible idea and results in some really bad outcomes for everyone. Let's talk about why and what you should (and shouldn't) do to give better feedback.

Delayed and feedback avoidance 

When you think about delaying feedback almost everyone you talk to says Oh, I would never do that, yet they when you ask how it's done the usual answer is in a quarterly or annual review. By definition, that's delayed! Even if you do it monthly it's still delayed feedback, it's closer but still not instant.

Think about driving your car, imagine that you want to slow down for the corner, or the traffic light and you apply the brake. We all expect the car to start slowing down the minute we put our foot on that pedal, what it if doesn't? What if it takes two or three attempts to get the brake to apply and so the car to what we want? What if the feedback still isn't there and so we swerve resulting in hitting something you didn't really want to? The lack of feedback resulting in you taking more drastic action.

That's what happens with all delayed feedback, including your people. Without a feedback loop things do not self-correct, they keep going off on the direction that they are one and in some cases keep getting worse. How long you do you really want to delay the correction? (or the reinforcement of the right action?)

What about avoidance? We all know people in leadership positions that will do anything to avoid any form of confrontation, giving "negative" feedback for them is terrifying. Giving "positive" feedback is slightly easier but as a friend of mine who is a self-confessed feedback avoider, even that is hard, it's not how he is made, he finds himself getting choked up giving positive feedback as well so tends to avoid that as well!

In the absence of any feedback things will keep going as they are going, which may be fine but it may also result in you losing really good people.

There is no positive or negative, only helpful feedback. 

It may sound a little yodaish but when you think about it feedback is feedback, it's not positive or negative its only there to help achieve an outcome. If you remove the positive and negative attachments to it, then it does get easier to do. The whole reason you are providing feedback is to help someone understand what is working and what's not so you can get more of the good stuff and less of the bad, it's about developing someone, how can that ever be negative? What you are really trying to avoid is the person's reaction.

Giving feedback to someone where you are telling them that they aren't meeting the mark is not something people readily want to hear. Self-esteem doesn't like that, they may lash out, be unhappy or worse.

You must remember that as the person giving the feedback, your part of the equation is to provide useful, factual information to help the person, you need to do that in a manner designed to be respectful and kind. You have no influence on the way the person responds to that feedback, their response, even thought it may feel like it and they say it is, is not a personal attack on you, you cannot control their part of the process.

If we think about the respectful and kindness part, how does bottling up feedback for a month, 3 months or 12 months support that approach? When companies tell me they take a people first approach to their company my first checkpoint is the speed of feedback, unfortunately it's never really that fast.

Instant Feedback 

Back to our car example, when you put your foot on the brake you expect instant feedback. You expect the car to slow to a nicely controlled stop or slow down enough to allow you to change direction as needed. No fuss, no stress, just the reaction you want. People feedback is the same, when you give feedback you are looking for a change to happen, how does delaying help that?

Imagine being able to say to one of your team, hey Fiona, I saw what you did there and thought it was great, keep going like that! Easy right? How does Fiona feel? She feels pretty good, she was noticed and encouraged.

Now what about saying to Ted, hey Ted, you turned up to the meeting late and unprepared, don't do that, you let yourself down and you make it harder for everyone in the room. How does ted feel? He may be a little annoyed you called him out, but he now knows what's acceptable right? How you Ted feel if he was sitting for his quarterly or annual feedback session and you say, he Ted, there were 27 meeting that you turned up late or unprepared for and that's not good enough. He would rightly be pretty mad about the fact that it's been 'accepted' until now and suddenly it's a problem, he's probably going to be mad.

Feedback doesn't have to be a long discussion, it can be 20 or 30 seconds, maybe a few minutes at a time. The key to the feedback is that it is specific and clear about what you are talking about so you both understand.

I'm reminded of a great podcast by Tom Henschel called "The look & sound of leadership" (well worth tuning into) where Tom talks about a sorting and labelling technique for feedback which make sit so clear and simple. The key is to think about the thing your giving feedback on and sort it into a 'group' so for example with Ted it may be being unprepared. You would have a chat with Ted and outline the issues as the 1^st stage and explain that you have these issues with him and what the groups were so what things feel into what group. You explain that every time you see something that fits into the group you are going to label it for him, you are going to call it out. So, the next time you see Ted turn up late or with nothing to share at the meeting you can say to him, Ted, this is an example of being unprepared. You have already had the conversation about what unprepared looks like and what being prepared looks like, so you don't have to do that again. It's a great technique. I would add to it be reminding you that your role is also to help so you need to offer some support and coaching to help them get better. Maybe Ted doesn't realise that he is doing it, maybe he is disorganised and when you call it out, he starts to see a pattern of hey I'm always late to that meeting because of another meeting or I'm over committing, the fact is by highlighting it you allow him the ability to correct it no and not in 6 months' time. 

Avoid The Sandwich 

I'm sure you have heard of the feedback sandwich, that's' where you give 3 bits of feedback, a good bit, a bad bit, and another good bit. It's designed to soften the blow, to make it more palatable. What it really does is just mask the issue. For a start the person leaves believing that the area for improvement doesn't matter, there were 2 good points verses the 1 are they need to work on, that's a win! There is also a fair amount of evidence that people only hear the last pit of feedback so miss the fact you were looking for them to improve.

Let's be honest with each other here, the last time your boss gave you the sandwich how did you feel? Did it help build respect and trust for them? Probably not, and I bet you saw it coming! 

Be Honest, respectful and immediate

 The secrete to great feedback is that it ticks off 3 boxes:

1. It's done as soon as possible to the event or behaviour you need to correct or highlight.
2. It's 100% honest and specific about the event or behaviour that needs correcting.
3. It's done with the view of helping the person improve and is respectful.

Tick off those three boxes and you have the formula for fantastic feedback that your team is going to appreciate, even if it's hard to hear.

Knowing right away that something isn't right means the person has the opportunity to improve and they know how you feel.

As a leader it's your job to make sure that your team are clear about what you expect from them and that you are going to have their back, sometimes that means telling them things they don't want to hear but its all aimed at helping them do better.

The choice is yours, give instant feedback to help your team improve and do better or wait, and make everyone's life harder.