Giving feedback is a tough job. Let’s explore what makes a feedback great.
Feedback cannot be sporadic and unstructured. If you do so it will not come as a structured review of what happened but as the “outcome of the moment”.
Giving feedback is neither punitive nor rewarding it is accompanying people in their work and growth. Every manager must give feedback. Because not receiving feedback, even if it is a negative one, means being ignored: the people we have in our organization are the most precious and at the same time complex asset that our company has made available to us. and we have to manage them accordingly.
Feedback must be contextualized: if we give it generic, it leaves nothing to both parties: the manager doesn’t change the performance of the person and the employee misses what has been done correctly and what not.
Goals must be measurable and challenging but not impossible. They have to leave space to be reached but they have to take effort. What comes easily and without cost is not appreciated by anyone, not even by resources. We are not all the same. A team where all the resources are good does not exist. If so, it means that the bar is set too low. Be demanding in evaluating your people and give them the most elaborate feedback you can, it will be the best attention you can give them.
Giving feedback is tiring, sometimes painful. Telling a person that something has not done well takes responsibility and perhaps arguing with whoever is on our side every day.
So how do you give meaningful feedback?
Use an appropriate tone. It is not assuming a detached attitude or the opposite by raising your voice that you provide effective feedback. How to approach the person, the feedback to give and the examples with which to support him must be planned in time and carefully studied. Feedback takes time and preparation and on closer inspection it is also an exercise for ourselves.
The performance of a person, even the worst, has positive connotations somewhere, you just have to identify them. Use them in combination with negative ones, to reinforce virtuous behaviors.
And remember always: while giving feedback, you are not the protagonists. It is not your moment but that of the person in front of you.
