How to effectively give constructive and critical feedback in a positive way.

Let’s be honest, how many times have you felt yourself physically bracing when someone has said to you “Can I give you some feedback?”

First of all, it’s not a request at all, they are going to do it anyway. Are you really going to say no?

Secondly, you know if they are asking if it’s ok, then it sure as anything isn’t going to be positive feedback.

Giving feedback is an essential part of good management. Employees want feedback on how they are doing. It is motivating, if done in the right way, and it is useful for you as a manager or leader to be able to use it as a tool to benchmark yourself in how your team is performing and delivering your strategy.

Some of the people I work with ask me this question: How can I have a difficult conversation with someone and not let it become negative or confrontational?

And at this point I introduce them to the concept of feedforward.

Feedforward is not a new concept, but one that steadfastly remains out of the mainstream in most work environments.

It is a concept developed by Marshall Goldsmith, a business educator and coach and is the opposite of giving feedback. When a member of a team receives feedback, it is generally about their past performance. Feedforward is the reverse of this. It is the process of replacing negative, or even positive feedback, with a forward-looking solution. Basically, it means focusing on the future rather than the past.

So why is this such a powerful tool?

In its simplest form, feedback concentrates on past performance - often when performance has not met requirements. It tends to be given by the manager and received by the employee in a one-way channel of communication. It seeks to address what has gone wrong or to remark on what has gone well.

If negative, it can stimulate feelings of defensiveness and resistance and does not tend to be motivational or particularly empathetic.

In a feedforward environment, the focus and results are totally different.

Instead of focusing on the person and their performance, when you adopt a feedforward approach, you focus on behaviours and future actions.

By asking questions about how behaviours may change in the future, what different ways of doing things could be adopted, what different attitudes could be applied, the manager engages more meaningfully with the employee.

It focuses less on the person or task and more on how to change things in the future. As a result,it becomes a far more engaging and positive conversation.

By way of example: In a feedback situation, the manager may be critical of an employee in how they have handled a customer complaint or the way they have dealt with someone over the phone in a less than effective manner. In a feedforward scenario, you still want to address the issue and can do so through a discussion where the employee and manager talk about suggestions on how to handle customer complaints in the future, with recommendations, encouragement and the seeking out of ideas.

Of course, there are instances where being direct is appropriate to convey a message. But taking time to think about what situation you want to tackle and to have a positive outcome that engages with your team members, can reap benefits in motivation, engagement and morale.

My leadership training touches on this as one part of a number of modules that helps new managers feel more confident about having challenging conversations.

If you would like to know more about my approach then please contact me at Clifford@chryslaistransformations.co.uk and at www.chrysalis-leadership.com

With all my development training work, I contribute to a bursary with the aim of offering training for the leaders of tomorrow. It is for those who may not have the same access to learning as others.