At some level, all feedback is valid. It is the perception of another person based on some interaction with us. As such it’s important that we listen, understand and think about how we can improve. Yet, not all feedback is to be taken as given – meaning the person giving the feedback may have heard something that wasn’t true, misinterpreted something, or may simply not have the perspective we have. In the end we are the ones to decide what to do with the feedback. We may decide that the feedback is valid and provides clear ideas for improvement. Or we may decide that we disagree with the feedback but it provides insights into how we could do differently to prevent misperceptions. Or we may decide that the we simply don’t agree with the feedback and we are going to file it away and keep an eye out for future feedback that might make us revisit that conclusion.

Giving someone feedback is a wonderful thing but it’s also a very hard thing – partly because taking feedback can be so difficult that it makes giving it very stressful.  There are some things I’ve learned over the years about giving feedback that have made it a little bit easier.

There’s a time and a place for everything

When and where you give feedback is *super* important.  There’s a saying “Public praise and private criticism.”  It’s a good rule to follow.  People really appreciate having their successes publicly celebrated and no one likes being publicly berated.  

Consider your relationship

our relationship with the recipient of your feedback can make a big difference.  You need to be careful about how it colors what you say.  For instance, as a manager, I always try to be one who is connected to what’s going on in the team and give feedback to anyone and everyone on what I see.  Early in my career, I found this can go terribly wrong.  An off hand comment to someone several levels below me in the company can be interpreted as a directive to be followed.  I may have been musing out loud and somehow, accidentally, countermanded several levels of managers.  Try that and see how fast a manager shows up at your door to complain 😊.  Now, I try to be clear when I’m just giving and offhand opinion and when I’m giving direction.  I also tell them to go talk with their manager before acting on what I told them and, often, go tell the manager myself what I said.

This is just one example of how a relationship can affect how feedback is taken.  Feedback from a spouse is different than that from a friend is different than that from a parent is different than that from a co-worker, etc.

Retrospectives can be powerful

While most of what I’ve written here focuses on how to give feedback to someone, a great technique to drive improvement is to create an environment where people can critique themselves.  Retrospectives are an awesome tool to get one or more people to reflect on something and make their own suggestions for improvements.  Done right, it is a non-threatening and collaborative environment where ideas and alternate ways of handling things can be explored.  Retrospectives, like all feedback, should focus on what happened and what can be better and avoid accusations, blame, and recrimination.  You can participate in it and contribute your feedback or you can discuss the outcome and help process it for future actions.

Summary

Ironically, just this last weekend, I was having dinner with a friend that I used to work with (she was on my team).  We haven’t worked together in many years but we’ve stayed in touch.  While we were having dinner, she told her husband a story about me.  She said she remembered a time when she had done a review of her project for me and it had not gone well.  After the review, I approached her and asked if she was feeling bad about the review.  She said “Yes” and I said “Good, you should be”.  We then went on to discuss what was bad about it and what she could do to improve it.  On the retelling, it sounded harsh.  While I remember the discussion, I don’t remember many details but it got me thinking.  On the positive side, it was good for me to approach her separately after the meeting.  It was good for me to start with a question of how she was feeling about it.  I probably could have come up with a better reply than “Good, you should be”.  And I do recall we had a good conversation afterwards about how to improve.  If nothing else, this example is proof of how much emotional impact feedback, particularly when not done carefully enough, can have – she has remembered this incident for almost 10 years and I have long forgotten it.

Giving feedback is hard.  There’s no simple rule for it.