Feedback Strategy
Be intentional about the what, the when, and the how
I remember a reorg that ended with me getting five additional direct reports. I immediately set up introductory 1:1s with each of these individuals. For four of them, I came away with a positive feeling about their addition to the team. But for the fifth one, I left the 1:1 scratching my head. “How in the world is Keith (not his real name) going to work with our team? He is struggling both at work and at home, and his previous manager was about to put him on a performance improvement plan before the reorg. In just our first 30 minutes together, I’m seeing a laundry list of problem areas that Keith has to work on.”
The solution wasn’t to take the first four and tell Keith “pass.” It was to invest in his improvement. Over the course of the next 9 months, I delivered timed-release doses of feedback that helped him right the ship and become an asset to our team. Now, decades later, Keith is successfully operating as a Director of Engineering, and his home life is equally thriving.
My last post1 focused on the receiving end of feedback. Now I want to give equal time to the delivering end.
A core part of your job is elevating the team around you2. You have to contribute to the growth of your colleagues. As a manager, this responsibility is codified in your job title. But even as an individual contributor, your role as a leader establishes this commitment. If you don’t consider yourself a leader yet at your company, then please refer to my “When do you become a leader?” question in Play Your Part3.
Your contribution to the overall growth of the team will include the need to give constructive feedback. It’s not easy, but it’s important. The best way to set yourself up for success as a feedback provider is to be in the right mindset. What is the motivation for your feedback? If you’re seeing the feedback as a rite of passage for the person to endure, just as you had to endure it, then step back and reassess. If, instead, you are focused on the long term growth of the person, then your head’s in the right place.
Feedback should never be about making someone else feel bad or making you feel superior. It should be about supporting an individual’s growth with carefully framed feedback delivered in a setting conducive to receiving it.
The job of delivering feedback should not be taken lightly. Every individual is different in terms of how receptive they are to feedback and how capable they are of taking action based on that feedback. You need to formulate an individualized feedback strategy for each team member. And then you need to carefully execute that strategy. Here is the approach I’ve had the most success with.
