A Better Way to Ask the “How Do You Like to Receive Feedback” Question
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Why Giving Feedback is Important, as a Manager
As a manager, you must give feedback to your directs.
There’s going to be a time where, even your model employee, will need coaching on what they can do better.
Giving feedback, unfortunately, is not easy. In most instances it will feel awkward. Other times, the employee will get defensive.
The Goal of Giving Feedback
Your job as a manager is to figure out how to communicate the feedback effectively so that the recipient not only:
Accepts the feedback
Takes action and changes his or her behavior
Why “How Do You Like to Receive Feedback” Doesn’t Work
One of the biggest mistakes is to ask “How do you like to receive feedback?”
Why is this phrasing a problem?
Well, you’ll likely get underwhelming and not too useful answers like:
I like gentle feedback.
I like constructive feedback.
I like feedback with examples.
I like feedback with an understanding of the why.
These cursory one-liners don’t help. That is, the recipient hasn’t really processed why receiving feedback is so hard. And they haven’t reflected on the best way to receive negative feedback… for them. So they utter something they’ve read in an article or said in a job interview.
So rather than ask a question to encourages rash, one-line replies, we need a better method to invoke a more thoughtful conversation.
A Better Way
Instead of asking “How do you like to receive feedback,” try this instead:
Step 1: Share the observation
Facts are always a good starting point. In this case, the fact is a behavior you observed:
I’ve noticed that when I gave you feedback about ___, you had a ___ reaction.
Step 2: Move away from the past
Dwelling on the past, in my opinion, is not necessary. Doing so invites your direct report to clear his or her name.
It’s more constructive to investigate why this happens. That way, you and the direct can work toward getting future feedback more readily accepted.
Step 3: Explore why negative feedback is a hot button
Transform the situation to explore the world of negative feedback together. Start by asking an innocuous question like:
Thinking about the past, what type of feedback is hard for you to hear?
Paul Tevis gets credit for the “hard for you to hear” phrasing. Directs may not take offense to all feedback. For example, pointing out someone’s shoe is untied can be taken differently from criticizing one’s pet idea.
Step 4: Borrow best practices from the past
Usually, the ideal best practice is not one suggested by the manager. Instead, it’d be a technique that the recipient has used in the past. Why? A few reasons:
Ownership. We generally feel better about adopting our own ideas.
Familiarity. It’s easier to recall a technique that we’ve successfully used in the past.
Confidence. Given that it’s worked in the past, we’re more likely to try in the future.
So ask your direct report:
Think of a time when someone gave you feedback that was hard to hear. What did you do to accept the feedback more readily?
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