Feedback
Introduction#
Many people find it difficult to give good feedback — and to receive it well. This page presents some techniques that can help. But as with many things, the key to getting better is to practice.
Great feedback is given with compassion, grounded in a growth mindset, and is specific and balanced.
There are several different types of feedback, depending on the context in which is it given, and each is valuable in its own way.
Key points
- Craft feedback with care and deliver it with compassion. Give it the time it deserves.
- Focus on observed behaviours, not the person.
- Offer suggestions and support with addressing development areas.
- Most feedback should be delivered both verbally and in writing.
- Ask for and offer to give a mix of feedback types: immediate for small, frequent nudges; personal reflective and structured for point-in-time reflections.
- Don’t bottle up feedback, ask for and offer it regularly.
Compassion#
Good feedback gives you what you most need to hear to become even more effective.
The purpose of giving feedback is to help the receiver guide their personal development. It should be crafted with care and aim to both reinforce what is working well and identify changes that could help the person become even more effective. Good feedback gives the person what they most need to hear, even if that can be uncomfortable in the moment.
Feedback should be offered, not forced upon someone. Offering feedback helps put the receiver in an open frame of mind.
Offering feedback
Can I offer you some feedback?
Would you like some feedback on that?
I’d like to give you some feedback on X, are you OK to get together to discuss that?
Giving feedback should be a two-way conversation. Actively ask for their perspective and whether they recognise the feedback points. Work together to identify improvement areas.
Growth mindset#
In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, first published in 2006 and updated in 2016, Carol Dweck discusses these concepts at length.
Feedback should be grounded in the belief that the recipient can fundamentally change their behaviour, skills and abilities through determined effort.
Carol Dweck contrasted the growth mindset with what she calls the fixed mindset as follows.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work — brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.
In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.
She goes on to say:
This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Dweck explains that we all have a mix of fixed and growth mindset, and either may come to the fore in different areas of our lives and at different times.
She gives advice on how we can cultivate a growth mindset in ourselves and others:
- Celebrate effort and experimentation over innate ability. Results matter, but focusing on the process that leads to results is more effective than focusing directly on the results.
- Effort is essential to consistently respond effectively as life throws new challenges at us.
- But sometimes continuing to push in the same direction isn’t the answer, and progress relies on experimenting with new approaches to find what works best.
Specific#
To be effective, feedback must be unambiguous and based on concrete observations. Feedback that is vague or generic is difficult for the receiver to act on and may easily be misinterpreted. When feedback is specific and evidence-based it is much easier to agree on and to do something about.
Example: Generic vs specific feedback
Jenny may give this generic feedback to Sarah:
That was a great meeting, Sarah. Really good.
This may give Sarah a warm feeling, but it doesn’t help her understand what Jenny liked about how she ran the meeting. Without this specificity, Sarah is deprived of a valuable learning opportunity.
Jenny can improve this feedback by making it more specific:
I loved the way you kept the group focused on the topic and respectfully brought people back to the subject when they started deviating.
Sarah now knows what she is specifically being recognised for. This helps her reinforce that behaviour and prevents her from assuming the feedback is about something else.
Sarah: Thanks! But what did you think about how I ended the meeting?
Jenny: Great question. Now I think about it, perhaps you could have finished with a clearer call to action by identifying next steps and owners.
Sarah: Yes, I can see that. Good, I can work on that next time.
Balanced#
Feedback is made up of components, each of which can either be positive or critical.
Positive feedback aims to reinforce a behaviour. As with all feedback, it is essential to make positive feedback specific: it should not be generic praise but should be targeted at a particular behaviour that you think is beneficial and effective.
Critical feedback aims to guide the receiver toward a different approach. Some prefer to use the term constructive feedback, but I think critical feedback is clearer and less ambiguous. (All feedback should be constructive, whether positive to reinforce behaviour or critical to suggest a change in behaviour.)
Feedback should characterise the takeaway message without being one-sided.
The most effective feedback contains both positive and critical components. People engage best with feedback that they feel is representative, not just unthinking praise or condemnation. However, be careful to avoid the trap of giving misrepresentative feedback by over-emphasising either positive or critical elements in an attempt to create a balance between the two. Instead, try to balance the two according to how you think the person is actually doing and help provide clarity by giving a summary that characterises the overall feedback.
Example: Imbalanced vs balanced feedback
In this scenario, John is struggling to clearly articulate the technical design of a system in an architecture diagram.
Alice might give this feedback:
Alice: The diagram is a bit busy with a lot of small text on it, but your handwriting is very clear so we can read all the words. There are quite a lot of crossing lines but you have labelled each one so we can see what they represented.
In an attempt to save John’s feelings, she ends up mischaracterising the situation by over-emphasising minor positive points.
More effectively, she might give this feedback, which is more critical but better represents what John most needs to hear, and gives positive pointers to how he may improve:
Alice: I’m afraid the diagram is just too busy to be understandable to people not already familiar with the system. You’ve tried to explain the full details of the system in one huge picture and it’s overwhelming. Can I suggest thinking again about what message you’re trying to convey and focusing on one aspect such as the infrastructure and technologies involved, logical flow of information, or security? You may also want to try the C4 model ↗ which helps you manage the amount of detail in any one diagram.
Types of feedback#
Feedback comes in different shapes and sizes depending on the context and intent.
Immediate feedback#
Immediate feedback takes 1–2 minutes.
Immediate feedback is given in the moment, in response to something that just happened. This can be powerful because the situation is fresh and details are easily remembered. It is usually narrowly focused and not intended to be a rounded assessment.
This kind of feedback is best delivered informally, either in person or in an instant message or similar. Be mindful of the receiver when considering the forum — some may be happy to receive positive feedback in a public setting like a team meeting, while others may prefer it to be done in private. Critical feedback should always be delivered privately.
Example immediate feedback
I really liked that retrospective format, thanks for suggesting it. We got some great new insights because people started thinking in different ways.
As with all feedback, it should be offered, not forced upon someone.
Personal reflective feedback#
Personal reflective feedback takes 10–15 minutes.
Personal reflective feedback is typically given peer-to-peer in response to a request. It will either be free-form or follow a simple format. It is often appropriate to deliver this kind of feedback in writing, with an offer to discuss any points if wanted.
Reflective feedback tends to be more rounded than immediate feedback, but its relatively short and simple format means it can be provided much more quickly than structured feedback. This means you can ask a wider range of people for this kind of feedback and do so more frequently without creating undue burden.
Example format for personal reflective feedback
What should I keep on doing or do more?
What should I change or start doing?
What can I do to help you in your role?
Structured feedback#
Structured feedback can take an hour or more to do well.
Structured feedback is usually given in response to a request or is triggered as part of a periodic feedback cycle arranged at an organisation or department level.
The power of structured feedback is that there is time to consider a wide range of aspects and give a holistic view, with the structure helping to ensure all important areas are considered. The main drawback is that it takes time to give feedback in this breadth and depth, limiting the number of people and frequency at which you can reasonably ask for this kind of feedback.
Structured feedback should be shared both verbally and in written form. Ask the person whether they would like to discuss the feedback and then have it shared in writing or to have it shared in advance and then discuss it. Some people won’t mind either way, but some will have a strong preference one way or the other. Respecting people’s preferences shows compassion and increases the chance that they will receive the feedback constructively.
Your organisation may have defined a structure which should be used for this kind of feedback. If you have an agreed set of standards such as company values, core skills, principles or similar, then these will often be the basis for this structure.
For example, each of Amazon’s Leadership Principles ↗ gives a lens through which you can consider a person’s behaviours and actions (or inactions).
Example feedback for the Learn and Be Curious leadership principle
I appreciate your curiosity about new coding language features and I often learn new things about these from you. An area I think you could develop is demonstrating the same curiosity to learn about equally important areas that you have less natural affinity with, in particular testing tools and techniques. As you know, we want to improve our approach to testing and we all need to play an active role in that.
Feedback relative to an agreed standard like this is easier to engage with and use. The receiver may question your assessment of them with respect to the target, but at least you are both talking with reference to the same target, in this case, a shared understanding that everyone should “learn and be curious.” Without commonly agreed standards, the very basis for your feedback may be in question. The person may dispute the relevance and validity of your feedback if they feel it is arbitrary and based on your personal preferences. But with well-established standards, this problem does not arise: we all know what we’re aiming for, and understand that if our behaviour is not meeting the agreed standard then this is something we should work to improve.
If your organisation doesn’t have clearly stated standards like these, then here is one concrete reason why it may be valuable to create some!
Receiving feedback#
Feedback can be difficult to receive well. We may feel embarrassed about praise and hurt by criticism. Feedback that is well-crafted and carefully delivered is easier to receive well, but it is still a skill we need to develop.
Tips for receiving feedback
- Don’t feel the need to process the feedback immediately. The best response is often to thank the person for their feedback and take time to digest it.
- Don’t ignore positive feedback and focus only on the critical parts. Positive feedback is useful as it helps you reinforce behaviours, and an imbalanced attention to criticism can lead to an overly negative characterisation of the overall feedback.
- Similarly, try to avoid disputing critical feedback. Remember that the person giving you feedback has a valid reason for their criticism in their mind, so try to understand what that is. If little or no evidence has been provided then it is reasonable to ask for that: “That’s useful to know. To help me work on that, can you give me some specific examples?”